Hospital Makerspaces: Building the Next Century of Health
Maker Faire Bay Area 2026
September 25th-27th
Hospital makerspaces are changing who gets to create and invent in healthcare. Over the past decade, MakerHealth and the generate Lab at UnityPoint Health St. Luke’s have helped create environments where nurses, clinicians, engineers, patients, and other makers can move directly from identifying a problem to building and testing a solution.
This panel brings together leaders and frontline makers to reflect on what has been learned from a decade of hands-on health making and where the movement goes next. Drawing on projects and maker communities in Iowa, Texas, Italy, Chile, and beyond, the conversation will explore how clinical expertise, a maker mind set and prototyping tools at the point of care creates solutions that are more responsive to the people and places they serve.
Panelists will share examples of clinician-led inventions, hospital makerspaces, and grassroots health-making efforts that build a culture of making inside healthcare. We will invite participants to discuss a future where the ability to design, adapt, repair, and invent is a core part of how healthcare is delivered around the world.
Schedule
MakerHealth & generate Lab UnityPoint Health - St. Luke's Hospital
MakerHealth and the generate Lab at UnityPoint Health St. Luke’s Hospital are part of a growing movement to bring hands-on making, prototyping, and problem-solving directly into healthcare. Together, they support nurses, clinicians, engineers, patients, and other frontline makers in turning everyday challenges into practical solutions. MakerHealth brings experience building health makerspaces and supporting clinician-led innovation across hospitals and communities, while the generate Lab provides a real-world model of what this can look like inside a health system. The group combines clinical insight, engineering expertise, maker tools, and a shared belief that the people closest to healthcare problems should have the opportunity to help design and build the solutions.
