More ways to help our healthcare community
Have a good idea but not sure where to go next? Our Cognisant Causes program can help bring it to life
What is the Cognisant Causes program?
The program allows OceanMD employees to work pro-bono on a worthy healthcare cause of their choice. We started this program because we saw many promising healthcare initiatives that never got off the ground because there wasn’t enough funding for technology, or the grant process was too onerous. Ironically, some of the best ideas are the simplest, and that’s where we can step in to help.
What kinds of projects qualify?
Projects must be small in scope and high in value towards a public healthcare good — five hours a week doesn’t go far on ambitious projects. We look for projects that need a little bit of technical expertise to help out people working on a great cause.
A good example is our first project: an Ontario Trillium funding calculator on a tablet for patients in the waiting room. If even one family learns about the program and a child gets better treatment as a result, we’re thrilled.
Does the project have to run on Ocean?
We like using our platform because it’s a really easy way to deploy clinical questionnaires and research studies. However, there are no rules for employees on this point. Employees are free to use any and all tools and skills they can bring to bear on a problem — they could build a website for example. We have a physician, a marketing expert and a few software developers in the office so we have a bit of diversity in our organization we can bring to the table as well.
