Health Tag

Framing the Problem

The problem is slow, fragmented patient identification and handoff in clinical workflows. Healthcare workers often need to check multiple systems or paper notes to find key patient info like allergies, medications, and history. This affects nurses, doctors, and especially patients in urgent situations where seconds matter.

Idea Explanation

Our idea is an RFID-powered patient lookup platform that instantly pulls a patient profile when a badge/tag is scanned (or entered). It fixes the problem by making critical info available in one view, reducing lookup time and lowering the chance of missing important medical details.

Implementation

The frontend (React) provides two main workflows:

1. Look up a patient by RFID.

2. Create patient intake records in a structured TXT format.

The backend (Node/Express) exposes API routes for creating and retrieving patient records.

MongoDB stores normalized patient data for fast querying and updates.

TXT files are generated in the RFID folder format so they can be used by the hardware side (ESP32/Python RFID workflow).

A sync service imports TXT records into MongoDB so both file-based RFID flow and database-backed web lookup stay aligned.

Challenges

1. Keeping TXT schema, API payloads, and database model consistent.

2. Handling folder/path changes between workflows without breaking sync.

3. Constant changes to hardware with limitations

We overcame this by standardizing field names, enforcing required backend validation, and centralizing sync logic so updates flow reliably from TXT to MongoDB.

Accomplishments

1. Built an end-to-end RFID patient lookup and record creation system.

2. Connected frontend, backend, and MongoDB into a working pipeline.

3. Implemented TXT generation compatible with RFID hardware workflows.

4. Learned how to design resilient integrations where physical-device data and web app data coexist.

Next Steps

1. Add live RFID scan ingestion (real-time push via WebSocket/SSE) so the lookup screen auto-loads on scan.

2. Add role-based auth and audit logs for healthcare compliance.

3. Improve validation and error handling for malformed TXT or partial records.