MultiSaveRX

Inspiration

One of our team members has experience working in community pharmacies and has seen firsthand the impact that medication prices have on medical care for uninsured people. Often, the prices are so high that patients can not purchase their medications, which can have serious consequences on health. One way that this is currently combatted is through the use of prescription discount cards - something our team member is very familiar with.

We consulted with other pharmacy staff members and found that the vast majority of our respondents try to locate deals for their uninsured patients at the register on a daily basis. All respondents said that finding low-cost medication for their patients was important to them, but comparing multiple options was time-consuming. Most also reported having felt like they didn’t provide the lowest cost to a patient on at least one occasion. We want to help them provide the best prices for their customers. When we proposed our solution, all respondents said they would be interested in using the product assuming their pharmacy accepted the available discount cards. These factors gave us the motivation to pursue our project.

What it does

MultiSaveRX is a free website that pharmacy staff and patients can use to compare prescription discount cards from multiple sources and display the best options for maximum savings. It does this by gathering data from existing prescription discount card websites and comparing their offers. For example, site A may have a coupon selling drug 1 at pharmacy 1 for $10, but site B has the drug available at the same location for $5, etc. We have automated the process for comparing these offers based on price and showing the user the cheapest price available at each pharmacy. The relevant discount card information necessary will accompany these prices for pharmacy staff to activate the discount in their respective billing systems.

MultiSaveRX allows pharmacy staff to confidently provide good medication pricing without needing to manually search different websites. It also allows patients to search for a drug and see which pharmacy offers the best price for it before choosing a supplier. At its core, MultiSaveRX reduces the cost of medication, which can help increase treatment adherence and prevent patients from suffering unnecessary health issues.

How we built it

We built our API is using python and Flask and use selenium to get and parse information. Our API is hosted on Vulture.

Challenges we ran into

Initially, we were using the requests module and BeautifulSoup to build our API. However, the discount card websites we are sourcing deals from sensed that we were using an automated method to access their information, and it was flagged. We had to move to selenium and restart the process again to counter this issue.

Initially, we were using the requests module. It would parse the website before it's fully loaded with beautifulsoup, so we had to move to selenium to implicitly wait until the elements we needed loaded. We then tried to host on firebase but with the limited timeframe and understanding, we decided to keep ourselves on vulture. The docker was scrapped mid-way through the production as well.

We also had some issues with timezones and prior university commitments such as midterms.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have come outside of our comfort zones and taken on the opportunity to further hone our skills. We all gained an understanding of the barriers that exist to accessing prescription healthcare which is an important human rights issue to be aware of. In a short period of time, we also gained a better understanding of how to use selenium and vulture to prove the best presentation of our code.

The two engineers on the team challenged themselves with learning about healthcare access and resources as we built our solution. Our other two teammates, in pharmacy and health sciences, learned the technicalities of software that they did not previously understand. They also gained a new perspective on the impact of technology in their respective fields.

Overall, as a team, we are proud to have worked well in this high-pressure environment to improve our presentation skills, technical skills and gain interdisciplinary knowledge.

What we learned

We learned how to use repositories, selenium, and vulture. We also learned how to better access open data, and better understand the importance of prescription coupons. In general, we all learned from one another's skill sets and knowledge bases. Additionally, the three Canadian members of our team gained insights into the American healthcare system.

What's next for MultiSaveRX

Given the time constraints and nature of a hackathon, our product is not fully refined. Ideally, we would like to continue to refine it and add more sources for our prescription discount cards. Currently, MultiSaveRX sources deals from two of the five most popular providers. We chose our sources based on which had the lowest average prices but our analysis was limited in scope. A possibility exists that other providers could provide more competitive pricing for medications we did not explore.

Once our project is more refined, doing a “beta test” would be a good next step. This would allow us to get feedback from pharmacy staff and patients to see how user-friendly and reliable it is in daily use. Following this, we can decide whether to continue with the project and develop a business model.