Inspiration

One of our team member's Zainab's recent personal experience with travel vaccines inspired JabMap! She is planning on taking her grandmother on a trip to Kenya and the process of researching the required vaccines, clinics, and health information when travelling to a specific region can be tedious, especially given her and her grandmother's varying needs and health conditions.

What it does

It bridges the gap between all the vaccination information out there and the user gathering and storing it in one place, thereby streamlining the process of getting the travel vaccines. The application provides the following features:

Personalisation: JabMap allows the user to enter their upcoming travel details, existing health conditions, vaccine history, and link their NHS account. This enables the application to provide specific vaccine requirements alongside the generic recommendations.
Vaccine Information: For a selected country/region, the recommended and/or required vaccines are displayed along with information on the reasons for getting it and what it protects against.
Live Safety Updates: This feature uses AI to search for the latest outbreak and health updates of the user's destination, which alerts the user in case their travel dates overlap with an ongoing epidemic, for example.
Interactive Interface: For each of the maps integrated into the application, the user has the liberty to navigate them however they like. The main world map colour-codes regions based on health risk, provides zoom-in facilitation upon clicking on a specific place, along with an automatic zoom-out once the user clicks anywhere else. The clinic map provides options to use the current or a manually input location, shows the nearby clinics pinned, and displays their information.

How we built it

We built the app using Claude code as an assistant to help us vibe code the infrastructure. We began with a simple web app with an interactive world map and search bar allowing you to find or click your destination, resulting in a summary of the government of which vaccines are recommended from official UK government travel and health advice sites. Below this a map widget with options for ‘Find Vaccines near you’. This started off using JavaScripts for each feature - for example the vaccine recommendation by country data, or the clinic lists, with another js file structuring the app and interactive portions, like the maps, and finally the html file pulling it altogether into a web app.

As we continued to develop this idea the structure remained relatively the same. We used a Gemini API for our app to give live news updates. This meant creating a python server with our API keys to facilitate this. The next development was improving the vaccine pharmacy/clinic search to enhance the ease and experience of the user. Instead of using a generic search on google for locations of vaccine clinics we used an NHS Service Search API to improve our clinic list. This allowed us to get our list of clinics from the NHS services list, and list them by location. Using a list from a search with Google Cloud console Places API we could create an overlapping list giving the user information with google reviews also. This allowed us to achieve a reliable, informative and user friendly clinic / pharmacy search for users wanting to find out where to get their jabs done.

The next development was to improve our personalisation feature, allowing users to not only input their trip details and personal history but also demoing a connection to their NHS official UK routine vaccine records. We demoed this by using the open access NHS Immunisation sandbox which produces a sample record of a patient. For the purposes of our demo and looking to the future developments of the NHS Immunisation API we modified the sample to include more vaccine records. This feature demonstrates the possibility and use of connecting JapMap to the user’s personal official NHS records in case they have forgotten their UK vaccine history. It allows the app to give personalised advice for the user based on their history and official records.

The final improvements were mostly to the user interface ensuring maximum ease and enjoyment of use, particularly to the interactive maps - world map for destinations’ recommended vaccines and the find a vaccine map. We also introduced travel insurance advice to go alongside the specific health and travel advice by destination.

Finally we successfully attached our web to the domain name :jabmap.health and made our web app ready for travellers looking for jabs!

Challenges we ran into

We ran into a few challenges throughout this process. The main challenges with the user interface were debugging the interactive maps and ensuring their accuracy. We improved the clinic map by changing from system which takes the inputted location / postcode and allows google to just guess a location and display a google maps widget, to using our own leaflet map from openstreetmaps with accurate locations using verified co-ordinates. For the world map we improved the user interface making it easier and more pleasing to use, introducing zoom features and ensuring the map is accurate and runs without bugs, as well as avoiding guessing regions.

We also ran into a challenge when overlapping the clinic search to use NHS Service Search information as well as Google Places info like google reviews. Due to naming discrepancies not every clinic each search pulled up can be reliably matched, so we made sure that only the ones which can be are displayed. The list is still comprehensive and users are of course able to click off links to google maps to find out more. The benefit of looking at clinics from the NHS list and being able to see google review ratings is retained,

Using the NHS Immunisation sandbox we did find that the capabilities and sample produced by this system was limited compared to what we were intending to demo. However we were able to demonstrate using the official NHS records using their sandbox and look forward to improving our capabilities to include more vaccines, as the NHS Immunisation API is improved, such as the three-in-one and MMR routine vaccines which are listed as ‘in development’ for the API to search from.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As beginner hackers, we're particularly proud of our use of APIs in this project. We used the Gemini API for live updates and news on the health situation of the selected country/region. We also used the Google Cloud Console Places and the NHS service search API to create an overlapped list of vaccine clinics relevant to the user. Another achievement for our team was creating interactive maps to maximise ease for the user. Being able to demonstrate the connection to a user's official NHS records was also an important accomplishment for us. Looking to the future, this improves the personalisation feature of JabMap as well as demonstrating the potential for a stronger connection to the NHS. Overall, we've managed to compile all the health, vaccine, and location information into one place and personalised the entire experience, without introducing any unnecessary complications or navigation problems.

What we learned

We learnt how to utilise APIs to provide live updates and perform search requests for information from google and the NHS. We learnt how to debug interactive features, testing the user interface, noticing issues, finding the coded problem and improving the infrastructure. We learnt how to collaboratively code a web app using a git-hub repository. Finally, we learnt how to use Claude Code as an effective and efficient vibe-coding assistant, to facilitate and implement our ideas and innovations.

What's next for JABMAP

JABMAP has a couple of development streams. One of them is becoming an official extension of the NHS app, so that the health records can be officially linked to the application, providing a more personalised experience. This way, users will get vaccine recommendations based not only on their existing routine UK vaccines, but also on their travel vaccine history. We would also like to further develop the 'vaccine history' section under 'Your Trip & Health' to be able to store the entered information. This development, coupled with the official link with the NHS, will not only compile all the data into one space, but will also benefit the NHS, as they'll get information on any vaccines received in another country. This 'profile' would allow us to introduce a section of 'travel history' providing recommendations based on the user's recent travels and stays, or recent travel vaccines. It could also facilitate live updates and notifications for the user (perhaps through an inputted email or phone number) in case of outbreaks or situational changes to an upcoming trip destination.

Another stream would be linking to various travel insurance companies and developing this feature further. This would require a license from the FCA and ensuring data is protected, given that we will be handling a huge chunk of personal information, along with an insurance partner. This would also allow us to monetise the application by advertising health and travel insurance companies, which could be of interest to users for upcoming trips.

Built With

Submitted to

IKU Womxn in STEM Hackathon
- Winner 3rd Place Prize for the Wise Track

Created by

I worked on the initial brainstorming and came up with the idea of the UI being a world map. I then vibe-coded the infrastructure and initial features of the app on VSCode. Later, I tweaked the UI to add the zooming in and out features, ensured the AI stated where it was assuming information, and added the health insurance feature. I also linked the domain name to the app.

Calypso Newman
I worked on vibe-coding the app on Lovable, which we used as the base guidance for the app we vibe-coded on Claude (which my teammates did). We discussed the ideas together. I came up with the idea of showing the government guidance and cautions/warnings on the app. I was unable to contribute to the second day (pitching or video submission) due to personal reasons, which I had informed my teammates about.

Frances Välisalo
I contributed to the initial brainstorming process of the features we wanted to build in the application. Came up with ideas for the future development of the application. Contributed to the Devpost by outlining the features of JabMap, accomplishments, and the future aims of the project.

Maheen Abdul Qadir

Avery20-code
I worked on the infrastructure for the Find a vaccine clinic search, employing the Google Places and NHS Service Search APIs. I also worked on the personalisation element creating the option to link to NHS records using the open access NHS Immunisation sandbox. I improved the UI creating the logo and changing the fonts to make a more appealing user experience, as well as improving the accuracy of the 'Find a vaccine' map. I also came up with the core idea for a platform streamlining the process of getting your travel vaccines done based on my own recent experience planning a trip to Kenya with my grandmother.

zainab-nb-a Ahmed