DoseTrack: Built for Parents and Grandparents - A Simple, Private Family Medication Tracker

Sara Sinha — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 01:57:58 +0000

What I Built

Every day, many elderly parents and grandparents ask themselves the same worrying question:

"Did I take my morning blood pressure pill half an hour ago, or did I just think about taking it?"

When our loved ones take four, five, or more medicines every day for conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart health, it is very easy to make mistakes. A person might skip an important pill out of fear, or accidentally take the same tablet twice. Normal phone alarms do not help much because people often tap "dismiss" or "snooze" while half-asleep and go right back to resting without ever getting up to take their medicine.

I built DoseTrack for my Parents and my Grandparents.

DoseTrack gives our family peace of mind by making sure our elders take the right medicine at the right time, while letting them keep their independence.

How It Helps Our Family

Wake-Up Math Alarms:
When it is time for a pill, DoseTrack plays a clear chime sound in the web browser. To turn the alarm off, the user has to solve two simple math questions (like 14 + 7 or 5 x 6). This makes sure the person is fully awake and attentive before taking their medicine, rather than tapping a screen in their sleep.
One Screen for the Whole Family:
Adult children can check on their parents from any phone, tablet, or laptop. When Mother Sunita marks her morning medicine as taken, her status turns green for everyone in the family in real time. No more constant phone calls asking, "Did you take your pills today?"
Tracking Blood Pressure and Blood Sugar:
DoseTrack includes an easy page to write down daily blood pressure and blood sugar readings. It automatically shows the highest, lowest, and average numbers, displays clean graphs, and lets you download a simple spreadsheet report to bring to your doctor.
Caregiver Admin Support:
One family member can act as the main helper (Admin). If an elderly parent forgets a password or gets confused, the admin can update their medicines, change times, and help without locking them out.
100% Private and Safe:
All health records and medicine lists stay private on your own system. Nothing is sent to outside companies, advertisers, or third-party servers.

Demo

Live Deployed App: https://dosetrack-o1lt.onrender.com/
Quick Demo Sign-In: On the login page, you can click any of the one-click demo buttons (like Sunita, Rajesh, or Ramesh) to instantly try out the dashboard without needing to create a new account.

Code

The complete source code is public and open-source on GitHub:

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/sarasinha1207/DoseTrack

Built With:

Python 3 and FastAPI: Fast, lightweight server handling family schedules and vitals.
HTML5 and CSS3: Clean, comfortable design with large readable fonts and clear buttons.
Vanilla JavaScript: Simple, browser-based scripts for timers, math puzzles, and interactive charts without heavy libraries.
Web Audio API: Generates gentle audio chimes right inside the browser without downloading any sound files.

How I Built It

I built DoseTrack using open-source AI tools and pair-programming assistants. Instead of just adding a generic chat box, I used open-source AI to help design practical features that solve real problems for seniors:

Designing Simple Screens for Elders:
I used AI assistance to choose high-contrast colors, big readable text, and large buttons so that elderly family members can use the app comfortably even with tired eyes or shaky hands.
Creating the 2-Step Math Challenge:
The AI helped create the logic for the wake-up alarm. It picks two random, easy arithmetic questions each time an alarm rings, ensuring that the person has to think for a brief second before silencing the sound.
Building the Family Dashboard:
I used open-source Python FastAPI to connect all family members together so that everyone can see today's medication checklist on one clean dashboard.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Open innovation and open-source software are especially important when it comes to family health:

Protecting Family Privacy:
Many commercial health apps track users and sell prescription information to advertising networks. By keeping DoseTrack open-source and storing data locally, our family's health information stays private and safe.
Free and Accessible to Everyone:
Caring for elderly relatives is already expensive. A medication tracker should not require an expensive monthly subscription. Open innovation allows families everywhere to use and adapt these tools for free.
Reliability and Long-Term Peace of Mind:
When companies close down, their apps stop working. Because DoseTrack is open-source, families can run it on their own computers forever without worrying that a company might shut down the service.

Key Features at a Glance

Daily Medication Timelines: Clearly shows morning, afternoon, evening, and night pills.
Cognitive Wake-Up Alarms: Requires answering two simple math problems to dismiss chimes.
All-Family Oversight: Allows adult sons and daughters to verify if parents took their doses.
Blood Pressure & Sugar Logs: Tracks highest, lowest, and average readings with CSV exports.
PIN-Free Sign-In: Easy username and password login with quick 1-click demo profiles.
Family Admin Role: Allows designated caregivers to add medicines and manage family profiles.
Zero Cloud Tracking: All personal health records remain private on your computer.

What's Next for DoseTrack

WhatsApp & SMS Reminders: Automatically send a gentle text message to adult children if a parent misses a dose by more than 30 minutes.
Medicine Label Camera Scanner: Let seniors take a quick photo of a pill box or bottle to automatically fill in the medicine name and schedule.
Spoken Voice Reminders: Friendly voice prompts in different languages that speak the name of the medicine aloud for seniors with low vision.
Doctor Notes Diary: A small space to write down questions and notes for the next clinic visit.

Prize Categories

Best Use of Render:
- DoseTrack is hosted and running live on Render as a public web service at https://dosetrack-o1lt.onrender.com/, using render.yaml and Procfile to power the Python FastAPI application, render accessible web templates, and handle real-time family medication updates.
Best Use of Gemma :
- Google's Gemma open-weight models are used locally to parse doctor prescriptions, extract medicine names and intake timings from clinical notes, and provide helpful guidance without uploading private medical data to commercial third-party cloud servers.

DEV Community: Sara Sinha