3 comments

  • qweliantanner3 days ago
    Hi HN, I’m building an open-source digital safety net for home hemodialysis patients. This operates ostly as a portfolio piece but i thought it worth sharing.<p>The Why: Home dialysis gives patients freedom, but introduces a terrifying risk of isolation. If a patient&#x27;s blood pressure crashes or a line disconnects while a caregiver is asleep in the next room, the machine sounds an alarm, but it only beeps in the room. It doesn&#x27;t text the spouse, it doesn&#x27;t alert the clinic, and it doesn&#x27;t notify emergency contacts. I lost my mother to a disconnect in home care, so I decided to build the safety net I wish we had that night. Of course, who knows how effective this may have been if it existed.<p>The Tech: It&#x27;s built on Elixir and Phoenix LiveView. Active dialysis sessions are backed by OTP GenServers to maintain state. If an anomaly is detected (like a hypotensive drop), Phoenix.PubSub instantly broadcasts the event over WebSockets to a LiveView dashboard and triggers SMS alerts to the patient&#x27;s &quot;Care Network.&quot; Because proprietary medical devices are locked down, I also built a mock IoT server in Rust that streams medically plausible, simulated telemetry to test the pipeline.<p>The Reality Check: I shared the first build with a dialysis community on Reddit and got rightfully roasted by a caregiver. He pointed out that exhausted patients don&#x27;t want another &quot;app&quot; or a GitHub link—they just want to tame the chaos of medical documents and get help when they need it. It was a humbling UX lesson that forced me to pivot. I immediately simplified the onboarding and built &quot;Community Hubs&quot; so users can upload their own knowledge bases and machine manuals.<p>It’s currently in Pre-Alpha (using the Rust simulator for data). I would love any feedback on the Elixir&#x2F;OTP architecture, the LiveView real-time dashboard, or the overall UX flow.<p>Repo: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;qweliant" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;qweliant</a><p>(Note: To test the dashboard and simulator, you do have to create an account so the database can build your Care Network topology. You can use fake info!)
    • chromatin1 hour ago
      Incredible; I&#x27;ll let my patients* on Home HD know about this.<p>*not a nephrologist but have several pts on home hd
  • mech4223 days ago
    That&#x27;s actually a pretty cool - especially for a portfolio piece. While it&#x27;s not for common use (yet?), it gives prospective employers an idea of how you would work with safety critical code, as we as the &#x27;normal&#x27; CRUD&#x2F;web stuff.
  • thebeardisred1 hour ago
    FYI, the &quot;Explore the docs&quot; link in README.md links back to the repo and not actual documentation.