HealthBot

HealthBot logo
HealthBot homepage
HealthBot Symptom Check page
HealthBot Medication Alarm page
HealthBot Emergency System page

Inspiration

Our team was inspired by the chaos that rose from the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic. We realized that even after the corona virus era ends and a vaccine is created, the medical world will still need a lot more attention and support.

In our own personal lives, we've related to having a busy week and focusing more on school, family, extra curriculars, etc. and often neglecting our own health. To fight this issue, we decided to create a project that could be used to better support people's health so they can focus on what matters to them most without risking their well-being.

What it does

HealthBot provides an easy to access menu bar underneath our logo so that users can toggle between each of our four pages and our three main features.

Our first feature, the Symptom Check page, is made up of a symptom search bar as well as a list of common medical ailments. To use the symptom checker search bar, users simply input a symptom that they are experiencing like "fever", "rash", or "headache." Next, the program will bring up a page from the Healthline organization with data about how serious your affliction might be, how it should be treated, and any other information you might need to know. The list at the bottom of the page can be used to compare the user's symptoms to common conditions including COVID-19.

Additionally, HealthBot has a Medication Alarm page which we hope to continue improving. The Medication Alarm page is designed so that a user can input a medication type and the time that they should take it. Then, the user has the option to set a daily notification from their phone. Currently, we are still working on the notifications function.

Finally, HealthBot includes an Emergency System page where users can input the phone numbers of preferred emergency contacts. It is important to note that all users are told to contact the EMS in an emergency. However, this page can be helpful for people who would also like to connect with family members or other trusted companions to get more assistance or notify loved ones of an accident.

How I built it

This project was created primarily in VSCode using HTML, CSS, and JS. Initially, one of our team members created the homepage in the repl.it IDE first but we later transferred the code files into VSCode and continued working on the project there.

For the website as a whole, front-end was written in HTML/CSS and back-end in JS.

Challenges I ran into

One of the main challenges we faced was synthesizing the front and back end together. Towards the beginning of the hackathon, the front-end and back-end programming were separate from each other so we did not fully understand how the end product would work and look when both sides were put together.

After all code was transferred to Visual Studio Code, we quickly learned about the importance of making classes so that css properties were applied to the correct html elements. We had to change and add new classes to the external CSS file to make sure properties were working accordingly. Furthermore, we also learned that communicating consistently throughout a hackathon is equally important.

A second challenge we faced was adding daily notifications with the Medication Alarm feature. The API we had planned to use turned out to be extremely difficult to use and had roughly 2000 errors. This was very disappointing, but we have made plans to create a new daily notification system in the future.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Our team is most proud of bringing our HealthBot idea to life. We feel that our HealthBot product has a lot of potential to grow and become a real-life tool that could aid people throughout their lives. Already, we believe that HealthBot's features can be used to ensure people are balancing their health with hectic schedules because of its valuable features.

We are also proud of the overall appearance and UI/UX of the project. The white and blue colors along with the simple design really enforce the idea of a medical application and help it appear user-friendly.

What I learned

As a group, we gained more knowledge about new IDEs and languages we were already familiar with. Working with two different IDEs gave team members new exposure to different platforms and we learned how to collaborate better as well.

Similarly, we improved in our command and knowledge of programming languages like HTML, CSS, and JS because we learned how to use in-line HTML and CSS within in JS file and how to connect files together in VSCode. We also learned about new properties and commands in order to make our website function.

What's next for HealthBot

In the future, we hope to expand HealthBot into an Android app as well as a website. Currently, HealthBot already has the potential to become an app with Cordova.

We are also planning to improve our daily notifications in the Medication Alarm with a new API or another alternative.

Email: crasgaitis@gmail.com