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Homepage
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Donor sign up page
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Hospitals to donate to
Inspiration
With the resurgence of new coronavirus cases and the imbalance of personal protective equipment (PPE) among hospitals, we were wondering whether there already existed a solution to connect hospitals in need of PPE with donors and independent manufacturers. Additionally, given the more recent news of COVID-19 vaccine distributions, we were motivated to create an application that would allow healthcare supplies to be distributed—without waste—and save as many lives as possible.
What it does
Hospitals first register, inputting their location and supplies that they need. Then, when donors register, they are matched with the hospitals that need PPE closest to them. They can then donate the supplies to the hospital, without needing to go through the hassle of first finding a hospital in need, then finding what they need, then coordinating how to donate, etc. etc.
How we built it
Our full-stack application is based on both rising and established web technologies. We used Vue.js with TailwindCSS to build the website that allows users to interact with our database. We followed a minimalist, easy-to-use philosophy when designing our website. On the server side, we used the Node.js JavaScript runtime environment with the Express.js framework and MongoDB Database. To manage growth and potential upscaling due to anticipated demand for our application during the pandemic, we hosted our database using Amazon Web Services and the MongoDB Atlas platform.
Challenges we ran into
One of the most significant challenges was programming our donor-hospital matching algorithm, which was based on proximity heuristics. This algorithm required intensive database queries and significant amounts of logic to implement, which led to bugs that had puzzled us for a while. We ultimately resolved these issues, but we were faced with another challenge: implementing an efficient algorithm. We used geolocation APIs and other location information to suggest hospitals to donors that are most in need of personal protective equipment.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of finding an open market and a source of need for hospitals during the pandemic. During this time, we realized that this issue was significant, and efficient distribution of PPE and COVID-19 vaccines was truly a life-or-death issue.
We are also proud of completing a full-stack application in a limited amount of time, especially as we took our idea from concept to fruition in less than a weekend.
What we learned
One of the most important things we learned was time management. This was the first time I was in a hackathon, and I didn't anticipate the time crunch we would be on by the end. Although we all had some full stack development experience, many bugs still crept in. We learned that time pressure causes all sorts of bugs to crop up, and to combat that, we were forced to efficiently trace bugs.
What's next for PPEConnect
We plan to make it more easy to mark when something has been donated, and expand to features beyond just PPE and vaccines. One example would be matching up mental health patients with mental health clinics, as there are very many people who have gotten mental health problems because of the pandemic and it is very hard to find a clinic with openings.
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