Archive notice

Thank you to everyone who followed Medcopia. Due to a combination of factors, I have chosen to archive this project. Interest in email alerts has waned, and there is no longer an easy way to send emails for free now that Sendgrid has eliminated their free tier. Additionally, the ASHP website recently implemented Cloudflare protection, making it harder to get drug shortage data programmatically. I am working on new ways to get this data and to incorporate it into SageRx.

Medcopia

Medcopia is a hosted subscription service that tracks changes to the ASHP drug shortages list and sends email alerts to subscribers whenever changes are detected.

Download

You can download Medcopia by cloning the Github respository:

git clone https://github.com/eddie-cosma/medcopia.git

Configure

The default configuration is stored as a dict in the medcopia/config/__init__.py file. Configuration should be customized further by setting environment variables to override the default values.

Warning

Make sure to replace the SECRET_KEY with a generated value. In python, this can be done, for example, using:

import secrets
secrets.token_urlsafe(16)

Example configuration:

SECRET_KEY=prod
SERVER_NAME=localhost:5000
PREFERRED_URL_SCHEME=https
SQLALCHEMY_TRACK_MODIFICATIONS=False
MAIL_DEFAULT_SENDER=alert@example.com
MAIL_ALERT_TEMPLATE=d-sendgrid_alert_template_id
MAIL_CONFIRM_TEMPLATE=d-sendgrid_confirm_template_id
MAIL_DEFAULT_ASM_GROUP=12345
RECAPTCHA_SITE_KEY=your_recaptcha_site_key
RECAPTCHA_SECRET_KEY=your_recaptcha_secret_key
SENDGRID_API_KEY=your_sendgrid_api_key

Testing configuration

When testing, set the environment variable TESTING=True. This prevents emails from being sent, and allows reCAPTCHA to be bypassed.

Install with Docker (recommended)

1. Create a .env file in the project root that contains the environment variables used to configure the application.

2. Create a uwsgi user (e.g., sudo useradd -M -s /sbin/false -U uwsgi)

3. Take note of the UID and GID of the user you just created. You can find them using the id command:

   id -u uwsgi  # UID
   id -g uwsgi  # GID
   

4. Add the UID and GID to your .env file:

   UID=(the uwsgi UID)
   GID=(the uwsgi GID)
   

5. Create an instance directory in the project root and ensure it is owned by uwsgi (sudo chown -R uwsgi:uwsgi instance)

6. Run docker compose up

Install manually

We recommend setting up a virtual environment before downloading the required dependencies using pip:

cd medcopia
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

We also recommend installing uwsgi as a WSGI service and nginx as a reverse proxy to run the web portion of Medcopia:

pip install uwsgi
sudo apt install nginx

Medcopia is composed of two components that require installation:

1. A Flask web service called signup that displays the website and allows users to subscribe to email alerts.
2. A module, scraper, that scrapes the ASHP shortages list and checks for any changes whenever run. This should be run once a day.

signup web service

The web service should be configured to run on a WSGI. For example, if using uwsgi, you can save a config.ini file to the medcopia root directory:

[uwsgi]
module = signup

master = true
processes = 5

socket = /tmp/signup.sock
chmod-socket = 666
vacuum = true

die-on-term = true

Warning

Do not use the existing uwsgi.ini file. It is meant for Docker-based deployments only.:

This configuration can then be run:

uwsgi --ini config.ini

Once the WSGI service is running, a reverse proxy like nginx can be configured to point to the WSGI socket, allowing web access:

# /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen [::]:80 default_server;

    listen 443 ssl default_server;
    listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;

    # Substitute your own SSL certificates
    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/your_ssl_certificate.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/your_ssl_certificate_key.pem;

    location / { try_files $uri @signup; }
    location @signup {
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_param HTTP_HOST $server_name;
        uwsgi_pass unix:/tmp/signup.sock;
    }

    # Substitute your own server name
    server_name example.com;
}

Restart nginx after saving your configuration:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

You can use systemd to run this config automatically on system start. DigitalOcean has a fantastic tutorial giving more detail on this setup.

scraper

scraper is run as a module from the medcopia root directory:

set -a
source /path/to/.env
set +a

export PYTHONPATH=/path/to/medcopia
python3 -m scraper

This script should be run once a day. The easiest way to do this automatically is by using cron. For example, place the previous commands in a scraper.sh file in the medcopia/instance folder. Edit the crontab file using crontab -e and add the following to automatically run the script every day at 16:30:

30 16 * * * /path/to/medcopia/instance/scraper.sh >> /path/to/medcopia/instance/scraper.log 2>&1

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

License

This software is licensed under the GPL 3.0 license.

Disclaimer

This service is not affiliated, associated, authorized, or endorsed by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists or the University of Utah Drug Information Service. All names and brands are properties of their respective owners.