In Part 1 of our Medtech Hackathon series, we shared how teams from across the business came together to explore new ideas, experiment with AI and transform everyday challenges into working prototypes.
The Hackathon invited teams to respond to four briefs: Ships Monday, Best Customer or Patient Outcome, Biggest Internal Impact and Biggest Leap. Each category encouraged a different kind of thinking, from practical ideas that could quickly deliver value to ambitious concepts that could help shape Medtech’s future.
While the teams responded to different briefs, they all began in the same place: with our customers at the forefront.
At Medtech, our vision is to enable connected technology for healthcare by listening to our customers, understanding the challenges they face, and creating technology that makes a meaningful difference. That purpose was central to the Hackathon. Each winning solution addresses a real problem affecting healthcare clinics, clinicians, patients or the Medtech teams supporting them.
For Part 2, we are putting the spotlight on the teams that delivered exactly to the brief. We asked them about the customer challenge that inspired their idea, the solution they developed, and the difference it could make for our users.
Supporting Clinicians Through Responsible and Secure Innovation
Biggest Leap
Team name: TeamMCP (Model Context Protocol)
Prototype name: MCP Server
Team members: Ging Ming Chan, Prashanth Koval and Chieh-Ting Chan
The Biggest Leap category encouraged teams to think beyond immediate improvements and explore ideas that could help shape the future of healthcare technology.
Team MCP responded with an ambitious concept examining how Medtech’s existing platforms could support safe and governed AI-enabled experiences.
The team began by considering the everyday experience of clinicians. Important information may be available, but finding, reviewing and making sense of what is relevant can take valuable time that clinicians would rather spend focused on their patients.
One insight helped shape the team’s thinking:
“Connecting data isn’t the same as making sense of it.” – Team MCP
Before looking at what the team built, it helps to understand the technology that makes it possible: MCP stands for Model Context Protocol.
An MCP server is the piece of software that lets an AI assistant talk to Medtech ALEX® using MCP the shared “language” AI tools use to discover and call tools. The MCP server itself doesn’t hold the security, business rules, or clinical data logic that all already lives in ALEX®. What the MCP server does is translate a plain-language AI request into the correct ALEX® API call, and pass the response back. It never talks to the Medtech Evolution database directly every request goes through ALEX®, which means every existing control, authentication, auditing, permissions is enforced exactly as it is today.
Prashanth Koval Senior Product Manager (Integrations) at Medtech, summed this up perfectly:
“Think of ALEX® as the vault that already holds the security, rules, and controls around Medtech Evolution. The MCP server is the translator standing at the door it takes a plain-language request from an AI assistant, turns it into the exact ALEX® API call needed, and hands back the answer. It never opens the vault itself or reaches past ALEX® to the database. Every request still goes through ALEX®’s existing checks, so nothing changes about who’s allowed to see or do what.”
Their MCP server prototype explored how clinicians could interact more naturally with approved information while maintaining the security, permissions and governance expected within healthcare.
Rather than focusing only on what AI could do, the team considered how it could responsibly support clinicians and healthcare clinics. Keeping people in control and protecting access to information were central to the idea.
“The vision is simple: make every Medtech clinic AI-ready without ever giving AI direct database access.” – Team MCP
The concept was designed to make technology easier for clinicians to use. The team imagined a future where a clinician could ask a straightforward question and receive useful information without needing to understand the complexity behind the experience.
“A GP could ask a simple question about their own patients without ever needing to think in code.” – Team MCP
The project impressed the judges because it combined ambitious thinking with a clear focus on the needs of clinicians and clinics.
It demonstrated how responsible innovation could help reduce administrative effort, make important information more accessible, and give clinicians more time to focus on delivering care.
Making Support Easier to Access
Biggest Internal Impact
Team name: Hack to the Future
Prototype name: Chatterbox
Team members: Dabby Quizo, Heimona Potoru, Charlotte Corbett, Barbara MacLean, Meg Tyre and Mel Nepomuceno
The Biggest Internal Impact category celebrated an idea with the potential to improve the everyday experience of both Medtech customers and employees.
Team Hack to the Future won with Chatterbox, a concept exploring how trusted knowledge could be made easier to find and use, saving both clinicians and internal support members time.
The team considered what happens when a customer needs help. In many cases, the information required to answer their question already exists but finding it can take time. This can leave customers waiting while consultants repeatedly search through documentation for the right answer.
As the team explained:
“The right answer usually already existed; it just wasn’t standing next to the person who needed it. That’s the idea that unlocked the whole design.” – Team Hack to the Future
Chatterbox explored how customers could access useful information sooner while supporting Medtech consultants to work more efficiently.
The team developed the concept around two connected AI chatbot experiences: Ava, designed to help customers get quick answers to frequently asked questions, and Milo, designed to support Medtech consultants both utilising one knowledge base.
Instead of treating customer self-service and consultant support as two separate challenges, the team brought them together around a shared source of trusted knowledge.
“Same brain, two conversations.” – Team Hack to the Future
The customer remained at the centre of the idea. Faster access to trusted information could reduce unnecessary waiting and create a smoother support experience. At the same time, consultants could spend less time answering repetitive questions and more time helping customers with issues that require human experience and judgment.
“Every minute saved on a question someone’s already answered is a minute back for the problem nobody’s solved yet.” – Team Hack to the Future
The concept is not about removing people from customer support. It is about enabling Medtech teams to use their time where it can make the greatest difference.
The team’s vision was a more responsive experience for customers and a more focused experience for consultants.
“Customers can get answers to frequently asked questions instantly instead of a ticket number and a wait time. Consultants get their time back for the cases that actually need judgment, not just a search bar.” – Team Hack to the Future
Chatterbox stood out because it considered the full support journey. By making trusted knowledge easier to access, the concept could help customers receive support sooner while enabling Medtech employees to deliver more meaningful assistance.
Turning insights into answers
Best Customer or Patient Outcome
Team name: CodeBlue
Prototype name: FinPulse
Team members: Abhiram Bourisetty, John Zhao, Mary Tenny, Pranitha Thumma, Sheron Kumar, Vinay Gusain
For Best Customer or Patient Outcome, the challenge was to stop and really sit with what a clinic, a clinician or a patient needs, not what’s interesting to build. Judges were looking for genuine relief from an everyday frustration: a faster answer, an easier day, a manual step finally gone.
The team that stood out was CodeBlue, who looked at the common queries and support tickets that kept recurring, and did something simple but not always easy: they truly stepped into the shoes of the clinician, the practice manager, the patient on the other end of that call, and worked backwards from what would genuinely resolve it for them.
CodeBlue, looked at the common queries and support tickets that land with Medtech every day: is capitation reconciling correctly, which consults are actually profitable, how much revenue last month’s no-shows really cost, how to pull together a report for the accountant. None of these questions had a home inside Medtech. Practice managers were solving them in a spreadsheet, over the phone with support, or not at all.
As the team explained:
“Every piece of it maps to a real operational task a clinic does today with no proper tool.” – Team CodeBlue
The insight that shaped their thinking came directly from listening to their own support calls. Customers would ring in frustrated, be walked through every screen, report and workaround available, and still leave without an answer they could act on.
“Giving someone more options isn’t the same as giving them an answer they can act on.” – Team CodeBlue
That reframed the problem for the team. The gap wasn’t a missing feature or a missing report inside Medtech Evolution. The data needed to answer these financial questions was already there. What was missing was the interpretation, a step that normally required accounting expertise or hours of manual work most clinics simply don’t have.
FinPulse explored how an AI layer could do that interpretation instantly, turning a plain question into a correct, reliable answer, without a practice manager needing accounting training or a call to the help desk.
“With FinPulse, that same question gets answered correctly and instantly, every time, by anyone in the clinic.” – Team CodeBlue
For the team, the value wasn’t only the time given back to clinics every month-end. It was what it proved about what Medtech could become.
“Right now we’re a practice management system that stores data and shows it back. If this works, we’ve shown we can build an AI layer that reasons over that data and gives a real answer.” – Team CodeBlue
FinPulse reflected the intent of the Best Customer or Patient Outcome brief precisely: it began with a frustration clinics were already living with every day, and turned it into a genuine, immediate answer.
Helping Clinics Access the Right Support Sooner
Ships Monday
Team name: 7,000 RPM
Prototype name: PracticeConnect
Team members: Prashant Kumar, Tyson Somerville, James Portz and Claire Ge
The Ships Monday category recognised a practical prototype that addressed a genuine challenge and demonstrated the potential to begin delivering value quickly.
Team 7,000 RPM won the category with PracticeConnect, an idea focused on helping Medtech identify and connect with healthcare clinics that may benefit from additional tools and support that Medtech can offer.
The team began by considering the experience of clinics that might not yet know about the solutions available to them. These clinics could be working without tools that might make everyday tasks easier for their teams and improve the experience of their patients.
As the team explained:
“By pulling together information that was already out there we could see clearly which clinics weren’t yet using the modern tools already available within the Medtech ecosystem. That let us connect the right Medtech consultant with the clinics who’d benefit most, so the right kind of help finds them sooner.” – Team 7,000 RPM
The team recognised that valuable information was available but bringing it together could involve considerable manual research and time. This took time away from speaking directly with clinics, learning about their needs, and helping them find the right support.
Their idea was grounded in a straightforward insight:
“Instead of searching all over the place, bring all the information together onto one dashboard.” – Team 7,000 RPM
PracticeConnect explores how Medtech teams could develop a clearer understanding of where support may be valuable, helping the right Medtech consultant connect with the right clinic sooner.
The purpose was not simply to improve the internal process. It was to create a more proactive and relevant experience for customers.
By reducing the time spent searching for information, Medtech teams could spend more time having genuine conversations with clinics and understanding the challenges they are trying to solve.
“It means our team gets to spend their time on what matters. Real conversations with the clinics who need us.” – Team 7,000 RPM
The team captured the customer-focused purpose behind PracticeConnect in one sentence:
“We built PracticeConnect so the clinics who need us most don’t have to wait to be found and so our team gets to spend their time actually helping, not searching.” – Team 7,000 RPM
PracticeConnect reflected the intent of the Ships Monday brief: begin with a real customer need, create a focused response, and demonstrate how the idea could deliver practical value for both Medtech and the clinics we support.
CodeBlue, PracticeConnect, Chatterbox and the MCP Server addressed very different challenges, but each team followed the same important principle: start with the problem experienced by the customer and find a solution.
PracticeConnect considered how Medtech could connect clinics with relevant support sooner. Chatterbox explores how customers could access trusted answers more easily. MCP looked further ahead, considering how technology could help clinicians interact with information more naturally and responsibly.
None of the teams began with technology for technology’s sake. They began by asking:
- What is creating unnecessary friction for our customers?
- What is taking time away from delivering or supporting care?
- How could we make that experience simpler?
- Where could Medtech make a meaningful difference?
This reflects our wider purpose at Medtech. Our objective is not simply to build more technology; it is to listen to our customers and create solutions that respond to the realities of healthcare.
The Hackathon gave people from different areas of Medtech the opportunity to combine their experience, skills and perspectives around that shared purpose. In a short period, teams moved from identifying a problem to creating something tangible that demonstrated a possible solution.
That cross-functional collaboration was one of the most valuable parts of the experience. Team members stepped outside their usual roles, learned from one another, and showed what can happen when our collective focus remains on the people we serve.
The winning ideas offered an exciting glimpse of what Medtech can achieve when innovation begins with our customers and remains connected to their needs at every step.
By keeping healthcare clinics, clinicians and patients at the forefront, we can continue creating technology that reduces friction, strengthens support and helps enable healthier care.
Disclaimer: The solutions featured in this article were created as Hackathon concepts and prototypes. They are not necessarily production-ready or currently available. Any future development would be subject to Medtech’s standard privacy, security, clinical safety, technical validation and approval processes.
A note on responsible AI use (disclaimer)
As we continue to explore AI across Medtech, protecting the privacy and security of healthcare information remains fundamental. Our teams are expected to use approved tools and follow Medtech’s security, privacy, and data governance requirements when experimenting with AI. Sensitive patient or customer information should not be entered into AI tools unless that use has been specifically approved and appropriately protected.
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