Penn Healthcare Innovation Challenge

The Wharton Innovation & Design club is excited to partner with The University of Pennsylvania Health System in sponsoring the sixth annual Healthcare Innovation Challenge.

Congrats to our 2020 Challenge Winners!

Congratulations to Team 5 (Meagan Cusack- SP2, Yve Tang- IPD, Adriana Kassel-Hoffman- Wharton), who presented Stepping Stones, a mental health journaling app with a simple interface that doesn't require knowing how to type well to support a range of ability. Dr. Shreya Kangovi from IMPaCT could "see this being implemented tomorrow"!

ABOUT

The Penn Healthcare Innovation Challenge is a four-week event that provides an opportunity for graduate students from across campus to solve real-world healthcare problems using design-thinking and innovation principles. At the outset of the challenge, students are placed in multidisciplinary teams from graduate programs across Penn, including Design, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, Integrated Product Design, and Wharton. Through workshops led by world-renowned designers and innovation experts, students will learn industry best practices for need finding, ideation, prototyping, and storytelling. Throughout the challenge, teams will utilize these approaches to develop creative solutions to the sponsor’s challenge.

2020 DESIGN PROMPT

How might we understand barriers to health-seeking behavior, and find scalable solutions for patients using Social Determinants of Health?

PARTNERS

Frog, a leading innovation and design consulting firm, is partnering with the I&D club to guide participants in this design challenge. Students will work on a healthcare-focused challenge that Penn Medicine is currently facing. The topic for the 2020 Healthcare Innovation Challenge will be introduced at the kickoff event.

 

TIMELINE FOR THE 2020 CHALLENGE

  • Kickoff: February 6th, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

  • Workshop 1: February 7th, 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM

  • Contextual Inquiry Sessions: February 10th - 12th

  • Workshop 2: February 13th, 4:00 PM - 10:00 PM

  • Expert Feedback Sessions: February 17th - 21st

  • Final Pitch: February 26th, 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

 

Workshops

Through a number of highly interactive workshops taught by industry and innovation experts from frog, students will be exposed to the various stages of innovative thinking within the healthcare context. Sessions will focus on the principles of:

  • Need-Finding: Uncover latent patient needs and learn to synthesize your observations.

  • Ideation: Learn how to brainstorm novel ways of solving patient problems

  • Prototyping: Experiment with your idea and bring it to life using prototyping tools and techniques

  • Storytelling: Pitch the core problem you’ve identified and your team’s solution

 

Previous healthcare Challenges

Over the last 20 years, Pennsylvania's largest hospital system, Penn Medicine, has invested heavily in the implementation of an electronic medical record system. One feature of the system is a technology-connected patient engagement portal,  MyPennMedicine (MPM), which integrates with patients’ electronic health records, allows for secure communication with providers, and appointment self-scheduling. The use of the patient portal can be a powerful tool to transform care and outcomes, but its current capabilities are underutilized. The hospital is considering a switch to an opt-out system, where all patients will be registered on the portal by default. Students began the challenge with the prompt: How might we improve wayfinding and navigation within Penn Medicine?

Questions?

 

Contact: Julia Lin (julialin(@seas.upenn.edu)) or Sri Gowda (srigowda(@seas.upenn.edu))