🏥 CareConnect Suite

A full-stack Healthcare Management System built on the MERN-style architecture — connecting patients, doctors, and admins on a single secure platform.

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📖 Overview

CareConnect Suite streamlines appointment booking, doctor management, and patient records through a role-based access system. Patients can register and book appointments, doctors manage their schedules and patients, and admins oversee the entire system from a dedicated dashboard.

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✨ Features

• 🔐 JWT-based Authentication — secure signup/login with role management
• 👥 Role-Based Access Control — separate flows for admin, doctor, and patient
• 🩺 Doctor Management — admins can onboard doctors directly from the dashboard
• 📅 Appointment System — patients can book, view, and manage appointments
• 📂 File Uploads — local disk storage via Multer (reports, profile pictures, etc.)
• 🏢 Department Seeding — pre-configured hospital departments via seed script
• ⚡ Modern Frontend — built with Next.js, React & TypeScript for speed and type safety
• 🌐 RESTful API — clean Express-based backend architecture

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	Next.js, React, TypeScript
Backend	Node.js, Express.js
Database	MongoDB
Auth	JWT (JSON Web Tokens)
File Storage	Multer (local disk)
Dev Tools	Nodemon, dotenv

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📁 Project Structure

careconnect-suite/
├── src/                  # Frontend application (Next.js + React + TS)
├── backend/              # Express API server
│   ├── uploads/          # Multer file storage
│   ├── .env.example      # Backend environment template
│   └── ...
├── .env                  # Frontend environment variables
└── README.md

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+ recommended)
• MongoDB (local instance or MongoDB Atlas URI)
• npm

1️⃣ Backend Setup

cd backend
npm install
cp .env.example .env

Update backend/.env with the following:

Variable	Description
MONGO_URI	Your MongoDB connection string
JWT_SECRET	Any secure random secret string
CLIENT_URL	Allowed frontend origins (default includes https://careconnectff.netlify.app, the Netlify preview URL, and local dev URLs)
SEED_ADMIN_EMAIL	(optional) Default admin email
SEED_ADMIN_PASSWORD	(optional) Default admin password
SEED_ADMIN_NAME	(optional) Default admin name

Run the backend:

npm run dev

2️⃣ Frontend Setup

From the project root:

npm install

Ensure your root .env contains:

NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL="https://hospital-appointment-booking-web.onrender.com/api"

Run the frontend:

npm run dev

The Next.js dev server runs by default on http://localhost:8080.

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🧰 Useful Commands

From project root:

Command	Description
npm run dev	Start frontend dev server
npm run dev:backend	Start backend dev server
npm run build	Create frontend production build

From backend/:

Command	Description
npm run dev	Start backend with nodemon (auto-restart)
npm run seed	Seed default departments + optional admin account

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🔑 Auth & Roles

• Patient — Self-signup available from the UI; can book & manage appointments.
• Doctor — Account created only by an Admin via Admin → Doctors.
• Admin — Full system access; manages doctors, departments, and appointments.
• All protected routes/pages are guarded based on role (admin, doctor, patient).

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🗺️ Roadmap (Suggested Next Steps)

• Email/SMS appointment reminders
• Doctor availability calendar UI
• Patient medical history timeline
• Cloud file storage (S3/Cloudinary) instead of local disk
• Dockerize backend + frontend for easier deployment

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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🙋 Support

For issues or contributions, please open an issue in the repository or reach out to the maintainer directly.