What is Hacking for Defense?
Hacking for Defense (H4D) is a U.S.-based educational project that uses design thinking and the Lean Startup approach to help the defense and intelligence communities tackle real-world national security challenges. To accomplish this, teams of three to five students from various disciplines collaborate to interview dozens of users and experts each week and prototype solutions on a regular basis.
The H4D program, which was created by Stanford University and is currently used by 20 universities across the United States, is the first to offer it exclusively to undergraduate students at JMU.
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION
Our team's sponsor is the US Madigan Army Medical Center, which is part of the US Army Medical Command's Regional Health Command - Pacific, one of four regional health commands. US Madigan Army Medical Center's Soldier Readiness Processing (SRP) providers use four different platforms to handle soldier medical data in order to better prepare soldiers for deployment: Genesis, First Net, MEDPROS, and Joint Legacy Viewer (JLV). These four platforms, on the other hand, are inefficient since they slow down the process of accessing patient health records, increasing the time spent in line.
THE PROBLEM AND OUR MISSION
Our mission is to centralize the documentation and record keeping process of the US Army Medical Center and Regional Health Command Pacific to reduce waiting times along with creating one system to access patients documents. The problem of waiting hours in a queue will be resolved and the process will be streamlined for the ease of patients to fill out paperwork or upload it, as well as for the physician assistants to retrieve health records. This will help expedite the process and ensure that patients receive the treatment they deserve.
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES
Feedback and reviews from past patients.
Average wait times in the emergency room, primary care, and urgent care.
Explains the GENESIS patient portal and how it works.
When did GENESIS begin and where is it now?
Medical records after the GENESIS transition.
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
The obvious solution is to import all AHLTA records into GENESIS. There are a few different ways to accomplish this, but we have narrowed it down to two options:
The first option is to enable assistants to transfer records as needed. This would be some sort of intermediary program, possibly integrated with the existing JLV, that would allow assistants to request a file transfer whenever necessary.
Another option would be to combine the records into a single huge 'data dump.' This means that the DoD (Department of Defense) would have to move every single record currently stored in AHLTA to GENESIS. This is a LOT of information, and transferring it would take a significant amount of time and capacity. However, there would be no need for any intermediary programs to see the papers because all records would be accessible through GENESIS.
WEEKLY UPDATES
WEEK 7 - WEEK 8 (03/01 - 03/08): We reached out to our sponsors' contacts and began the interview process. This provided us with a better understanding of the issues that the health center was facing, allowing us to pinpoint the most challenges. We started working on the problematic programs as well.
WEEK 9 - WEEK 10 (03/15 - 03/22): We connected with a new sponsor (Dr. Meadows) to received feedback on how to approach difficulties from his perspective. We also began implementing the comments we obtained from our sponsors in order to improve the Mission Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Canvas (VPC).
WEEK 11 - WEEK 12 (03/29 - 04/05): We presented our solutions to the sponsors in order to get feedback and to better understand our sponsor's goal. Then, to further enhance our solutions, we also presented our first draft of solutions to professors and classmates.
WEEK 13 - WEEK 14 (04/12 - 04/19): Over the past two weeks, we came to the realization that kiosks were too complicated for some patients, so we have decided to move in another direction. We are exploring other avenues of technology that are simpler to use and can be improved upon easily. With a new solution on a horizon, we are expecting to have a new Mission Model Canvas within the next week.
WEEK 15 - WEEK 16 (04/26 - 05/03): Dress Rehearsal Presentations and Final Presentations: We have begun developing our solutions by focusing on the Training Program and collaborating with GENESIS to keep MedPros up to date on a more regular basis.
Credits:
Created with images by Studio-FI - "Concept for appointment" • sewcream - "Family hands holding red heart with stethoscope, heart health, health insurance concept, World heart day, world health day" • Blue Planet Studio - "Healthcare people group. Professional doctor working in hospital office or clinic with other doctors, nurse and surgeon. Medical technology research institute and doctor staff service concept."