The following post is about how I developed an application named Allergy Alert, utilizing Python and various API’s, that aims to reduce the amount of medical cases related to food allergies.
The Problem – How Do I Know If I Am Allergic to This Food?
Hospitals often lack in food allergy awareness and sometimes dangerous food mistakes are made that ultimately harm their patients. Don’t believe me? Consider this: In a review of 285 dietary events that occurred at Pennsylvania hospitals from 2009 to 2014, the majority, 63.5 percent, involved a patient getting an item on a tray that they were allergic to (Allergic Living, 2018).
Read more about these issues here: AllericLiving
Patient Food Allergy Reconciliation – My Solution
Creating an application that will pull the food allergy list directly from a patient’s chart and reconcile it to the ingredients listed in the proposed meal for the patient. Ideally, this application will run and then display on an overhead screen in the kitchen, allowing Chef to clearly see if there is match between food ingredient and patient allergy
The patient’s allergy list is pulled from their medical record (e.g. athenahealth EHR).
The food ingredient list will be pulled from the USDA Food Composition Database.
About This Demonstration
In this demo, you also have the allergies of a random test patient named Dave. On Dave’s health record he is allergic to: bee pollen, gluten, peanuts, strawberry. The results will show whether or not you, or Dave in this case, are allergic to any of the ingredients listed in the food you decide to search.
