CareBridge

Inspiration

1 in 5 post-surgery patients can't find their prescribed medications within 24 hours of discharge. Our team member's grandmother spent an entire day in pain after knee surgery, calling 7 pharmacies for her specialized medication, all out of stock. This revealed a critical gap: patients are abandoned at the pharmacy door when they need support most.

With hundreds of millions of people undergoing surgery annually and medication shortages affecting 90% of hospitals, we built CareBridge to put patients first.

What it does

CareBridge is an AI-powered recovery assistant tackling medication access and post-op monitoring.

How we built it

Frontend: Next.js 15, TypeScript, React 19, Tailwind CSS Backend: Python Flask with RESTful API design AI: Google Gemini 1.5 Flash (prescription analysis), ElevenLabs Conversational AI (voice interactions) Maps: Google Maps JavaScript API with Places Library Data: MongoDB Atlas, custom webhook architecture

Challenges we ran into

API Limits: Hit Gemini's 50 requests/day quota, so we implemented smart caching No Pharmacy APIs: Created a proprietary hybrid scraping + manual system for real inventory Healthcare Trust: Balancing AI assistance with medical disclaimers for vulnerable patients Voice Integration: Complex webhook processing for ElevenLabs conversation analysis

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Complete healthcare solution in 36 hours, addressing real patient pain Multimodal AI integration: vision, voice, and text analysis working seamlessly Validated with real users: Post-surgery patient said this would have "saved hours of frustration" Scalable pharmacy network for chains and independents Voice-first interface accessible to elderly patients

What we learned

Technical: Multimodal AI orchestration requires careful prompt engineering; healthcare data has unique privacy/accuracy needs Healthcare: Post-surgery patients need simple, purposeful interactions; trust is paramount through professional design Collaboration: Rapid prototyping + healthcare domain knowledge creates impactful solutions.

What's next for CareBridge

Short-term: Province-wide Ontario rollout, mobile apps, pharmacy partnerships Medium-term: Insurance integration, medication interaction checking, family caregiver dashboards Long-term: EMR partnerships, clinical trials support, predictive analytics for recovery outcomes

Vision: Become the standard post-operative care platform across North America, reducing readmissions and improving patient satisfaction.