Inspiration
The idea for Postcare came from watching how patients are often left on their own once they leave the hospital. In Nigeria and many other places, there is no follow-up: people struggle to remember their medications, miss new symptoms, and have no support or reminders at home. Health tech solutions often assume everyone has a smartphone, but most people in underserved regions just have a basic phone with no internet access or lacking ability to run modern apps. We wanted to build a system that uses simple phone calls and voice AI to make sure patients are checked on, supported, and never forgotten after discharge. Postcare is about giving every patient real follow-up and peace of mind, wherever they are.
What it does
Postcare starts at the hospital, where nurses quickly enroll discharged patients using a voice-powered interface (no typing required). The patient’s details and their loved one’s phone number go straight into the system.
After discharge, Postcare automatically schedules calls to the patient at their preferred times. The calls remind patients to take their medication, ask tailored questions about their symptoms, and provide recovery tips. If the patient confirms that everything is fine, the system logs this directly to the hospital’s dashboard for admins to review.
If the patient misses two calls spaced 30 minutes apart and does not respond to a follow-up text, Postcare automatically contacts the patient’s next of kin. If there is still no answer, hospital staff are notified through their dashboard for manual follow-up.
All responses, symptoms, and adherence data are shown in real time on the dashboard, allowing nurses and admins to monitor who may need extra support. Through these simple phone calls, Postcare ensures patients are guided, families are kept in the loop, and hospital teams are always connected to their patients even after they've gone home. The entire flow relies on regular telephony, making it accessible to anyone with a mobile phone.
How we built it
Postcare is built on a modern, modular tech stack designed for reliability, scale, and accessibility. The backend runs on FastAPI, handling data management, call scheduling, and integrations. Patient information and call events are securely stored in Supabase, which also powers the real-time dashboard for nurses and admins.
For the voice interactions, we used LiveKit’s telephony and SIP features to connect calls through Twilio, so the system can dial any phone number, anywhere. The automated agent that speaks with patients is built using ElevenLabs for lifelike, natural-sounding voice calls. Nurses enroll patients using a web interface powered by ElevenLabs UI voice components, allowing them to speak information directly, making the workflow fast and error-free.
The agent gives tailored, AI-driven recovery advice by searching live care protocols using the Perplexity API. All medication reminders, symptom checks, escalation logic, and notifications are automated end to end, with role-based access, data encryption, and secure cloud infrastructure, ensuring patient privacy and high availability.
The entire system is designed for easy expansion to new hospitals or countries, requiring only a basic phone for the patient and a standard laptop or smartphone for hospital staff.
Challenges we ran into
Planning the user experience, especially for people in busy or low-tech settings, was the hardest and most important hurdle in building Postcare. From the start, our discussions focused on how to create a follow-up system that would really work for everyone: nurses, patients, and hospital admins. We had to account for all types of post-discharge scenarios, minimize errors and time for nurses, and make sure the process was simple and accessible. Designing a workflow that captured all critical data for the agent’s context, while not demanding extra effort from nurses, took careful thought. We also had to figure out how to manage missed calls and failed check-ins. That led us to develop an escalation flow, so the system could automatically reach out to family members or hospital staff when patients cannot be reached. Every part of the approach came from deliberately working through the real challenges people face after a hospital discharge.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We built a follow-up system that works on any phone, not just smartphones, so more patients from different walks of life can actually benefit from post-discharge support at a really low cost.
What we learned
Designing for real-world healthcare means simplicity is critical, and solutions only work if they match the actual workflows and tools people already use. When building anything that directly affects people’s lives, you have to plan for all the edge cases because the details of the user experience, not just the technology, determine real impact.
What's next for Postcare
In the next version, we plan to add support for inbound calls, allowing patients or relatives to dial in for help, guidance, or to update their status. This will make support even more flexible and responsive. People not already in the system will also be able to call in and have their details passed on to hospitals in their neighborhood (either Postcare partners or the closest facility on the WHO list).
Alongside development, we’re planning a beta rollout for select hospitals in Nigeria. This phased release lets us work side-by-side with nursing staff and admins, gather feedback from real-world use, and fine-tune every part of the workflow for local needs. Our goal is to prove Postcare’s impact at scale, tackle new edge cases, and make the platform even more accessible, reliable, and supportive for patients, families, and healthcare teams.
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