Omni-Bed

Inspiration

We witnessed the "last-mile" tragedy in healthcare: patients being rushed to hospitals only to find there are no beds available. We wanted to transform the frantic search for care into a calm, data-driven navigation experience. Our goal was to ensure no one arrives at a closed door during an emergency.

What it does

Omni-Bed is a real-time hospital bed locator. Users interact with a Google Maps style UI via text or voice to find specific facilities, such as an ICU bed with a ventilator. On the backend, hospitals manage a visual grid of their wards. In this system, beds are automatically reserved for 40 minutes upon a user's request to prevent double-booking and ensure patient intake.

How we built it

Frontend: React and Google Maps API for the spatial UI; Web Speech API for voice-to-text querying.

Backend: Node.js/Express for handling the reservation logic and the 40-minute "expiration" timer.

Database: MongoDB to store hospital ward configurations and real-time bed occupancy statuses.

State Management: Socket.io for live, bi-directional updates between the hospital dashboard and the patient map.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest hurdle was the concurrency logic. We had to ensure that if two users clicked "Book" at the exact same millisecond, the system would not over-allocate the ward. We also spent significant time fine-tuning the Natural Language Processing (NLP) to accurately filter map pins based on varying medical terminology.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully built a seamless "Sync" loop. When a hospital admin toggles a bed to "Unavailable" on their dashboard, the map pin on the user's phone updates instantly without a page refresh. We also created a highly intuitive "Grid View" for staff that makes complex ward management look like a simple game.

What we learned

We learned that in high-stress situations, UI simplicity is a medical necessity. We had to strip away unnecessary features to ensure the "Book Now" flow was accessible in under three taps. We also gained a deep appreciation for the complexities of hospital logistics and time-sensitive state management.

What's next for Omni-Bed

Our next milestone is integrating with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) so ambulance drivers can see live "Bed-Ready" routes. We also plan to implement a predictive ML model that forecasts bed availability based on historical discharge rates and local health trends.