inTOUCH

Main logo
Process of creating frontend

Inspiration

With family and loved ones who have experienced confusion, difficulty, and even serious issues as a result of medical error, we sought out to find a way to make a patients medical info (through EMRs) accessible to the patient simple, as it should be.

We felt that as an individual patient, it shouldn't be impossible to find your prescriptions, medicines, doctors, and resources among all the many EMR systems that you can find online.

So we thought, how can we get all of the information through different EMR systems into one system, when independent companies have no incentive to play with each other.

What it does

inTOUCH is accessible as a Chrome extension, which allows for a user to log in through any given patient portal to their electronic EMRs, and capture the data of their drugs, dosages, provider information, etc...

This information is then made viewable through our MongoDB database system and webpage to securely connect a patient to their documents.

Through the webpage, doctors and user-inputted (for over the counter) drugs can be added, and with a notification service implemented, we can efficiently communicate with medical providers with ease.

How we built it

Using a Google extension, we can pull data that is then inputted into our secure MongoDB database, which associates itself with the account registered into MongoDB.

With a React framework, we interact with the MongoDB to then display that information on our webpage to the user.

Challenges we ran into

Viability and time became our worst enemy through this project as we sought to create not only a unique and interesting solution to this issue, but also a realistic solution.

We originally wanted to interact with other EMRs, but we realized that with independent health care providers, they simply have and will not (without incentive) interact with each other. Why offer another company your resources, patients, and systems for EMRs?

So we went back to the drawing board, and realized that as an individual, any patient has a right to their own information. So if we can simply help the user view their EMRs, and pull data from them easily, we can then display it all in one webpage for the user. This does not require any companies to interact, as it is the patient's choice to do what they will with all of their medical information.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Found a meaningful and realistic idea
Implemented webpage through react
Connected webpage to MongoDB database
Updated webpage to display information about patients and doctors
Finalized and developed a unique brand for the idea

What we learned

It is true that with time, you can start to chisel away at the perfect, realistic, ideal idea. However, with the time constraint of 24 hours, it is imperative that you can still work towards a tangible solution. Even if it is not perfect, it is the culmination of both the vision and as much work as you can show that makes the project.

We truly believe that we have a great idea, and it can help many people, so it does not trouble us too much that our implementation does not have every single detail in our vision.

What's next for inTOUCH

Update webpage UI
Automate EMR intake process on Google extension
Add functionality to appearance UI webpage
Additional accessibility through multiple browsers
Improve security of data and login authentication through MongoDB
Implement functionality for adding and updating medicines, and adding and updating doctors, contact info, and sending notifications