PharmaConnect

Prescription fulfillment made easy.

Comment

Inspiration

With the recent pandemic, it can be dangerous to physically go hand off a prescription in person, especially when you are sick. This app seeks to lower the amount of contact with others and securely send your prescription directly to the pharmacist. Furthermore, it also reduces the overall wait time for receiving prescription drugs; instead of having to wait at the pharmacy, patients receive a message indicating their prescription request has been fulfilled.

What it does

Users can register as either a pharmacist or a patient by logging in through Google. Pharmacists must choose to be affiliated to a pharmacy in our database. If their pharmacy does not exist, they can register their workplace using a simple form that has been integrated with the Google Maps Api.

From there, patients will be provided a dashboard where they can submit requests as well see all the requests they have sent out to the pharmacies registered to the database. When the prescription is ready, or has been canceled by the pharmacist, users will receive a text message updating them on the status of their prescription. From there, they can be prompted to delete their fulfilled or denied request.

On the other side, pharmacists will be able to see all the requests sent to their affiliated pharmacy. From there they can choose to cancel the request or mark it ready to pick up after they have filled the prescription. Once either of these actions are made, the request will be removed from their view.

How we built it

The Front-End made with TypeScript using using Next.js, ionic ui framework, tailwind, and tailwind. Google Maps API was used to only allow for registered pharmacies according to Google Maps. Lastly, Twilio was used to send SMS updates to patients waiting for their results.

Challenges we ran into

The Ionic framework certainly had its issues. Causing build and rendering problems throughout the course of development. Furthermore, learning a completely new tech stack within such a short time was difficult, resulting in us cutting out some features in order to produce a working demo.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Learning Firebase was certainly difficult, however, it was extremely rewarding to see the code integrate with the Google Maps API as well as Firebase to achieve most of the features we wanted.

What we learned

It is certainly extremely difficult to debug, code, and learn a completely new tech stack. It is much more different compared to Angular, Flask, and even React as there were many clashing features when it comes to trying to use Ionic with Next.

What's next for PharmaConnect

  • The next step is to add a camera functionality to scan documents directly through the app without uploading a file.
  • Then issues should be fixed and the app should be formally built as IOS and Android Apps after polishing up the UI.
  • A more secure way to modify pharmacies and their workers is needed to ensure that there is no abuse.
  • Allow users and pharmacies to edit profile and request information
  • Incorporate a custom message screen to customize the sent patient messages, possibly adding phone calls as an alternative
Share this project:

Updates