Omnicell Employee Hackathon Inspired By Patient Safety Theme
Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI) partnered with Omnicell, an end-to-end medication management solutions provider, to focus on patient safety-related innovations as part of the Patient Safety Technology Challenge.
Hackathons are common events for technology companies to host as an opportunity to engage employees in fun, innovative events as well as create a pathway for employee-driven ideas to make it into a company’s product pipeline. Typically, the Patient Safety Technology Challenge program partners with organizations on college campuses, or through non-profits and specialty societies, to inject patient safety prizes into the innovation events they already have on their calendars. These prizes are funded by PRHI and give students and innovators an incentive to create tech-enabled solutions to reduce preventable harm.
As a leading provider of solutions to support pharmacy care in both inpatient and outpatient settings, safety is one of the central pillars of Omnicell’s mission. Extending the Patient Safety Technology Challenge to companies like Omnicell was a natural extension of the program. Omnicell hosts an annual company-wide hackathon event that encourages cross-functional collaboration across the organization to develop state-of-the-art concepts to improve quality, enhance patient safety, and advance solution roadmap goals.
Inviting companies to take part hits on the program’s main goals of 1) increasing awareness of patient safety problems, and 2) building patient safety technologies that may eventually make it to the bedside. “It seemed like an easy decision since Omnicell’s core business is pharmacy and medication management solutions. The company’s commitment to delivering pharmacy and medication management solutions to increase operational efficiency, reduce medication errors, improve patient safety, and enhance patient engagement and adherence, fits perfectly with the mission of PHRI and the Patient Safety Technology Challenge,” said Ariana Longley, manager of the Patient Safety Technology Challenge. And an added benefit is it doesn’t dip into the program budget since companies supply their own internal awards and prizes.
Omnicell’s Hackathon took place the week of April 19, 2023, and brought together their global sites to participate in this exciting event. Patient safety was promoted as a theme for the 8th annual event. Daniel Segovia, Omnicell’s Senior Technical Program Manager and Hackathon organizer, worked with Longley on messaging to promote patient safety leading up to the event, as well as providing resources hackers could use to learn more about the issue and decide what problem they wanted to tackle.
More than 100 employees, comprising 21 cross-functional teams including sales, customer support, and product management, took part in the event. Awards were given to the top 6 teams by Omnicell’s Chairman, President, CEO, and Founder, Randall A. Lipps and his senior leadership staff. Segovia works with Omnicell’s marketing and product teams to share all Hackathon ideas, hoping some of them will eventually make it to market. “Making patient safety part of everything our employees do, including imagining new innovations through our Hackathon, is always top of mind at Omnicell,” said Segovia. “We hope our partnership with PHRI will inspire other companies to think about innovative ways to incorporate patient safety initiatives into hackathons and other innovation activities.”