THInC 2016: 48 Hours of Health Innovation

ThincGroups First Place

On September 16, 2016, over 150 students, clinicians, developers and entrepreneurs descended upon Duke’s Trent Semans Center for Health Education for the second annual Triangle Health Innovation Challenge (THInC). Through two rounds of idea pitching, participants identified areas of health in need of transformation and formed teams around problems of mutual interest. Over the next 48 hours, participants met with clinical, business, and technical mentors; consumed over 900 cups of coffee; and worked late into the night to develop, prototype and pitch their innovation solutions.

Organized by students at Duke, UNC-CH and NC State, and sponsored by Duke MEDx and other academic and corporate sponsors, the Triangle Health Innovation Challenge brings together participants from diverse backgrounds to work collaboratively on problems in healthcare.

“Our goal is to tap into the Triangle’s strong academic, clinical, and technical communities and bring participants out of their silos to work together and tackle important challenges,” said Tanmay Gokhale, a Duke MD-PhD student and co-founder of THInC. “It’s impressive what can be accomplished in just 48 hours when you bring together clinicians, engineers, designers and business people into the same room.”

Winning teams from THInC 2016 included Pilot, an app for reducing heart failure readmissions through at-home weight, blood pressure and symptom monitoring; Lotus, a tool for virtual reality therapy for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder; and CareChoice, a triage platform to shift patients from the ED to Urgent Care and reduce wait times.