HealthX Startup Day 2026: Open Call for Ideas (OCFI)

A safe and successful discharge from the hospital depends not only on a patient's clinical condition but also on the suitability of their home environment. Healthcare professionals must assess whether patients can safely navigate their homes, use necessary equipment, and receive adequate support from caregivers after discharge. Currently, this assessment is largely based on descriptions provided by patients and caregivers, often supplemented by photos or videos. However, such information may not always accurately reflect the actual living environment, making it difficult to assess a patient’s discharge readiness and plan appropriate post-discharge care.

How might we enable healthcare teams to objectively assess patients' home environments before discharge, so that potential safety risks, functional barriers and caregiver challenges can be identified and addressed early?

Acute care nurses operate in highly dynamic and interruption-prone environments where they are responsible for managing the care of multiple patients during a single shift. For each patient, nurses must keep track of medications, vital sign monitoring, investigations, procedures, clinician reviews, pending results, follow-up actions, and numerous time-sensitive tasks. Care plans can change rapidly as new clinical information emerges, patients' conditions evolve, and priorities shift throughout the day.

Despite extensive digitalisation of clinical documentation and workflows, nurses continue to rely heavily on handwritten "brain sheets" as personal cognitive aids. These notes help them organise, prioritise, and manage tasks across all assigned patients. However, paper-based brain sheets have significant limitations. Information can quickly become cluttered or outdated as care plans change, it cannot proactively provide reminders of upcoming or missed tasks, are not easily shared with colleagues, and may be lost or misplaced.

How might we help nurses effectively manage, prioritise, and track multiple concurrent patient care tasks throughout their shifts, while reducing cognitive burden and improving the timeliness, reliability, and safety of nursing care?

Lymphedema is a chronic condition that requires regular, long-term limb volume monitoring to guide treatment decisions and evaluate patient outcomes. Current assessment practices rely on manual circumferential measurements taken at 4 cm intervals along the affected limb, followed by manual data entry and volumetric calculations. As a result, patients must attend frequent in-person appointments, while clinicians spend considerable time performing measurements and administrative tasks.

How might we enable patients with lymphedema to accurately measure and monitor limb volume from home while providing therapists with real-time insights to support early intervention, reduce unnecessary hospital visits, and improve long-term care outcomes?

Urine output is a critical physiological indicator that provides valuable insights into renal perfusion, fluid balance, haemodynamic stability, and overall patient condition. In acute care settings, especially among critically ill, post-operative, and high-risk patients, timely and accurate urine output monitoring is essential for detecting clinical deterioration early and supporting informed clinical decision-making.

Despite its importance, urine output monitoring remains largely dependent on manual processes. Nurses are required to conduct frequent bedside observations, record measurements, and document findings in the electronic medical record (EPIC), often on an hourly basis. While effective, this approach can be time intensive. In addition, reliance on manual documentation may introduce inconsistencies in documentation practices, and limit timely identification of emerging trends that may warrant clinical attention.

How might we enable automated, reliable, and clinically meaningful urine output monitoring that improves patient safety, enhances nursing workflows, and supports timely clinical decision-making?

Operating theatres are complex environments that require seamless coordination of multiple stakeholders, systems, and resources. The successful delivery of every surgical case depends on the timely availability of manpower, operating rooms, instrument sets, equipment, consumables, beds, and clinical support services.

Currently, decisions related to case sequencing and resource deployment are often made within individual workstreams, with limited visibility of downstream operational impacts across the perioperative ecosystem. As surgical demand continues to increase, there is an opportunity to enhance operational coordination and improve resource utilisation through innovative ideas and technologies. This can support more informed decision-making and improve overall operating theatre efficiency.

How might we enable intelligent, real-time coordination and optimisation of perioperative resources to improve surgical scheduling, maximise resource utilisation, and reduce delays, cancellations, and operational inefficiencies across the perioperative journey?

Hospitals operate in a highly dynamic environment where the delivery of inpatient care requires continuous coordination across admissions, bed management, patient flow, investigations, procedures, discharge planning, appointments, and resource deployment. These activities involve multiple stakeholders spanning clinical, nursing, operational, and support teams that rely on manual processes across teams working different shifts.

How might we create an intelligent operational orchestrator that proactively coordinates activities across the inpatient journey, enabling timely interventions, reducing coordination burden, and optimising patient flow, workforce productivity, and resource utilisation?

Healthcare campuses are becoming increasingly large and complex, often comprising of multiple interconnected buildings, specialty centres, inpatient facilities, diagnostic services, and community care services. While these integrated environments improve access to healthcare, navigating them can be challenging for patients, caregivers, visitors, and even staff. Difficulties in locating destinations, understanding routes, and moving efficiently between facilities may contribute to delays, frustrations, and a less seamless care experience.

How might we enable patients, caregivers, visitors, and staff to navigate complex healthcare environments seamlessly and confidently from their point of arrival to their destination, while reducing stress, delays, and dependence on staff assistance?