The hackathon “Digital solutions in the field of medicine”, held at Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant (UOMZ), has come to an end in Yeaketerinburg. For three days, teams formed from students of Ural Federal (UrFU) and Ural State Medical Universities (USMU), as well as acting engineers and designers of UOMZ, developed innovative projects that could interest practical healthcare.

Thus, one of the teams, which eventually won the Best Innovative Solution nomination, worked on a “non-contact stethoscope”. During the hackathon, the team members managed to make a mock-up of the device, which is designed to ensure the possibility of an appropriate examination of the patient remotely – for example, in the conditions of the “red zone”, in mobile paramedic and obstetric centers. The team also prepared a demo version of the software for their device.

Students and engineers presented a number of projects, including a software and hardware complex for assessing the area of ​​tissue damage in thermal burns; wearable ECG monitoring gadget for diagnosing cardiac dysfunctions in children – pupils of sports schools; creation of a medical ward, which, if necessary, can be quickly re-profiled. Experts recognized many ideas as promising for further development.

“It was very interesting to take part in the hackathon, this is something completely new for me. Interdisciplinary interaction in the modern world is very important, especially between doctors and engineers, because any doctor cannot do without medical equipment, computers for the timely and accurate diagnosis of diseases or the formation of databases with information about patients, “said Yekaterina Kovalenko, a 5th year student of USMU.

Anna Tsaregorodtseva, student from the teams of Ural Medical University, presented the concept of a mobile diagnostic module.

“It seems to me that our team has fully implemented all its competencies. We didn’t have techies and engineers, and we didn’t develop the technical side of the project. Nevertheless, the presence of a medical student, a VR specialist and a future programmer in the team allowed us to think over the idea from a medical point of view, to create an interesting and concise design and application option for the entire system. The jury appreciated our concept in the nomination “The best elaboration of an idea”, which, of course, is very pleasant. We would very much like the students of technical universities and engineers whom we met through the hackathon to pay attention to our idea and fill it with their new technical solutions,” said Anna.

Dr. Olga Kovtun, Rector of Ural State Medical University, noted that the idea of ​​holding the hackathon belongs to Anatoly Sludnykh, General Director of the Ural Optical and Mechanical Plant. The organizers assessed the results of the event positively.

“Today, it is extremely important to integrate doctors with the scientific community, leading engineers and designers involved in medical equipment. The period of the COVID-19 pandemic showed that new methods, approaches to non-contact diagnostic examination, monitoring of the condition of patients are needed. As the result of hackathon, we made sure that our students have clear understanding of the requests from practical healthcare,” said Olga Kovtun.

The joint work with the industrial partner will continue – for example, a strategic session is planned for the fall to jointly develop ideas that can later be translated into practical results, noted the Rector.