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Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) recently concluded its Health and Wellness Innovation
2013.This 11-day event, better known as MIT Media Lab’s Health and Wellness
Hackathon, is a program in which “hackers” seek ways to work with established
companies in the healthcare sector to help bring about needed change.
Engineering and medical faculty and students—together with companies such as
Humana, Novartis, and Pharmiweb Solutions—worked to construct commercially
ready products using MIT Media Lab’s open-source CollaboRhythm platform and
open standards.
According to Dr. John Moore,
organizer of the hackathon, the program by itself cannot make change, but it
provides an opportunity to expose important groups such as pharmaceutical
companies, insurers, medical diagnostics companies, startup entrepreneurs, and
consumer electronics companies to what is available and to the value of using
and contributing to the platforms. Moore contends that it is not often that
these different groups converge, but now that they have met they can
collaborate, which will hopefully result in big innovations when they see how
they can benefit each other. One requirement was participants had to use
open-source software, including the MIT-developed Indivo X personalized heath records
system for building health trackers and other digital health tools to foster
interoperability.
The six teams met from January 22 to
February 1, and each developed its own products. Developed products included
hiVIVA, a gaming app that helps individuals with HIV/AIDS remember to take
their medications; and Beacon, an open-source variation on the home hub for
capture and transmission of data from wireless, home-based sensors and medical
devices for monitoring patients with congestive heart failure.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
