In conjunction with ACEP14, an EM Hackathon this weekend brought physicians and technology experts together to develop out-of-the-box solutions related to key challenges in emergency medicine.

ACEP, along with the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA), Chicago Health 2.0, MIT Hacking Medicine, and Grand Sponsor Allscripts, created five challenge categories to help guide the diverse hackathon participants, which included physicians, residents, developers, business leaders, and more.

The weekend kicked off with an overview and team formations Friday night at the historic merchandise mart incubator, 1871, a hub for digital health start-ups.

On Saturday, the eight teams brainstormed problems and solutions related to the five challenges—Patient-Doctor Communication, Paramedicine Care, Big Data, Geriatric Medicine, and Real-Time Location Services.

Team members engaged with mentors throughout the night, continuing hacking until Sunday when presentations were made to a panel of judges. Some of the criteria considered by the judges were whether participants were solving a real problem in emergency medicine, how well the solution addresses the problem, if this solution will impact the delivery of emergent health care, and if it can be realistically implemented.

A team named CodeTimer developed an eponymous product that took home the Grand Prize of $1,000. It also won another $1,000 prize from the Illinois Department of Public Health and had the opportunity to present its solution in innovatED in the ACEP14 Exhibit Hall on Monday.

The CodeTimer solution uses an app on a smart watch platform to enhance care for cardiac arrest patients outside of the hospital, replacing information written on a paramedic’s gloves, saving time and improving documentation accuracy.

The CodeTimer winning team members were John Manning, MD; Sergio Marrero, developer; Cyrus Yamin, MD; Nachi Gupta, developer; and Chris Pagano, business development.

Team Turkey Sandwich was awarded $500 from AllScripts for its product, Tell.Me. This web app uses existing technology to display information on patient room monitors, updating it in real time with status updates to track orders, labs, imaging, processes, and other information.

The EMRA $500 prize, awarded to the best team with resident contribution, was given to Team SullyApp, which created a product called EDed, a map of the emergency department that includes a way to log learning interactions for residents.

The judges were Erik Kins, AllScripts, director of innovation; Jeffrey Nielson, MD, FACEP; James McClay, MD, FACEP; Steven Horng, MD, FACEP; Catherine Ferguson, MD; Jay Bhatt, chief strategy and innovation officer at Chicago Department of Public 
Health; Elif Oker, MD, FACEP, BCBS, medical director, Innovation and Social Media Strategy; David Beiser, MD, University of Chicago professor and engineer; and Stephen Konya, chief of staff, Illinois Department of Public Health.