Forge is throwing a Health Innovation Challenge in collaboration with the Veterans Affairs (VA) Center for Innovation to improve healthcare for our nation’s Veterans. It’ll be even bigger and better than last year’s Healthcare Hackathon and this year, there’s some awesome prizes up for grabs:
GRAND PRIZE
$5,000 Cash
$10,000 Non-Provisional Patent Application
Meeting with Blake Patton (Managing Partner, Tech Square Ventures)
Invitation to participate in Forge’s Founders Forum
Second Place
$1,000 Cash
$5,000 Provisional Patent Application
Forge’s Health Innovation Challenge is the marquee healthcare hackathon in the southeast. Participants have 36 hours to build and pitch solutions to real problems facing healthcare during an intense, non-stop, innovation sprint. Teams get access to collaborative work space, software, APIs, as well as experts and thought leaders as mentors.
Anyone with a passion for radically improving healthcare through technology can participate. All students including post-docs and physicians-in-training, full-time professionals (engineers, clinicians, faculty/professors, accountants, lawyers, etc.) and business, industry and nonprofit representatives are welcome. Federal (VA) stakeholders are especially welcome, including patients, staff, and employees.
Interested? Register & check out ways to get involved
When:
April 10 6:00 PM – April 12 5:00 PM
Where:
Atlanta VA Medical Center
1670 Clairmont Road
Atlanta, GA 30033
Why the VA?
The Department of Veterans Affairs operates the nation’s largest integrated health care system, with over 1,700 sites of care serving nearly 9 millions Veterans each year. Since 2010, the VA has worked to identify, test, and evaluate new approaches to the agency’s most pressing challenges, and in doing so has created new opportunities to rapidly develop and test new technologies to improve care for Veterans.
About the Speakers:
Carolyn Clancy, MD: Interim Under Secretary for Health for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Clancy oversees the health care needs of millions of Veterans enrolled in VHA, the United States’ largest integrated health care system and also the nation’s largest provider of graduate medical education and a major contributor to medical research.
Bird Blitch: Co-Founder and CEO, Patientco, a cloud based patient payment platform that changes the way patients and providers interact. Patientco was named one of the Fastest Growing Private Healthcare Companies in the United States by INC Magazine in 2014, Top 10 Innovative Companies in Georgia by the Technology Association of Georgia in 2014, and Metro Atlanta Chamber’s Healthcare Start-up of the Year in 2013. Since its launch in 2010, Patientco has facilitated millions of transactions between patients and providers across the country.
Sandy Leake, MSN, RN: Chief Nursing Officer, Atlanta VA Medical Center. Sandy has officially held the position of Associate Director for Nursing/Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) since 1998. During her tenure, she has served in a variety of other capacities including Associate Director and Interim Medical Center Director on numerous occasions. In 2008, at the request of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Chief Nursing Officer, she served a 4 month detail as the Director of Workforce in the VHA Office of Nursing Services in Washington, DC.
Blake Patton: Managing Partner, Tech Square Ventures. Blake is a technology entrepreneur and investor with 20 years of experience in startup, venture backed, and publicly traded internet, software, payments, and financial services companies.
