Inspiration
This was inspired by my grandmother and her troubles remembering to take medicine.
What it does
Non-compliance with the elderly is a large problem. There are a variety of reasons why someone may not take their medicine, and one of those is forgetfulness. My own grandmother often forgot to take her medicine and often had to have a nurse or family member remind her. However, many elderly people would prefer more independence, without needing to rely on a child or medical professional. Our project helps to solve this, by enabling Amazon's Alexa, connected to a backend which providers or family members can use, to tell patients when to take their medicine. Alexa tells patients when they need to take which medications and instructions for how to take them. For many seniors, a voice interface is more natural and easier to use than physical interface, which could be hard to learn.
The interface is also connected to a backend, which has an API that providers and family members can use to add medications. The backend has authentication to ensure that only patients and authorized providers may access the records of the patient, to protect confidential information.
How we built it
We split up the work, with Aidan working on the backend and Rachit and Alice working on the front. The backend runs off of Node.js and DynamoDB and the frontend was built using Alexa APIs.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge we ran into was the inability to schedule notifications. We originally thought we could, but it seems that the API to do so was only available in a closed beta. Instead, we decided to slightly change our design so the patient would ask what medicines need to be taken.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of how we got Alexa to work without much prior experience and we are proud of successfully making it connect to our backend.
What we learned
In addition to coding, we learned a lot about teamwork: How to properly divide tasks and how to communicate better. That being said, we also learned a lot about how Alexa works and how to upload code to AWS (elastic beanstalk was annoying).
What's next for MyPharmacist
We want to make MyPharmacist better by improving the system for providers and family members to update the medications the person should be taking. Also, when it becomes possible to do so, we want to enable alerts on the Alexa, so patients can get a reminder when to take their medicine.
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