EDDIH: Technical Achievement Prize at the WA Health Hackathon

The challenge

The WA Health Hackathon 2023 was run by the WA Data Science Innovation Hub with the WA Department of Health, sponsored by Microsoft. It was the first hackathon in WA built on synthetic health data, and its challenges included integrating AI and machine learning into clinical care. Our DataDivers team, Data Ducks (Van Zyl Kruger, Juan Pablo Navarro Rueda, Melanie Dietrich and me), took on the ER-staging challenge: improving patient flow and planning in emergency departments.

What we built

EDDIH, the Emergency Department Digital Intelligence Helper: a real-time triage proof of concept that combines machine learning, simulation and IoT.

• IoT integration: signals from devices such as smartwatches, alongside incoming phone requests.
• Machine learning on the synthetic health data to triage incoming patients.
• Simulation of emergency-department flow and capacity.
• Guidance that directs each patient to the nearest hospital with an emergency department.

The judges described it as “using machine learning to create a simulation model to enable better planning in emergency departments.”

My role

As lead developer, I built the Power App that captured and displayed incoming requests to the ER: the front door of the solution, which fed the triage and simulation layers.

Outcome

• Selected as one of five finalists after the pitch round.
• Won the Technical Achievement Prize (2nd place) at the finale on 19 October 2023, judged by Jodie Hanns MLA, Dr George Eskander and Nasir David.

WADSIH announcement