@sclepius

Logo
Login Screen
Sample Page Keeping Track of a Patients Medication
Communication Flow Diagram in App

Inspiration

For any hospital, the key to it running smoothly is to follow the set orderly system. But, as too many patients know, there are times when a should be orderly hospital is thrown into chaos. Patients would often need to ask medical staff several times for their medical documents and require assistance getting them in order. This often results in stays at hospitals hours longer than necessary to complete the paperwork.

The burden of answering patients and their families' requests often falls to the nurses, and an already essential, often overlooked role in the hospital workflow. Interruptions of the nursing staff is an issue that is not given priority, though it can have disastrous consequences on the running of the hospital. Interruptions have adverse effects on a nurse’s memory; therefore, interruptions take focus away from the current task. Frequent interruptions can tax a nurse’s cognition load developing a higher risk of committing human error in critical medical procedures.

Many communication interruptions could have been mitigated through more accessible information systems between patients and their medical staff. This has shown the importance to manage and lessen non-urgent communication as much as possible.

@sclepius seeks to bridge the communication barrier between medical professionals, patients, and their families by streamlining the transfer of medical information securely and in a way that gives patients 100% control over who has access to their medical information and how much.

What it does

@sclepius is a medical application to be used by both patients and doctors that allows for the transfer of vital data between the two. The app keeps track of and organizes all of your medical documents that a doctor or medical professional may need. The medical professional can then send recent medical test results and forms such as prescriptions or clinical notes directly to your app for your convenience. If authorized by the patient, then select information can also be sent to family accounts to view.

How we built it

Our application is a Flutter application coded in Dart. The flutter app UI allows the user to access the data in their profile. @protocol is used to request access and transfer, and receive documents and medical information. The communication flow is summarized in an image in the header:

Challenges we ran into

We had to switch projects midway through, initially; we wanted to create an open-source drug development platform,
Setting up the environment for Flutter, alongside an Android phone emulator to test the app.
Being a pioneer in working @protocol API.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

 - Managed to put the product together in the short span of the hackathon
 - We were able to create an outstanding project despite the limitations of meetings 
 - We are proud of adapting to so many unfamiliar technologies( see challenges section) in such a short period of time.

What we learned

To properly utilize the @protocol API, we also needed to learn to code flutter apps using the Dart programming language. Given how new the technology of the @protocol API we all needed to learn it on the fly. Finally, once we conceptualized the idea, we needed to do in-depth research into hospital-patient communication issues to pinpoint where our app could help solve the communication gaps.

What's next for @sclepius

   - More granularity for access levels of medical information
   - Adding features to ease the input of information such as scanning paper
   - Testing the functionality and usage of the app  in a natural hospital setting