CodkaBukaanka
Investigative medical incident archive with public search
A trusted archive for documenting and searching verified medical incident records — built for hospitals and journalists who cannot rely on unverified social feeds.
Problem
Medical incident reporting sat between private hospital records and unverifiable social posts. Hospitals and journalists needed a trusted way to document, review, and search verified records — without turning the product into another rumor feed.
Business context
The product had to earn trust from two audiences at once: administrators who control what becomes public, and the public who need searchable, credible information. Publishing risk and data sensitivity shaped every product decision.
Research
Mapped core entities — hospitals, patients, doctors, medications — and the relationships between them. Prioritized search quality, evidence attachment, and a clear draft-to-published gate over social features that would erode trust.
Architecture
Monorepo with a Next.js frontend and Express REST API backed by PostgreSQL and Prisma. JWT-authenticated admin surfaces control drafting and publishing. Evidence uploads attach to incident records. Global search indexes entities for public discovery while unpublished drafts remain private.
Tech stack
Next.js · React · TypeScript · Express · PostgreSQL · Prisma
Key features
- Public global search across hospitals, patients, doctors, and medications
- Entity profile pages with related incident context
- Evidence upload pipeline for supporting documentation
- JWT admin authentication with draft-to-published workflow
- Admin-controlled publishing to protect unverified records
Engineering challenges
- Keeping public search useful without leaking unpublished drafts
- Modeling related medical entities without creating brittle joins
- Making the admin publishing path safe under time pressure
Tradeoffs
- Chose a dedicated Express API over a BaaS for clearer auth and publishing boundaries
- Favored structured entity search over free-form social discussion
- Accepted admin review latency in exchange for public trust
Results
- Live platform at codkabukaanka.com
- Admin-controlled publishing with public search across core entities
- Production workflow from draft submission through verified publication
Lessons learned
- Trust products are workflow products — the publish gate matters more than the landing page
- Entity modeling early prevents search from becoming a dump of unstructured text
- Admin UX is part of product quality when humans are the verification layer
Performance
Server-rendered public pages with API-backed search. Image and evidence assets served separately from query paths so browsing stays responsive while uploads remain durable.
Future improvements
- Richer search filters and saved queries for journalists
- Audit logging for every publish and unpublish action
- Hardened media scanning and retention policies
