Hackathon Finale Showcases Student Ingenuity

“This Hackathon has been a tremendous opportunity for our students to tackle real-world health challenges,” said Dr. Keri Griffin, Dean of the Center for Research and Discovery. “The experience provided our students a venue to explore how they would use technology and the informed perspective of our expert panelists and mentors to shape their program pitches. All of the student participants have gained valuable expertise and insight into serving our community.”

Five interdisciplinary teams of students—representing 16 programs across the University—spent the past six months developing creative, testable, and scalable solutions to address real-world challenges identified by community health centers across the state. They pitched their solutions, including prototype demonstrations, to digital health experts, public health leaders, faculty members, and their peers at the hackathon’s culmination on April 11.

“Thank you, students, for taking on this challenge and working together to tackle the problems community health centers are facing,” said Keely Benson, Director of MeHI.

In addition to CareStep’s referral follow-through tool, teams created a program to streamline electronic health record inputs to save providers time, an AI-assisted prior-authorization program to help community health centers evaluate digital health tools, and an app that provides culturally appropriate meal suggestions and health tracking for diabetes patients.

“It was such a thrill for me to see how our students took this challenge to heart,” said Dr. Michael Spooner, Dean of the School of Healthcare Business and Technology. “The openness and creativity they brought to solving complex problems, the ingenuity they demonstrated in their prototypes, and the passion and drive they had to address patients' real needs showed me that the future bright.”

Students didn’t develop these ideas alone. Throughout the year, they received support from mentors—including MCPHS alumni and experts working across the digital health and technology industries—and panelists who conducted monthly sessions to help students refine their solutions.

“Our mentors and panelists have been so engaged, thoughtful, and willing to offer your time, and you made a huge difference,” said Haven Nichols, Digital Health Ecosystem Manager at MeHI.

Dr. David Cardoso, co-founder of a medical device company, said he volunteered because mentorship has been an essential part of his own professional journey.

“I encouraged the team to speak to as many people as possible to understand the mindset and needs of the space,” Dr. Cardoso said about CareStep, the team he mentored. “This is more than an academic exercise. It can become a real, economically viable business that could help patients.”

Liza Hoffman, a digital health consultant with a background in social work and years of experience working with community health centers, was impressed by the teams’ technological savvy.

“The students are targeting important problems that I’ve experienced and are clearly thinking about the patients’ needs,” she said. “The next step would be getting somebody from the community health centers involved to get a realistic understanding of the space and the complexities within it. That’s what helps build better products.”

At the conclusion of the event, cash prizes were awarded to the top three pitches, giving students an opportunity to further develop their solutions.

For Bui, the hackathon gave her a new perspective on what it means to be a healthcare professional.

“When we do hands-on work, that’s when we can really understand the challenges facing the industry,” she said. “We don’t just learn about it. We can feel it.”

Organizers say they look forward to future iterations of the hackathon. Any MCPHS faculty or alumni interested in getting involved should contact Dr. Griffin or Dr. Spooner.

2026 Hack the Health Gap Innovation Hackathon Winners

First Place
CareStep: A workflow tool designed for community health centers that turns food insecurity screening into a personalized, patient-ready action plan in under seven minutes.

Second Place
Kora Exchange: An AI-assisted prior authorization platform built to bring clarity to a fragmented process by improving case visibility, enabling faster decision-making, and helping organizations reduce denials and approval delays.

Third Place
DiebetaCare: A culturally aware, multilingual diabetes support app designed for underserved patients at community health centers.

Honorable Mention
SmartFlow: An EHR-embedded workflow solution designed to reduce documentation burden during diabetes follow-up visits in community health centers.

DECIDE (Digital Evaluation for Community Implementation Decisions): A tool that reimagines how digital health programs and applications are evaluated, making the process fast, intuitive, and accessible.

Photography by Jell Conte