Inspiration
We wanted to do something in the healthcare space. Initially, we thought of making another cliche pill reminder application, where users input their prescription information in order to get reminders. However, our idea evolved when we thought of how to eliminate patient involvement in the whole process. We thought of involving doctors in the process, but quickly eliminated that option by realizing that doctors are very unlikely to do more work. We came to the conclusion to use pharmacists for one main reason: pharmacists are the one's who type up a doctors instructions to be displayed onto a pill bottle. Thus, we created a platform where a pharmacist does his/her regular job: type in the prescription that the doctor sent. Using this information, we take the important words and phrases and create a simple texting reminder service for patients to remember to take their pills.
What it does
The idea of a simple pill reminder app is boring. We wanted our application to do more. While our application sends reminder to patients in different increments (depending on the prescription written), it also collects data from responses the patients send us. This data can be used in a variety of ways, from predicting pill adherence to gauging new premium costs for health insurance.
How I built it
We built this app using python and the Twilio API first. After debating whether to make this application a web based service or a mobile platform, we opted to make it a web-application because of the fact that pharmacies are more likely to all have Wifi than to have large tablet devices. That being said, we then had to make a simple web interface that interacted with our python program.
Challenges I ran into
We had the major challenge of integrating our web platform with the python code we had already written. None of us were familiar with Flask, so it was a challenge to code the website in a way that was compatible with our python application.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We successfully got our program to send us pill reminders by using an API! We are also proud of the fact that we were able to come up with a way to store specific texts we receive as data!
What I learned
We learned not to mess with Flask and instead to stick with JS!!! All kidding aside, we put our python skills to good use and got good practice using APIs.
What's next for PostScribe
We would love to make our code more efficient and make our website more appealing. In addition, we may recode our program in java script so our whole design can be on a website instead of 1/2 on a website and 1/2 on a local machine. Ultimately, we would love to continue developing this service through the next semester and conduct trial runs with local hospitals and pharmacies!
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