Update 2 July 2020: Due to the current COVID-19 developments, Northern Health’s Hack Weekend has been postponed.

Problems to solve

Below are the four hack weekend problems we will be working on:

Problem 1:

Our Maternity Unit is keen to be able to deliver ‘virtual care’  to save mums from coming in to hospital, where possible.

They would like to provide mums different information at appropriate stages of their pregnancy or even after giving birth. This will include ante-natal appointments synced to their phone calendar, information discussed at appointments, recommendations on discharge etc. This will also be linked to the Continuity of Care model once it is available. A key part of the solution would be to provide this information in the top six or eight languages spoken in the northern community.

A solution could possibly include a dedicated maternity app, website etc.

Problem 2:

Orthopaedics – Musculoskeletal wellness platform

Northern Health is developing a new model of care for delivery of optimal non-operative care for people with musculoskeletal conditions such as knee osteoarthritis. This includes education, nutrition, and targeted physiotherapy. We need to incorporate a technical solution to facilitate the delivery of this model of care, to people in the community rather than them attending hospital.

Problem 3:

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) – “Communication with families” platform

To help patients and their families get more information on their stay at ICU, we need to be able to provide links/information on common ICU issues and address common questions (e.g. what to bring in, what the machines are doing, what to expect after ICU discharge). The solution would have an option of filtering information according to the patient’s ICU journey.

Problem 4:

Allied Health – How to better prepare our patients for discharge

Prior to or on discharge from our wards or community teams, there is often a requested set of actions the patient/client is required to complete.

Sometimes these actions are crucial to their future engagement with other Northern Health services (e.g. using their new script to obtain a new medication which is to be trialled prior to their next medical review). Also it is often necessary to deliver large volumes of information to patients regarding discharge processing, follow up services and self management.

Unfortunately, this can be difficult for our patients to process and retain for various reasons such as cognition, language, literacy levels, specific cultural needs, anxiety or pain levels at time the information is delivered, reliance on carers etc. Good attempts at trouble shooting these issues have been made in past (such as providing patients discharge summaries etc.) There are however opportunities to utilise digital mediums more.