Pillbox Google Hangout for Developers

Oct 6, 2014

National Library of Medicine (NLM) Pillbox app icon
Tuesday, October 7 at 2pm ET, the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health will host a Google Hangout to talk about developing with the API, data, and open source code from Pillbox.

I (Pillbox project manager), Mark Silverberg of Social Health Insights (builder of super cool health apps), and Maya Uppaluru of ONC (leads their Innovation Engagement program) will go under the hood of Pillbox.

We’ll talk about why developers should be excited to have access to the data, pill images, API, and open source code. Mark will ask questions about the challenges developers run into when using Pillbox. Mark and I will explore:

  • Pillbox’s unique value to developers by munging multiple HHS drug data sets and adding pill images
  • The power and limits of working with Pillbox’s data
  • Tools to help developers build with Pillbox (search API, data/image downloads, documentation)
  • Recently released open source Pillbox code that enables developers to download and parse the complex source data sets and make their own Pillbox
  • Opportunities for development with Pillbox that meet key challenges in healthcare
  • Other NLM and FDA data, APIs, and projects Pillbox developers should be looking at
  • Participant Q&A

We’ll also talk about the upcoming Pillbox codeathon in Minneapolis.

What is Pillbox?

For those who don’t know Pillbox, we take the complex data about medications that pharmaceutical companies are required to report to the government and

  1. make it easy to use for developers,
  2. create a public domain library of pill images,
  3. mash it with other awesome drug data sets, and
  4. improve the quality of the data.

Pillbox can be used to build anything from a pill identification or medication reminder/tracking app to helping create electronic health records, systems that reduce medication errors and adverse events, support research, and save kittens (Pillbox includes veterinary medications).

Learn more about Pillbox and how you can get involved during the Hangout, and also check out the Office of the National Coordinator’s upcoming medication management Codeathon, which will be held in partnership with Treehouse Health in Minneapolis on Oct 24-26. We’ll be giving you a chance to work directly with Pillbox data and meet other like-minded developers and entrepreneurs!

We hope you can join us.