InstaMed

InstaMed Emergency Help Page

Inspiration

First aid: theoretically simple, realistically nerve-wracking. Did you know that, according to a study conducted by St. John Ambulance, 59% of people are not confident in trying to save a life during an emergency? Well, that insecurity adds up, and approximately 150,000 potentially preventable deaths occur every year as a result.

What it does

That’s why we’ve created InstaMed: an app and website designed to teach first aid, utilize existing first responders, and prevent panic in emergencies. Upon opening the app, you’ll see a red “Emergency Assistance” button. This prompts you to input the situation, as well as giving an option to speak to a certified first responder who can walk you through the issue until emergency services arrive. Selecting your specific issue takes you through the necessary steps to remedy the situation: in this case, instructions to call 911, perform CPR, and a video demonstrating the use of an AED. If you are looking to join our team as a first responder, you can select the “Join our team,” tab, which will prompt you to select your medical certifications and available time slots to be online as a volunteer. This allows community members who already have medical training to utilize their time to serve those in need. You will create a login for our app, which can be used to track your progress. Community members can also register as learners and be taught the basics of emergency treatment, learning how to perform first aid when the need arises. Our website can also be used for emergency help, registration, and login, and has educational resources for those looking to start the learning process. Our “about us” section delves more into our mission as a team, and the way that we can positively impact our community by providing resources for assisting and learning. The emergency help section has a series of flippable cards that help users get solutions to their emergencies quickly.

How we built it

To build this project, we used MIT AppInventor for the app and HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the website.

Challenges we ran into

As we built the app, we ran into challenges with formatting and connecting buttons to other pages. The app inventor demo phone is an older version of the android phone we had, so in order to make it look nice on regular phones, we had to drastically change the formatting on the app inventor phone. For the website, we both didn't know much about web design so it was difficult to implement the main tools we wanted.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud that our app looks quite similar to what we want it to look like and that we were able to make the flippable cards on the emergency help page functional, aesthetic, and easy to use. This hackathon helped us develop our skills and create a functional website that provides at least one well-coded valuable service to help users in an emergency.

What we learned

We learned how to code in these various languages and use AppInventor to create working products. We didn't know much about coding in any of these languages or on these platforms but this was an exciting process and we learned a lot.

What's next for InstaMed

In terms of future impact, we hope to integrate AI to allow users to take a picture of their emergency situation and be sent personalized responses, mitigating panic and improving the effectiveness of our treatments. Ultimately, we will constantly strive for a more efficient and useful design to serve as many people as possible.