PharmaSafe is a user-friendly website that ensures the safe use of medications through informational reminders created at FemmeHacks in less than 11 hours and awarded Microsoft: Best Inclusive Design.
Inspiration and information behind our project:
50% of patients do not take medications as prescribed. Our website was made to help all patients take medications on time, understand how to take them and be more aware of potential side effects.
Few people take the time to read the information provided by pharmacies about their medications which can lead to dangerous and costly health problems when patients do not properly time or take doses. Our website uses Google’s API to add an event to the user's Google Calendar to remind them when to take their medication and to provide information about their medication. Our website also includes a pharmacy locator based on street address and allows users to click on the different pharmacies displayed on the map to find out more information about the specific pharmacy.
Our product evolved significantly over the course of production. Wanting to make reminders accessible to people regardless of whether they had a smartphone, we spent a significant amount of time exploring Twilio to send text message alerts but found that implementation was unclear. We also considered sending email reminders, but as so many people have inboxes flooded with emails and wouldn't want to have another email sent to them, we decided Google Calendar alerts would fit our goal the best.
We learned so much about GitHub and repos, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, and using different APIs! We are very proud of the whole product, from the form, maps and calendar features, to the little stylistic elements like when you hover over a menu button, it changes color to red :)
We have applied to use the GoodRx API, which would allow us to access a large library of drug information. We aim to continue to work on a solution to enable those without smart phones to access this reminder and informational service through text messages. We also aim to incorporate the ability to remind patients to call a pharmacy to get their prescription re-filled, if needed. We aim to continue to make the site clear and user-friendly.
We are very proud of the end result and this website can be implemented worldwide impacting a large population and helping to solve a global issue.