The Winning Team of the First Ever FIP Hackathon held at Ankara, Turkey
The inaugural International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP)Hackathon organised by FIP Young Pharmacists’ Group (YPG) in collaboration with the International Pharmaceutical Students’ Federation (IPSF) and Turkish Pharmacists Association Youth Commision (TPA-YC) supported by Pharmapod took place from 23rd to 25th October 2019 in Ankara, Turkey in conjunction with the FIP Regional Conference for the European Region. The conference embedded a theme on “Delivering Primary Health Care: Pharmacists taking the leap forward.”
A hackathon is an event which gathers experts, in this occasion pharmacists to develop an innovative solution in a short amount of time. During the FIP Hackathon in Ankara, the problem put in front of around 20 participants from different pharmaceutical backgrounds was to create an innovative, cost-effective and user-friendly patient medication record as a system capturing essential details needed for pharmacists to ensure appropriate medicines reconciliation and monitoring.
The organising team of the Hackathon consisted of:
Chairs: Acacia Leong, FIP YPG Professional Development Coordinator, United Kingdom; Petra Orlić, IPSF President 2018/19, Croatia; Tuna Celik, TPA YC Contact Person, Turkey.
Mentors and speakers: Jaime Antonio Acosta Gómez, FIP Technology Forum Member and Executive Committee Member of FIP Community Pharmacy Section, Spain; Ozge Ucar, Science and Technology Communicator, Social Touch, Turkey; Mohamed Magoury, Pharmacy Informatics and Automation Head at Fakeeh Care Group, United Arab Emirates; Ema Paulino, FIP Professional Secretary, Portugal; Berkay Karatas, Information Technology Team of Turkish Pharmacists’ Association, Turkey,
Judges: Nilhan Uzman, FIP Lead for Education Policy and Implementation, The Netherlands; Dan Burns, Pharmacy Director, Pharmapod, Ireland; Leonora O’Brien, CEO, Pharmapod, Ireland; Jacqueline Surugue, FIP Vice President, Chair of FIP Technology Forum, France; Lars-Åke Söderlund, President of FIP Community Pharmacy Section, Sweden;
Facilitators: João Guedes, IPSF EuRO Chairperson, Portugal; Cagri Necdet Cagdas, TPA YC Student Exchange Officer, Turkey.
The participating teams had the opportunity to brainstorm for two days and present a business proposal to the panel of judges. The judges deliberated between presented proposals and decided on the winners. More about winning team, their proposal, as well as their experience of participating in the hackathon, you can read in the following lines.
The Winning Team
Mawuli Atiemo (Ghana), Merve Erkol (Turkey), Nashat Habbabah (Iraq) and Cagla Isik (Turkey) formed a Team called Hack’una Matata for the first FIP organized Hackathon.
They emerge as the winners of the FIP’s first health hackathon with their idea “CheckMed”, an application that would help people use their medications correctly. A QR code on the product would be scanned and medication advice would come directly from the pharmacist to the patient covering direction for use, cautions, contraindications and other related issues to ensure compliance. If you are interested in further exploring the winning idea, please contact FIP at fip@fip.org. This innovation is also intended to help other carers assist patients. The task was to devise an innovative solution to address non-communicable diseases in primary health care using digital health technological interventions.
Prior to the competition, all participants were taken through intensive training in the areas of digital health, electronic health records, patient safety, design thinking process to use during the hackathon, exploration of the problem statement on Patient Medication Records, learning about the product development pipeline, and exposing themselves to current and future digital technologies in health and pharmacy to prepare for the solution design task ahead.
Hack’una Matata, a team composed of individuals from different countries and of diverse backgrounds and experiences analyzed the problem at hand employing the unique point of views of the various team members. The product is an enriched solution that should make meaningful impacts in the lives of many patients currently overwhelmed by chronic health issues. Their solution is applicable and reproducible in many parts of the world for the benefit of both patients and healthcare givers.
Following some reflections post-hackathon, the winning team revealed,
“It was the first time any of us had participated in a hackathon competition and that it was a good experience for us. The hackathon has taught us valuable skills like teamwork, collaboration, problem solving, project planning, product development and implementation. We encourage all young pharmacists and pharmacy students to participate in this competition should the opportunity arise. This has been a great learning platform and the first time we are looking for technological solutions. Projects like this are of major importance as globally, digital technology is a major game changer irrespective of field or industry. It’s application in healthcare and pharmacy would accelerate the change we all crave.”
The FIP Hackathon is a new way of tackling key health challenges in an innovative way and FIP YPG is proud to organize the next FIP Hackathon, which will be held at the FIP Congress 2020 in Seville, Spain. If you would like to learn about hackathon and design thinking methodologies, explore and actively develop digital health innovations, work effectively in a team and co-create a solution and develop a business proposal and pitch a product idea, FIP Hackathon is the right event for you! Registrations and applications will be opened on January 15 2020. Please visit https://seville2020.fip.org/ to register. Don’t forget — places are limited!
