Pioneering Health Care Solutions: AI Innovations Take Shape at Hackathon
Teaming up with the VHA's Innovation Ecosystem, Microsoft, and MIT Hacking Medicine, the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital (JAHVH) recently hosted a supercharged hackathon event called, Veterans’ Health – MIT Hacking Medicine 2024, at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine.
Experts from various fields in the public and private sectors assembled at the university to develop innovative solutions to tackle essential health issues faced by Veterans.
Dr. Indra Sandal, Chief of Innovation at JAHVH, founded Veterans’ Health – MIT Hacking Medicine 2024. The initiative's goal is to encourage collaborations between the public and private sectors to create an environment where individuals, technology, and community stakeholders can collaborate to create innovative healthcare solutions for Veterans.
According to Dr. Sandal, "The key areas of focus are Access to Care, Preventing Veteran Suicide, and Hiring Faster. These tracks aim to solve these problems and come up with impactful solutions for our Veterans.”
Innovation Specialist Stephanie Sinnett, MS, RDN, from the Orlando VA Healthcare System,(OVAHCS) along with the other members of her team, were awarded first place in the category of preventing suicide with their innovative approach and solution to the lack of a dynamic person-centered platform for Veterans to interact with their Safety Plan.
Sinnett explains, “When a Veteran comes into the emergency room, and there is a risk or concern for suicide, the provider works with the Veteran to create a suicide prevention plan. It’s a wonderful document that gives the Veteran ideas, tools, and resources on a sheet of paper.”
While participating in the event, Sinnett and her team proposed creating an interactive AI app named VITAE to assist Veterans with their safety plans to prevent suicide while providing suggestions and support. The AI tool would offer techniques and comfort to help Veterans in crisis and remind them of the availability to reach out for help.
OVAHCS Mental Health Social Worker, Jeremy Goldberg, LCSW, QS, and his team were awarded second place for their work on Guardian Assist.
Guardian Assist, a new program/app would run in the background during telehealth visits. The tool uses voice to text transcription, text analysis, and voice analysis to assess suicide risk over the course of a patient's episode of care.
Trained on motivational interviewing, clinical practice guidelines, and clinical data, Guardian Assist prompts the clinician on next steps to keep the patient engaged.
The system can facilitate a warm handoff to a mental health professional, providing a patient in crisis with the care they need and empowering the clinician with an additional resource of having a suicide prevention specialist at their fingertip.
Third place was presented to OVAHCS Performance Measures Lead Vanessa Persaud, BSN, RN, and her team for their AI generated App called VocVital.
Their AI generated app, VocVital, provides a solution for wearable devices similar to a blood pressure cuff to capture vital signs and voice biomarkers. It also transmits data to the app for recording and historical purposes.
According to Persaud, “The device is non-invasive, holistic, and provides a stigma-reducing way for Veteran’s to manage their mental health.”
Capturing real-time analysis of active and passive monitoring of vocal biomarkers as the 7th vital sign, enables early detection of potential mental health issues.
“Voice biomarkers utilize acoustic and linguistic features that may go undetected by the human ear and can identify trends and progressions with minimal voice data to identify suicide risk, said Persaud. “Integrating voice biomarkers with established vital signs provides instant data analysis, supporting faster treatment adjustments and enhancing clinical decision-making.”
This is just the beginning according to Dr. Sandal.
"The goal of the event was not just to have a one-time fun event but to ensure sustainability and real impact,” said Sandal. “We are planning follow-up events like MAKETHON to turn concepts into prototypes and eventually full products, ensuring continuous innovation and improvement in Veteran care.”
OVAHCS Director/CEO, Timothy J Cooke expressed his thoughts on the collaborative event.
“The benefits of private and public partnerships for the VA are significant. They give us access to experts in the field and allow us to pilot projects we might not have traditionally been able to accomplish,” said Cooke. “These partnerships are of tremendous value as they expose our challenges to thought leaders and industry experts who can help us improve and become more efficient.”