When Amaan Rumi’s business incubator team at Westlake High School came up with the idea to create an app to help people manage their medications, track competing drugs, patient allergies, and more, he thought of his grandmother. I remembered.
“My first thought was what had happened to my grandmother. was,” he said. “I thought this was a way to prevent people like Grandma from being readmitted. It’s actually a very big problem.”
A team of 5 spent a year putting together a business plan and winning as part of the Business Incubator class. In May, he won $15,000 in a school pitch competition. A few months later, in July, the team was selected to compete in the national competition, which they also won.
Called PharmAssist, the app has a simple goal: to help patients take their medications more safely.
Westlake student Megan Swett said: “This platform is a place where you can communicate with your loved ones. I can do it.”
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According to student Andrew Depew, many other apps have similar functionality. What makes PharmAssist different is that he brings all these aspects together in one place.
The team won $10,000 at the Nationals and had to find an investment to justify the funding. The group has been working on business all summer and plans to continue spending hours during their senior year on Business at Westlake as part of his accelerator course.
Your app’s business model includes several revenue stream options. Patients can sign up directly and pay $5 per month for the service. Hospitals can sign people up to avoid fees a Medicare patient pays when readmitted within her 30 days, and businesses can pay. Advertise in your app.
The next step is to start building and testing the app. This will probably take months. The group plans to contact clinics such as Baylor-Scott and White to work with them as part of the testing process. says. This is especially true for apps that deal with something as sensitive as healthcare.
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Students said they were excited to work on projects that help people.
“Whenever we first thought of this, I knew I was really honing it,” said budding senior Mason Miller. I know it’s something that makes sense and something that I can be passionate about.”
Team member Parker Steen, who transferred to Westlake last year and said his old school didn’t have a similar program, was thrilled to get the chance to join the business incubator.
“I saw this as an opportunity to make this more than just a class and actually turn it into a business. We believe we can get there.”