NHS Hack Day returns to Summer Schools 2018

NHS Hack Day returns to Summer Schools 2018, and you are invited to come and take part.

Digital Health has partnered up with NHS Hack Day again to bring the full experience of NHS Hack Day to the Digital Health Summer Schools, 19-20 July, University of Birmingham.

The Digital Health Summer Schools are the essential two-day residential best practice and networking event for NHS IT leaders. This year will bring together over 400 NHS CIOs, CCIOs and CNIOs, joined for the first time by new Future Digital Leaders.

We’re now inviting and encouraging all NHS IT leaders attending Summer Schools to try to bring one, several or many members of their local development and clinical teams to come and take part in the special NHS Hack Day @ Summer School.

Darren McKenna, CIO at Northumbria Tyne and Wear Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Having been involved in Hack Days previously I’m really excited about the Summer Schools NHS Hack Day.

“It is a fantastic opportunity for NHS and non-NHS developers to get together, network, learn new skills and develop some great solutions.  NHS Hack Day is a must for anyone interested in working with like-minded people to develop future solutions for the NHS.”

Dr Marcus Baw, said Hack Days are a fun way to brainstorm collaboratively and create real solutions, while having a great time, learning something new and meeting some brilliant people.

“The main benefit of NHS Hack Days is having people with a wide range of skills all in the same room and working together.  They give teams a change from their existing roles and development methods and allow them to learn in an open, collaborative way.”

The main benefit of NHS Hack Days is having people with a wide range of skills all in the same room and working together, forming up into teams to work together to come up with innovative solutions to problems.

Ade Byrne, CIO at Southampton University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “I’ll be bringing a few from Southampton to this, and will be giving any interested developers an opportunity to connect an app to the OpenPHR using FHIR and also will be supporting a clinical messaging app who will be allowing FHIR connection to EMR, and we can demo a few use cases to people for that.

He added: “I hope to gain some ideas from a vibrant community too.“

Wednesday is kicked off by the sharing of ideas in the form of pitches, after which groups form around the popular ideas. From here on, ideas are developed, the problems explored, and solutions are tested and developed.

Thursday continues in a similar way, with groups carrying on working on their projects until project submission at 3pm.

The big difference this year is that the NHS Hack Day presentations are to be pitched to the Summer School delegates, who will be interested in what’s been developed in this very short time.

They represent some of the most influential and dynamic NHS IT leaders and can provide the key support needed to help good projects to go on to be developed into successful real-world applications.

The NHS Hack Day @ Summer Schools was first successfully run in 2017 the weekend immediately following the Manchester Summer Schools.  A key piece of feedback was that attendees of both events found the four-day commitment tiring.

So for the 2018 Summer Schools the Hack Day will be held over-lapping the Summer Schools (the first time ever one has been held on a weekday instead of a weekend).

For information about how NHS Hack Days work, check out the about page on the NHS Hack day website.

You don’t even need to have to have your CCIO or CIO coming to Summer Schools or even work in the NHS.  If you are a developer, designer, clinician, IT or other health professional interested in making the NHS better can register for free and come and join in.

Low-cost accommodation at Birmingham University for the use of NHS Hack Day attendees. To book, simply follow this link and select the nights you require.

Most people attending NHS Hack Day will only require the night of Wednesday 18th July, but there is accommodation available for the nights of Tuesday 17th July and Thursday 19th July, for example, for those travelling long distances to the Hack Day, or who are attending the Summer School as well.