Hack RPI
The winning team RPillPal receiving their prize for Best Patient Safety Tech project (Photo Credit: Major League Hacking)
The Patient Safety Technology Challenge was excited to create a Patient Safety Track at this year’s hackathon at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) from November 4-5. RPillPal: A Biometric Pill Dispenser was the winning patient safety team who took home the $1,000 prize, sponsored by the Patient Safety Technology Challenge with funding from the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative.
Kathy Rauch, a nurse by background who works for the Hospital Association of New York State, served as a judge on-site. She shared, “HackRPI’s ‘Change the World’ theme of the hackathon was great. It was well aligned with patient safety.” In addition, Rauch was impressed by the progress made by RPillPal during the 24-hour hackathon.
RPillPal team member Abdul Muizz shared, “an issue the team converged on in patient safety was the management of prescription pills. We've all had an experience or know a family member who may struggle with remembering when they've taken their dosage, what to do when they miss a dose, or when they need to get a refill. The project was designed to solve this issue by automating the schedule and prescription process.”
The winner, RPillPal, was conceived as a potential solution to avoid opioid overdoses after patients are discharged from the hospital and ensure only that person living in the home has access to that medication – protecting other family members from having access to dangerous medications. Team member Om Anavekar, a computer engineering and computer science student at RPI, said RPillPal “aims to prevent improper pill intake and reducing potential opiate abuse.”
Their prototype for the biometric pill dispenser is intended for home use, using fingerprints for patient identification and providing accurate doses per doctor recommendations. It also allows for direct connectivity with healthcare providers to facilitate progress monitoring and timely treatment adjustments.
Muizz shared, “The project was designed to automate the process of following a prescription timeline. It blended a hardware setup, a backend database, and a frontend website to allow a user to keep track of their taken doses, when they need to take their next dosage, or what quantity of pills they have left remaining…Our goal was to use as many creative features as we could within the given 24-hour timeframe.”
Anavekar shared the project’s patient safety applications, adding, “We aim to create a safe and secure way for patients to access their prescriptions at home. The device itself connects to a web server containing a patient’s dosage requirement. Upon verification of the patient's biometrics and dosage time, the machine dispenses the appropriate number of pills. This not only ensures that others (children, pets, etc.) cannot accidentally ingest pills, but ensures that pills are administered at the correct times.”