Volunteer techies deliver solutions during COVID-19 pandemic
Healthcare nonprofits are among the heroes of Middle Tennessee's healthcare system. Providing invaluable services to medical professionals and patients, nonprofit organizations have played an even greater role during the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those challenges have included technological ones, and many nonprofits might not otherwise have been able to afford the "tech support" that was recently delivered, at no charge, as part of the 2020 Hack for the Community.
Powered by HCA Healthcare and the Greater Nashville Technology Council, Hack for the Community provides access to Nashville's best software developers and visual designers. Working as volunteers, they create technology solutions for Middle Tennessee nonprofits, including in the healthcare sector.
Nashville has a history of coming together and collaborating to help our neighbors. In the difficult year of 2020, it was especially gratifying to see our tech community come together again to do what we do best for those organizations on the frontlines who are helping our neighbors every day.
Hack for the Community looked and felt a little different this year - our volunteers were in hundreds of different places across Middle Tennessee and even other states, working remotely from the safety of their own homes. But being socially distant didn't stop them from using their creativity, innovativeness and ingenuity to solve problems for Nashville's nonprofits.
Healthcare-related nonprofits that benefited from the 2020 "hackathon" included:
- Interfaith Dental Clinic, which creates a healthier community by providing transformational oral healthcare for those experiencing poverty. Hack for the Community digitized the client intake process to enable Power BI reporting and improve efficiency, allowing patient care coordinators to spend more time with patients.
- New Beginnings Center, which helps financially disadvantaged women become the healthiest they can be through individualized world-class coaching in fitness, nutrition and behavioral change. Hack for the Community enabled the center to better track and support clients' journeys towards wellness by developing a simple follow-up tracking application.
- Salvus Center, a faith-based primary care health center serving the working uninsured in Sumner County. Hack for the Community redesigned the organization's website to create a more visually engaging and functional user experience.
- The Rooted Bridge, an organization that increases access to, and the affordability of, mental health support for parents-to-be and parents. Hack for the Community helped patients more easily connect with trusted practitioners by developing a website directory to provide reliable referral pathways.
In addition to healthcare nonprofits, Hack for the Community volunteers provided technology solutions for organizations in the education, environment, arts and community sectors. A total of 14 local profits received new websites, apps and other systems, built by nearly 200 tech volunteers from 30 supporting business partners.
On behalf of the Greater Nashville Tech Council, I'd like to extend my gratitude to those businesses, our project partner, HCA Healthcare, our sponsors including Cisco, 3-D Technology Group, Deloitte and HealthStream, and every volunteer techie who gave of their time and talent.