Caregiver Enablement Team pictured above.Top row, L-R: John Kettering, Joy Untalan and Amanda Humphreys. Bottom row, L-R: Sirisha Pagadala, Saavedra Gonzales, Seng Cha, Kevin Bigler. Far right: Angela Rector.
To spark new ideas, you have to shake up your usual routine. Cambia’s annual Hackathon hosted by our Data and Technology Solutions department helps employees do just that. The Hackathon brings together team members from different parts of Cambia to find solutions to a challenge. Participants brainstorm, collaborate and develop solutions with the goal of having a prototype or proof of concept by the end of the weeklong event.
This year, teams were asked to find solutions that would improve the experience for members of our regional health plans. Five teams worked on a variety of projects to help members with access to care, medical savings, improved privacy and security, and personalization. The projects focused on creating a new process improvement tool, a new service or product, or ways to help members navigate to relevant benefits or providers.
We asked participants to share their experience from this year’s event:
"I got the ‘Hackathon bug’ a couple years ago with my first Hackathon project at Cambia. I realized from that event, and every Hackathon since then, that it's an invaluable experience,” software development engineer Kevin Bigler said. "I really enjoyed the fresh perspective and variety of talents that all of my team members brought to our Hackathon project. I was amazed at how much we were able to accomplish in just a few short days. I'm used to working with engineers day-to-day, so it was incredible to see the other types of skill sets all coming together on this project to create a truly impactful product—skill sets in business processes, customer support, data administration, and more. I am profoundly proud of the work we produced. The focus on the member really helped me feel grounded during this project, as well. It acted as the throughline to all of our discussions, and I felt it drive our efforts toward making a real, human impact."
Michelle Li, a machine learning scientist, said: "As someone who joined Cambia less than a year ago, I saw the Hackathon as an opportunity to try out new projects with people from different departments. I enjoyed many aspects of the Hackathon, but my favorite part was discussing with my team how to narrow down the scope of the problem as well as our approach to solving the problem. I enjoyed this process the most because I learned how to break down a complex problem into smaller steps, and how to utilize all team members' strengths to collaborate in building different parts of the solution in such a short time frame."
Currently, each team is collecting data to measure the efficacy of their project and leadership is determining options for incorporating their work into existing roadmaps. The teams will reconvene in a few months to share results and progress.
