1st Hack Weekend as a Team
This week we have updates for you on many different topics, including spring break plans, new protoypes and a hack weekend!
Spring Break Plans
We have recently been asked the question of whether we are planning to tokenize our platform by many people in the blockchain sector. There is the certain advantage that it would make transactions easier, and would help prevent fradulent activity if we charge an entry fee. However, there is the clear disadvantage that the pharma sector already has a lot of friction for large changes, and forcing stakeholders to adopt this new method of transaction might be pushing it a bit too much.
In order to find the answer to this question and to learn more about the world of cryptocurrencies, our team decided to attend Satoshi’s Vision Conference happening in 2 weeks in Tokyo, Japan. We will be staying in Tokyo between March 25-April 1. We are also planning to hit up other blockchain and healthcare meetups in the area.
New Prototypes
We have been conducting more user interviews over the past week. So far, our biggest pain point is that, we couldn’t get in touch with people who create formularies from the insurer / PBM side or with the people who negotiate with PBMs about the drug prices from the pharmaceutical side. Nonetheless, we have conducted many UI/usability focused user tests. Based on the feedback we received, we created another iteration of our prototype.
We built these prototypes using Balsamiq, and then imported them to Invision to create the app flow.
We still have a couple of unanswered questions about our prototypes. For example, regarding our insurer portal, we are looking for ways to understand the formulary creation step more. Some questions we have are: what information does one need, what are the current tools used to help with this process, and are there formulary templates that one follows as opposed to creating a brand new one.
If you have any insights into these questions, or have contacts in this field, please shoot us a message!
Hack Weekend
Our team created a little office space at the Gates Building at Stanford to host our “Hack Weekend”.
Our front-end is in React + Redux, and we decided to build our backend in Django. We are almost done with implementing the API endpoints, and this upcoming week our focus will mostly be on fleshing out the front end. So far we are focusing on building a traditional app and migrating it to blockchain in the spring, because apparently building on blockchain is more similar to hardware in that it is more costly to make changes once you push code.
We are on a rather tight timeline since we have a CS210 Demo Day on March 15th. So, wish us luck!
