EMHS Youth Innovation Think Tank

Hosted by the EMHS Innovation Hub, the annual Youth Innovation Think Tank event has occurred for four consecutive years (2019 – 2022) with good outcomes reported by both the health service and the school participants. The event invites high school students to participate in a highly interactive learning experience where they can ideate novel solutions to a wicked problem faced by the health system.

Using Human-Centred Designing Thinking, high school students work in teams and in partnership with their EMHS clinical mentor to understand the health problem, before pitching their idea for real world implementation. The EMHS Innovation Team then works in collaboration with each year’s winner to further investigate implementation of the solution in the real world.

On Tuesday 11th October 2022, 36 students from 5 schools around the Perth metropolitan area attended Royal Perth Hospital to compete in the 4th annual Youth Innovation Think Tank Grand Final.

Hosted by the EMHS Innovation Hub, the Youth Innovation Think Tank event invites high school students to consider some of the real and challenging problems we face in the health sector. At the preliminary rounds, students from years 9-11 were presented with the following challenges:

• How might we improve safety on e-scooters to reduce traumatic brain injury?
• How might we reduce our environmental footprint when managing medication at the hospital?

During the Grand Final, each student team continued to work with their teacher and EMHS mentor, to test and iterate their prototype into an even better solution. Each team then presented their solution with a 5-minute pitch to a panel of executive judges including Grant Waterer (Area Director of Clinical Services), Graeme Jones (Executive Director Finance and Infrastructure) and Sharon Humphris (Director of Innovation and Research). Students also had the opportunity to respond to the judge’s questions about real world implementation of their proposed solution.

To reduce traumatic brain injury from e-scooter use, solutions included the required use of helmets to enable the e-scooter to operate properly, using inbuilt Bluetooth technology or heat and pressure sensors combined with Bluetooth. The use of reusable containers, a QR code to access patient medication data, and UV light to sanitise reusable dispensing cups, were other attractive ideas incorporated into ward based pharmaceutical dispensary units to reduce EMHS’s environmental footprint to manage medication.

The winning team from St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls proposed a Potatopac compostable tray solution for reducing EMHS’s environmental footprint when managing medication at the hospital. The financially viable solution included a unique two-phase implementation; the reduced cost of purchasing Potatopac compostable trays resulted in savings to enable purchase of compostable medication sleeves, ceasing the use of single use plastics required to transport medication.

The Innovation team will now work with the winning team and EMHS staff to bring the winning solution to life. Thank you to our clinical mentors and executive judges who attended on the day to support our students, and congratulations to our winning students.

2022 Winner - Potatopac Project – by St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls

2021 Winner - EMyU Youth Support Project - by John Curtin College of the Arts

Objective: to reduce 28-day readmission rates by supporting behavioural habits.

Solution: Interactive application with gamification design elements to encourage young people to maintain recovery behaviours learned in EMyU group and psychosocial education sessions once discharged into community.

2020 Winner - QRious Project - by Methodist Ladies’ College

Objective: is to improve transition for adolescents with chronic health conditions between child and adult health services.

Solution: Digital information bridge with generic and clinic-specific information delivered on the RPH and PCH websites via a youth-branded QR code.