VCU School of Nursing students participate in HealthHacks competition
Six VCU School of Nursing students in the accelerated class graduating December 2017 participated in VCU’s second annual HealthHacks in early November. Similar in structure to computer-coding focused hackathons, HealthHacks is a design sprint where students work in interdisciplinary teams to develop proposed solutions for unmet medical needs that are presented by medical practitioners. The teams are supported by physicians and clinicians, engineering faculty and industry mentors.
Nursing students teamed up with medical, pharmacy and engineering students to design a product to address specific pediatrics health challenges. Some of the innovative products they helped design include:
- A device that takes continuous measurements of infant body water in order to maintain consistent and balanced growth in preterm infants.
- A device that would help children who either had congenital diseases that affected the functioning of their hands or total hand amputations play musical instruments.
- A wheelchair that is adjustable by both width and height so it can grow with the child, we also developed a manual that would be open source so that if people had access to internet they had a guide to be able to make it themselves even without the same materials we used.
The teams worked around the clock and eventually presented their ideas as part of a competition. Two of the teams with nursing students made it to the finals and received 3rd and 4th place prizes. Nursing students who participated include Carissa Akyeampong, Kelsea Hermick, Elexis Ward, Eun Yi, Kelsey Lumpkins, and Victoria Wagner.
