Spaarne Gasthuis Hackathon

The 'Spaarne Gasthuis' hospital wants to develop new and/or additional innovative services for the elderly and further shape its regional function. Given previous positive experiences, the hospital organized a hackathon to identify and utilize room for improvement from the perspective of the patient and healthcare professional. Waag assisted the hospital in shaping the hackathon.

The Spaarne Gasthuis, that qualifies itself as a senior friendly hospital, is always closely looking at fine-tuning their activities to the perception and needs of the elderly. This requires innovative services. Service provision in the hospital concerns everything from interior design (signage, height of the desk, etc.) to the design of actual treatment processes and much more.

In order to devise and implement innovations, ownership within the organization is of crucial importance. The Spaarne Gasthuis endorses this: it is important that employees embrace technological opportunities and are directly involved in the development of innovation. Because they have to implement and embrace the new working methods, but also because many employees have insightful and creative ideas on how the current services can be improved.

A hackaton offered employees the opportunity to further shape these ideas but also to build up ownership. In addition to this, working in multidisciplinary teams, during the hackaton, challenged employees to team up with patients. Together they reflected on their own actions and ask critical questions about the current working methods. The objective that the hackathon must contribute to was therefore twofold:

1. Creating support and ownership around senior friendly care;
2. Develop concepts of solutions or innovations around senior friendly care.