CareHOU

CareHOU: prototype interface and core workflow.
CareHOU: prototype interface and core workflow.
CareHOU: product demo cover.

Inspiration

The Family Caregiving Roadmap challenge came from a family's experience after a major stroke, when hospital questions, bills, home safety, and wheelchair changes arrived at once. CareHOU gives that transition a shared, editable place to start.

What it does

A family chooses a focus, optional name, and current phase, then works through hospital-stay, discharge-day, and first-weeks-home questions and tasks. They can edit or dismiss prompts, assign helpers, add custom steps, keep a care circle, print a roadmap, or export JSON. Drafts stay in the browser by default.

How I built it

CareHOU uses React 18 and TypeScript with Vite for the client, an Express and TypeScript backend, PostgreSQL and Drizzle ORM for optional authenticated save, Google Identity Services, and source panels grounded in AHRQ, CDC, and MedlinePlus guidance.

Challenges

Caregiving is personal and varied, but a checklist can sound like a clinical protocol if its limits are not clear. The first session is useful without an account, the product avoids collecting diagnoses or medical-record details, and organization is separated from medical advice.

Accomplishments

The MVP ships a three-phase roadmap, editable starter questions and tasks, helper assignment, care-circle notes, print and JSON outputs, local-first drafting, optional cloud copy, and attributed public guidance. The product is useful before a family has to solve its sharing and account questions.

What I learned

A roadmap helps when it gives a family ownership of the next question, not when it pretends to know the answer. Local drafting makes the first step less intimidating, but privacy still requires clear device and export choices.

What's next

The next step is to research the prompts with families and care teams, review the sequence with qualified professionals, and test optional collaboration without turning the product into a medical record or provider marketplace.