Overview

HospitalHost is a hackathon project designed to make emergency room visits less stressful. It provides patients with an overview of estimated wait times at nearby hospitals so they can choose where to go based on both urgency and comfort, rather than guessing or relying on outdated information.

The idea grew out of the experience of waiting alone in ERs—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when visitor restrictions and long waits made the process even more exhausting.

What It Does

• Shows a clear overview of estimated ER wait times for participating hospitals.
• Uses a staff portal where hospital staff or volunteers can log new patients as they arrive.
• For each patient, stores priority level (triage) and estimated wait time, grouped per hospital.
• Aggregates the data into a total estimated wait time per hospital and highlights the option with the shortest expected wait.

The goal is to optimize access to care while also improving patient comfort by setting clearer expectations.

How We Built It

• Frontend: Built the user-facing website with React, rendering wait time information from a dynamic dataset.
• Backend: Implemented a Node.js + Express backend exposing a REST API.
• Database: Used MySQL to store hospital, patient, and wait time records.
• API Design: Designed endpoints so the React app could query the latest data as JSON and render updated wait time estimates.

Challenges

• Learning and using SQL/MySQL quickly, as several team members had little prior experience with relational databases.
• Designing a clean, minimal REST API that was easy for the React frontend to consume, while still flexible enough for future features.
• Merging backend data flows with the UI in a way that stayed consistent as the schema evolved during the hackathon.

Team & Accomplishments

• Formed a fully remote team just before the hackathon started and quickly aligned on the problem and solution.
• Collaborated across different experience levels and backgrounds, with everyone contributing to design, frontend, or backend.
• Successfully delivered a working prototype that demonstrated how real-time wait time data could improve patient decision-making.

What We Learned & What’s Next

• Became more resourceful with web stacks and databases, learning to evaluate tools based on development speed and maintainability.
• Future directions we discussed included:
  • Factoring in patient location and proximity when suggesting hospitals.
  • Adding user feedback loops to refine wait time estimates.
  • Using AI to help estimate triage priority from patient descriptions.
  • Integrating with phone or messaging systems to contact hospitals directly.
  • Improving visual design to make the tool even more intuitive for patients under stress.