Windsor nurse wins Hacking Health contest

WINDSOR, Ont. – A Windsor Regional Hospital nurse took the top judges’ prize at an international competition that designs and develops mobile “apps” for the health care sector. Kaitlyn Sheehan (pictured), a WRH RN in the cardiac catheterization lab at Ouellette campus, was the “Overall Judges Favourite” recipient at Hacking Health Windsor Detroit for the app she conceptualized called “Stent Tracker.”

It’s a web-based app that allows patients to store their cardiac stent information, manage their medication list, schedule reminders to take important medications, and provide an educational tool on heart health after a coronary angioplasty. With an app, all this information can be synced on a mobile device, rather than kept on a patient card or pamphlet that could easily get lost.

The idea by Kaitlyn, who also works at the Cardiothoracic ICU at Harper University Hospital at the DMC in Detroit, was so good that it was also judged as the app with the “Highest Potential for Adoption,” an award that comes from the Downtown Windsor Business Accelerator and WE-Tech Alliance.

Kaitlyn came up with the idea herself, came to the competition and over the weekend assembled a team to help her design a prototype for the app, which will be further developed this year.

“It was so exciting,” Kaitlyn says of the first annual Windsor-Detroit competition. “It had an amazing team – programmers, med students and myself – to create an app that can really help our patients.”

About 200 people participated in the 1st annual Hacking Health Windsor Detroit at TechTown Detroit on May 1-3, which teamed up healthcare professionals – doctors, nurses, pharmacists and hospital admins – with professionals from the IT sector – programmers, designers – to design mobile applications for the healthcare sector.

Also participating at Hacking Health was a team from the WRH Cancer Program, which is developing a mobile web application called “My Cancer GPS” to help patients and their caregivers navigate their cancer journey. Congratulations to all WRH staff who participated in this innovative event. Next year’s event will take place in Windsor.