Veterans Health Make-a-thon 2025

12/10 - 4/10, 2026

Virtual Program | Hosted Online, FL

Hosted by Tampa VA Medical Center

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Event Overview

The Make-a-thon is a program designed to take the most promising solutions from the Hackathon and help teams develop robust business cases for their products, with the goal of piloting solutions in the VA. The top projects will advance to Veterans Health Accelerator, where solutions will be developed into functional prototypes.

Landing Page - Veterans Hugging

Core Services


Improve Community Care Coordination​

Improve Community Care Coordination

Veterans navigating community care often face fragmented experiences, from provider selection to follow-up documentation. This track seeks solutions that strengthen coordination between VA and community partners, ensure timely information exchange, support Veteran choice, and preserve continuity of care across the VA and non-VA care landscape.

Optimize Enterprise-wide Costs and Operational Efficiency​

Optimize Enterprise-wide Costs and Operational Efficiency

VHA’s size and complexity present opportunities to reimagine core operational systems. This track invites bold ideas to optimize enterprise-wide processes, such as procurement, inventory, workforce planning, and clinical operations, to reduce waste, improve resource utilization, and reinvest savings into better Veteran care.

Timely Access to Care​

Timely Access to Care

Veterans, caregivers, and family members often face barriers to care even before recognizing their health needs. This track seeks solutions that proactively identify care needs, reduce wait times, streamline referral and scheduling workflows, and optimize care coordination, ultimately accelerating access and reducing the time from request to care delivery.

Track Selection​

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Hackers will be assigned tracks based on their application. Each hacker will have the opportunity to express interest in their preferred tracks in the application.

Open Invitation​

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The Hackathon is open to the public and VA employees, allowing participation outside of regular VA duties.

Teammate Selection​

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Upon arrival, teams will self-form through problem pitches and will stay together throughout the event.

Application Process​

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Applications are continuously reviewed and accepted until the end of the application cycle.

All Backgrounds​

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Anyone ready to positively impact Veteran health care including Veterans, Clinicians, Scientists, Designers, Entrepreneurs, Administrators, Business Professionals, Engineers, Programmers, Researchers, and Artists.

​​Past Winners


1st Place Image
AI Reconciliation Rangers​

Medication Reconciliations are critical and the current process is inefficient

2nd Place Image
ContrastAssist​

There are often delays in delivering radiology reports because the current mechanism is done manually and takes up too much time

3rd Place Image
The Optimizers​

Ineffective scheduling in specialty care, unclear system scheduling triage, and incorrect provider skill matching create long appointments and increased referrals with poor patient outcomes and frustration

1st Place Image
VA Match​

Slow processes in hiring lead to the loss of highly qualified candidates and burnout among existing staff

2nd Place Image
The HireForce Squad​

Recruiting qualified candidates is an intensive and time-consuming process for hiring managers

3rd Place Image
AIhR​

During candidate evaluation VA hiring managers can spend up to 4 hours per candidate and the total process can take more than 100 days

1st Place Image
VITAE​

Lack of dynamic person-centered platform for Veterans to interact with their Safety Plan

2nd Place Image
GuardianAssist​

Non-Mental Health Staff Need Support to Engage in Critical Conversations Around Suicide Prevention

3rd Place Image
Hidden Truths​

The lack of customized suicide screening tools increases the risk of inaccurate risk assessments

​​Collaborators

Sponsors

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