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Healthcare Action Lab

The Healthcare Action Lab (HAL) is a six-week program that brings together students with different strengths to tackle real healthcare advocacy challenges and build practical, measurable solutions.

Each team has six students, every one from a different skillset, working together to research and build a solution where there is a gap in healthcare.

weeks
6weeks
students per team
6students per team
minutes at Demo Day
5minutes at Demo Day

Make it, test it, measure it.

HAL is not a discussion group or a research exercise. Teams make something, test it with real people, measure what happened, and learn from the results.

What students leave with

  • Real interdisciplinary project experience
  • A tangible project for a portfolio
  • Experience with research, testing and deployment
  • Work on a real, practical healthcare advocacy challenge
  • A measurable impact story to share

Six weeks, each with something to show

  1. Week 1

    Define the problem

    Outcome: Problem statement and project proposal

    • Teams receive a challenge brief and research the healthcare issue
    • Identify the target population, review existing solutions and find the gaps
    • Define the specific problem and set preliminary success metrics with the board
    • Write a project statement: who we are helping, what the problem is, why it matters, what evidence supports it, and what success looks like

  2. Week 2

    Research and design

    Outcome: Solution design and measurement plan

    • User interviews, literature and policy review, data analysis
    • A look at existing resources, then brainstorming, wireframes and campaign planning
    • The coder and the policy student work together on one integrated intervention

  3. Week 3

    Build

    Outcome: Working prototype

    + Midpoint checkpoint

    • Build a minimum viable product, not a finished one
    • Website, interactive educational resource, data visualization, advocacy toolkit, digital campaign, accessibility tool or community resource

  4. Week 4

    Test

    Outcome: Pilot results and revision plan

    • Demonstrate the prototype to real users and audiences
    • Is it understandable? Accessible? Useful? Do people actually engage with it?
    • Collect feedback on what works and what does not

  5. Week 5

    Deploy

    Outcome: Deployment and impact data

    • Apply what the pilot taught, then launch
    • Run an advocacy campaign, present at schools, publish a public resource, partner with like-minded organizations or run a public education event

  6. Week 6

    Measure and scale

    Outcome: Impact report and a five-minute Demo Day presentation

    • Analyze the metrics set in week one: reach, engagement, knowledge, advocacy and usability
    • Decide the project's future: scale it, iterate on it, or archive it

The week three checkpoint

At week three, leadership reviews every team, so a project can pivot early instead of discovering on Demo Day that it cannot work.

  • Is the project feasible?
  • Does the intervention serve the advocacy mission?
  • Is the team collecting meaningful metrics?
  • Can it realistically be deployed in three weeks?
  • Are there privacy or safety concerns?

Demo Day: five minutes, five questions

At the end of week six, every team presents its project to FHI on a call, one minute per question.

  1. Minute 1

    Problem

    What healthcare issue did the team identify?

  2. Minute 2

    Solution

    What did they build to address it?

  3. Minute 3

    Deployment

    How did they put it to use?

  4. Minute 4

    Results

    What measurable impact did it have?

  5. Minute 5

    Future

    Why FHI should scale it.

Then, a decision

  • ScaleContinued by FHI.
  • IteratePromising, but needs more development.
  • ArchiveNot practical as an intervention.

Awards

  • Best Overall Impact
  • Greatest Measurable Impact
  • Most Innovative Solution
  • Best Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Help us launch the first cohort.

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