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Show HN: PillHQ - My first web app - Reminders to take your medications
- cpt1138 14y agoI made an app for this on Palm OS back in the day. I was advised to have a non-disclaimer basically saying "no one should use this app" for liability reasons. I originally wrote it cause my wife was having trouble remembering anti-biotic schedules for the babies. People were using it and loved it but the emails that I would get for questions, support or just saying "thanks" were so full of TMI I eventually gave it up and took it down.
- jjets718 14y agoHi! Thanks for your comment! In the TOS all liability is covered, but thanks for your suggestion. I'd appreciate any other feedback you have!
- king_magic 14y agoI wouldn't be so sure... you need to be really careful, especially if you're in the US. HIPAA can be tricky to navigate. I doubt your TOS will trump HIPAA in court. I'd be very, very wary of storing any sort of patient information on my own server (e.g., what medications people take, mapped back to identities of patients). This is pure speculation, but unless you designed your backend to be HIPAA compliant, I'd imagine you may be very liable. I say all of this as a former medical imaging software engineer who dealt with many HIPAA compliance issues.
- 1337biz 14y agoI like the idea. Random suggestion: Check out the papers by BJ Fogg. He did some interesting (applied) research on texting and supporting positive health related behavior. For example: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1541997 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1541997 and http://www.texting4health.org/ http://www.texting4health.org/
- jjets718 14y agoThanks for your positive feedback and the suggestion. I'll check out the links you mentioned as well as the research.
- rglover 14y agoName suggestion: "Dose."
- andrewmunsell 14y agoIt's an interesting idea, but why would I use this over an app for my phone (pretty much any smartphone or an iPod touch) when the app is free or $0.99 one time. A quick search brings up an app by Drugs.com, for example. Are there any compelling features that would justify $8 a month? And if so, you need to make sure people know about these features.
- uncoder0 14y agoAgreed. This seems far too expensive.
- jjets718 14y agoThanks for your feedback! I thought $8 a month might be reasonable, but if I get enough data telling me otherwise, I will definitely lower the price.
- YuriNiyazov 14y agoBack in 2009, I designed the same thing. I've had trouble with people staying around for free, never mind the monthly fee. Then again, the trouble could've been with me rather than with the idea. Good luck.
- mikecane 14y agoI don't understand the need for this. I'm still using a Palm LifeDrive. Sometimes I have to take a med. Right now I have to med cats. I simply add an alarmed event to my Calendar. Wouldn't anyone with an iPhone or other smartphone be able to do that too?
- jjets718 14y agoI just updated the pricing to $4.99 a month. Let me know if that's a more appealing price point!
- Avalaxy 14y agoNope. I'm sorry, but all the people I know have alarms on their phone for this purpose.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- JosephRedfern 14y ago"Do you know that forgetting to take your pills can be unhealthy?" - seems a little condescending. If they didn't know that, why would they take them at all!? Also, as mentioned previously on HN, it'd definitely help if the Signup page was served over HTTPS. I know that payments made via Stripe are encrypted anyway, but I wouldn't have thought that the average user signing up to a "remember to take your pills" service would.
- ravgie 14y agoI think your app should be for free and you can earn money from ads. You will have ideal target clients for many companies.
- tomjen3 14y agoThis does not solve the biggest problem with taking meds -- did I or did I not take that pill that I need to live but can't afford to risk an overdose of?
- tomjen3 14y agoOh an by the way this is solved with those special pillglasses that you fill withwhatever pills you need to take at specific times of the day/week.
- yctechmgr 14y agoThis is pretty good for software. If anyone is interested in considering "the" solution to this problem in hardware, which involves a patent, please email me: 1) some proof that you have been involved in the successful monetization of a patented physical device in the past, 2) mention : "I hereby agree to the NDA located here http://www.yourfreelegalforms.com/item_1099/Non-Disclosure-Agreement---Boilerplate.html http://www.yourfreelegalforms.com/item_1099/Non-Disclosure-A... as regards A SMALL PHYSICAL DEVICE INTENDED TO ACT AS A REMINDER TO TAKE MEDICATION" or words to that effect 3) your contact information and requirements Please contact me at: yctechmgr@gmail.com and I will reply with a full brief.
- pearkes 14y agoSignup pages (most definitely ones where the user is prompted to enter credit card information) should have SSL. I've trained my mother to look for the green bar. :) You're using Heroku, it's quite simple to set-up: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/ssl https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/ssl
- jjets718 14y agoThanks for the feedback! I will definitely be adding SSL very soon. The tough thing for me to figure out is if a $7 SSL Cert. has any differences in quality when compared to a $200 SSL Cert.
- pearkes 14y agoYou're probably looking at extended validation vs a standard SSL cert. In this case, it's literally whether or not the bar will be green with your name in it. Standard Example: https://limitless-atoll-7423.herokuapp.com/ https://limitless-atoll-7423.herokuapp.com/ EV Example: https://simple.com https://simple.com