to Healthcare Solutions by JetRuby Agency

Healthcare Practice Management

Simplifying the work of doctors

The Team

2 Backend Engineers, 3 Frontend Engineers, Quality Assurance Engineer, Automation Quality Assurance Engineer, Project Manager

The Tech Stack

Ruby on Rails, NodeJS, ReactJS

The Timeline

January 2019 - currently active

The Client

The constant need to simplify and automate the processes that every employee got sick of became a huge deal. And a healthcare industry is not an exception, as it began to turn the innovation wheels actively. This time our client came from the USA with the request to implement something very peculiar.

He wanted to create a healthcare management platform that would allow a series of private hospitals to schedule their patients' appointments for free, with some additional advanced features at a premium. What was so unique about this application is the automation of essential processes that would decrease the amount of personnel needed to work with a patient's appointment scheduling process. Managing a significant portion of routine tasks with the client's product was destined to be super easy and beneficial for all users.

The Challenges

The business founder himself personally stated the essential aspect of this medical app. Since the central value and purpose of the application would be to set up various appointments with doctors and hospitals, the client asked for an Athena EMR integration. To break it down, this software is a cloud solution, created as a healthcare booking portal with lots of expert services, designed for private hospitals.

The application itself has to be appropriately managed, as there is lots of sensitive and confidential information. So one of the core requirements highlighted from our and the client's side was integrating and building an administrative panel. Not only that, but it also has to be integrated along with the Athena EMR.

As with any other application developed for the medical industry, a core and essential requirement would be to follow HIPAA regulations. Our project was no different. However, this time around is to be regulated with PHI (Patient Health Information) solid practice.

The last app aspect that is nonetheless important is the chat support for multiple team care members. A hospital app like this one should potentially have a support chat if there are any issues encountered both from the medical and technical side. Thus, there is a need for a secure messaging platform with a clinical care coordinator and care team.

Therefore, after understanding all of that, our team has dived into the active development phase.

The Implementation

First, we listened to the client's wishes and requirements and decided to conduct the Design and Discovery Phase. The reasoning is pretty simple, as the client had core business goals and a concrete development plan, the marketing part was missing. Branding, app UI/UX design concept, and the very first prototype. All of this had to be done explicitly before launching the main MVP phase. Reason? To avoid any unexpected milestones and move in the right development direction that the client had a concept.

As our team passed this phase and all of the uncertainties were cleared out, it was time to launch the MVP. The first thing that was put on the line is the integration of Athena EMR with its core backend. It provided the app with a dynamic and automated scheduling system. The core aspects that this app allowed the typical user to do were: to book various appointments by their type before clinic opening hours, collect all confidential patient information, and cancel the reservations with fees charged.

After we implemented the core list of functionalities, we started to focus on the administrative panel. Although this part of any platform or app may seem relatively easy to implement, we have approached it with carefulness in our case. Some of the core things that our team has implemented were appointment scheduling management, waitlist management, user management, and CMS for appointment types, descriptions, and scheduling information.

During the active development process of both the Athena EMR integration and the administrative platform, our team was also concerned about the HIPAA with PHI. We have set limited access and controls for the hospital facility members to restrict any potential leaks to sensitive information. To further regulate the patient's data access, we also added additional restrictions for transferring, removing, or re-using any electronic PHI. Finally, we implemented some policies for utilizing the workstations where the application is going to be used.

As with any other application targeted on a large market of some specific field, it requires a chat support functionality. However, apart from any typical app with a support team, this one is different. As per HIPAA policy, the security administrator must oversee the support chat, managing the sensitive information data flow. Next, we implemented HIPAA compliant document uploading, sending processes with the storage system. And, without a doubt, we have also added the task management and the team tagging. This was done to simplify transferring documents between different groups of people who will assist their inquiries.

Business Results

The Ankira project is currently running in more than six clinics in various American countries. More than 200 medical experts have registered themselves on this platform and are actively communicating with patients. Its current business model is working based on the paid membership for collecting medical institutions this app is currently connected to.

The application is frequently and heavily being tested by our expert QA team as new functionalities, such as video meetings with medical specialists, automated appointment reminders, and automated eligibility checks. The program itself is launched on hundreds of medical specialists' workstations, and it is still being distributed across other private clinics.

JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. - Michael C., Chief Executive Officer

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