iMed Dispenser
It Values Your Medication!
The journey towards Smart India hackathon-Hardware Edition started long back during November,2017. We found the problem statement to develop a program to dispense the medicine based on QR/Barcode scanning under the Ministry of AYUSH to develop. Fortunately Srinath,Ajeeth & I were already working on a medicine dispensing system, we found it interesting and started to ideate for the problem statement. The initial phase of filtering was on 31/12/2017, later it was extended for the final submission on 15/02/2018.
We formed a team of 6 members to work on the project. We were all from different streams. “Divided by departments and year of study, but united by iQube”. iQube is the tech innovation center at our college where we all have been groomed to become tech experts in various domains like embedded systems,IOT,software development,Rapid prototyping,robotics,machine learning,VR and AR etc., It is the place where we explore,experiment,execute,innovate and make our ideas a reality.
This is my team
- Sharmila S,EIE,3rd year.
- Ajeeth Muralidharan,ME,3rd year.
- Srinath.S,CS,3rd year.
- Poonkodi.T,CS,4th year.
- HanuPriya.I,ECE,2nd year.
- Surya Shankar.P, CS,2nd year.
Milestone 1:
The first phase of submission required a PPT with problem statement,workflow,technology,use case,the dependencies of the system along with our progress of working and a write up explaining our idea in detail. We submitted our final idea after many brainstorming sessions and intense discussions within our team and with our mentors. Our idea has been tuned as a perfect solution to a problem with the inputs from our mentor Mr. Nirosh Kumar,Operation Executive of iQube and Mr.Sathish Kumar,Technical Executive of iQube. They have been so supporting us from the day one of our voyage with iQube in all aspects. Mr.Sufian,Head iQube, helped us through the process of participating in the competition.
In the first phase of Smart India hackathon 2018-hardware edition 7000+ ideas involving 44000+ students to approach problem statements under various Ministry and Government has been received all over India.
The results for first phase has been out on 25/03/2018. We got the good news that we were also one among the 4000 selected teams for the stage1 of SIHH2K18. For the second phase we were asked to submit the video of 4–5 minutes recording, the working of the prototype and the detailed description document of invention along with the novelty of our idea on or before 30/04/2019.
Milestone 2:
To build our prototype we received funds from iQube and our college management. Mrs.Cynthia, the HOD of Computer science department and Assistant Professor Mr. Kanagaraj greatly helped us throughout the process.
Countless days and nights planning,learning and prototyping ended with our completed prototype. I was working on Electronics and Electrical system sub-division. Srinath was working on Software development and Android development. Ajeeth Muralidharan was working on Mechanical design. Others in the team were helping us in various aspects. There is no happiness more than seeing your own project working perfectly as you know the difficulty of making each and every part work separately. It feels like you have given the life to the components and made it work to serve a purpose. We had AVIEW video lecture sessions and Facebook live sessions being scheduled every week by SIH-i4C for interaction with teams. Beyond all our own commitments and difficulties,We to spent time for the creation of iMed Dispenser. But after all struggles we were able to complete it with our determination and passion towards it. We submitted our video on 11.49pm ,30/04/2018 finally. When we were working for building our prototype we applied for provisional patent of our idea. During this phase I learnt the value of every second and of time management. It taught me the way in which you can balance all life activities smoothly.
The results for the stage 2 was out on 16/05/2018 after that we had a call interview in which they focussed on plan,clarity and practical implementability of our product. After all evaluation we were able to sustain as one among top 106 team all over India. There were 10 Nodal centers across India and each nodal centers concerned with the theme like Clean water,waste management,Drone technology,Automobile,import Substitution etc., We were allocated with the nodal center at CSIR-CSIO,sector-30,Chandigarh. The grand Finale dates are 18/06/18 to 22/06/18. SIH allocated industrial mentors for our team from different streams. Our Mentors are Mr. Sushil Nagpal,Sr. Project Manager APAC in Medical Devices,Mr. Pranay Arun Kumar,Independent Design Consultant And Dr Viren Sardana,Physician Scientist & Analytics Translation at CSIR-CSIO. Along with the mentor we had con-call meetings and discussion sessions for improvement of our prototype to a project level.
So What is iMed Dispenser?
iMed is the automated medicine dispensing machine with smart assistance.It is focussed to provide Accessibility to medicine 24/7, to reduce drug non-adherence and medications errors and to maintain a proper medical profile for the patient throughout his life. As the medicines can be categorized as various shapes,sizes and types. iMed has three different mechanisms which are designed specifically to handle bottle,rifle,strips and loose medicines. The Doctor will be given the website portal login through which he will be able to prescribe medication for the patient with aadhaar number of the patient as the identity. The patient have to go to the machine and scan his aadhaar card. The machine dispenses the medicine based on the pharmacological name given by the doctor.It provides the printed prescription quoting the dosage,time and medication guide.iMed also enables the multi linguistic voice guide for people who are new to use the machine. After dispensing, the patient is notified via the Android app, and his consumption log is constantly recorded. It has differentiation between OTC(over the counter) and prescribed non-OTC medicines and incorporates a seamless payment gateway. The payment can be done through card,paytm or any online payment portal. OTC drugs will be dispensed without aadhaar verification.The whole structure is modular and it’s all plug and play depending upon the vendor’s needs. The registered vendors have to load the medicines based on the structured inventory. The inventory is customizable on the basis of requirement as it is modular. The consumption of medicine and complete medical data of the patient will be profiled. The patient can also get the medicines from the pharmacy as pharmacies will also be integrated with our system to view the prescription of the patient so that the medication profile can be maintained globally.
iMed can be placed in primary health centers,clinics,pharmacies,airport,schools,colleges and tech parks. Initially machine can be focussed to dispense OTC drugs and gradually we can dispense other medicines as people get accustomed to using the machine.
The final Milestone!Ready! Set!Go!
We started to Chandigarh on 15/06/2018 after all preparation as 8 member crew, 6 team members and 2 of mentors from iQube. It has been a great experience of travelling. The hospitality and support given at CSIO was highly appreciable. It was the first time most of us were travelling by flight.The people over there were very helpful. We got the materials and components as we have submitted the BOM (Bill of materials required) before going there.
Chandigarh is a beautiful city with perfect architecture. In the five days of hackathon we put ourselves to work with a great drive in us. Initially we planned a timeline. We had a talk with our mentors,got feedbacks and started working on those points. Sleepless nights, endless iterations and test runs was the routine. We learnt from our mistakes. We lost one of the important part of our machine on travel sized at 2mm. It was imported from German after 21 days of Shipping time. We were all frustrated but learnt to overcome with some other alternatives and after all struggles we were able to complete the working of our product. It was an awesome experience of learning, exploring and experimenting. People at CSIO were very helping and supportive throughout our hackathon. I should mention that Mr.Upender Kumar who was in-charge of components helped us a lot regarding components. At the final day of our hackathon,our team got a video conference session with Human Resources Development Minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar about our product. We were one among the power judging teams that is we have been given with less time to present in the final round when compared with other teams. The judgement was done by 8 members who are pioneers of health devices industries and healthcare sector. We won 2nd runner up and awarded with the cash prize of 50000 rupees and we received it from the head of All India pharmaceuticals council.
There are many people who helped us achieve this. We should thank our college,iQube and department for financial and resources support. Our mentors play a major role in molding our thoughts into existence. We would like to extend our hearty thanks to our college mentors and i4c allocated mentors from SIH. Loads of gratitude to all our team member’s parents for their untired support and motivation. I should thank my parents and family who were okay even when their daughter was travelling to Chandigarh for her aspiration on the day of Ramadan,a special day to be celebrated with family. Special thanks to my Mom,who is a 30 years experienced Pharmacist. She helped me approach the problem statement with practical solution. She helped in bridging the gap between technical ability and medical requirement to build a machine that can dispense medicine which is going to deal with millions of people’s life. I should thank my team members who were working seamlessly round the clock. Hope we will take this to the next level with a pilot run in a primary health center soon. Let us all together make a healthy India with no medication error and drug non-adherence!
#The best is yet to come!
-Sharmila Shahul.
