NHS Hack Weekend - Geeks Who Love The NHS

Staff Writer | Liverpool John Moores University | September 28, 2012

NHS Hack weekends are driven by Ross Jones and Dr Carl Jones, collectively known as Open Health Care, both committed to producing high quality software that improves health outcomes. Borne out of a similar extremely successful  event in London, these hack days bring together software developers and coders with doctors, health care leaders and practitioners to create disruptive solutions to problems in healthcare services.

Following the same format as the London hack, the weekend started with practitioners presenting issues and barriers they experience in their everyday life in the NHS. Multi-disciplinary teams including software developers and coders then worked together to propose and devise innovative solutions to these real world problems.

In total, 16 teams beavered away, coding and designing over the full two days, and culminating in the submission of a final project competition entry. This competition element to the event added fun and focus to the weekend which ended in a riotous and high-spirited prize giving session, which proved thoroughly exciting and entertaining.

A panel of high profile judges determined the winners, comprising a mix of NHS practitioners, technical experts and academics, including LJMU's Dr. Farath Arshad, Head of the Centre for Health and Social Care Informatics...