32
registered hospitals on Medlinx
600+
registered users
$100,000
raised in seed
$250,000
grants
Featured in
The journey of Medlinx
Dr. Ali Esmail from Koronis Health, Canada was concerned that EMR solutions were not making patient care any better in hospitals. In fact, these were largely built for legal documentation & billing. He wanted to better equip physicians with patient data and unchain care teams from the burden of documentation and vague communication channels to achieve better patient care.
How can we replace the old pen-and-paper methods of clinical management and sync teams on a smart app?
In order to find solid answers to this problem, we had to think from the point of view of Canadian users. We had to build a customized coordinated care platform that would combine various user demographics of hospital staff, physicians, care teams and patients yet would NOT interfere into each other’s space. We did surveys, market research, competitor analysis along with speaking with Dr. Esmail who had a clear product strategy. This process helped us draft user stories important for MVP development. These profiles furthered our design strategy, profiles & personas, scenarios, task flows and information architecture.
Client's challenges & our solutions
Most developers understand boxy EMR apps, we don’t want those.
This will be a completely custom coordinated care solution not just an application.
It’s hard to make people understand that collaborative platforms can be fun.
A social networking bent to the whole application can make it easy and fun to use.
Developers may end up creating a complicated software that only doctors understand.
Let’s create a clinical coordinated care solution through web and mobile applications that sync.
We need a solution as per our hospital requirements and legal compliances.
We will provide you HIPAA compliant customized coordinated care solution designed for your needs.
I want my chain of hospitals/clinics to sync effortlessly, comply with legal norms and ensure excellent patient care.
I want to have an easy coordination with my doctors and care team even after I am discharged from the hospital.
I want to know exactly what’s happening where in the hospital for better administration and management.
I want to care for my patients personally remotely and focus less on tracking of dates, appointment, coordination etc.
I want to have easy access to most relevant developments in the departments in the entire chain of hospitals or within the care teams.
I want to really make my patients feel comfortable and informed for their speedy recovery and post recovery care.
Team Vinfotech soon figured out that we were building not only a collaborative platform but a coordinated care solution that would be founded on trust and mutual sharing of information. We ensured that we adhered to security & privacy healthcare policies in U.S and Canada including HIPAA & PIPEDA while building the web, Android and iPhone applications.
Market Research
During our market research we validated Dr. Esmail’s concern that EMR solutions were only addressing legal documentation & billing and failing to improve patient care. Outdated communications cost hospitals $5.1 billion per year while more than 70,000 deaths per year were due to poor communications. It was time for a major disruption through a revolutionary software.
Engaging with Users
Since our user demographic was in Canada, we conducted various surveys collecting views of users in text and videos. We interacted with Canadian doctors, surgeons, resident doctors, medical students, support team, patients, relatives, coordinators and the likes. We sampled the profiles and shortlisted the ones that would help make the app robust.
Business Assessment Document
We prepared a comprehensive document detailing various needs of the parties involved that need to be collaborated through the application.
Creative Workshop
Team Vinfotech conducted a workshop with Dr. Esmail who shared with us the challenges of a physician in managing several patients and their data. We proposed to build various scenarios that helped him to see the design language in building the application. We made sure that the app was HIPAA & PIPEDA compliant apart from having EMR integration and HL7 feeds.
Wireframing
Our ultimate users were caregivers and care receivers in the medical domain. We presented eight wireframes and allowed Dr. Esmail to ponder, mix and match and choose functionality that he felt he needed most as a physician.
User Interface Design
Our user demographic spanned across critical care staff, doctors and surgeons, care team staff like nurses, ward boys, physiotherapists; hospital admin staff, patients and their family. We planned a design that would show relevant information to the people concerned. This means that only login authorized member could view and interact with the data.
Front-end Development
Our working prototype accommodated dealing with real life situations from emergency to day-to-day appointment management, general admin duties, flow of relevant information, patient’s treatment within the hospital, discharge plans and post recovery care and so on.
Development
Once the client approved the design, our developers got busy with building a fully customized coordinated care web and mobile collaboration platform that would allow care teams and physicians to access the information they needed quickly and easily. Medlinx was built to achieve interoperability with different HIT systems and would use state-of-the-art testing strategies and collaboration with third parties.
Testing
We involved users once again for validating our design, UX as well as the efficiency of the application. We accommodated their feedback points first in the beta and then in the final version.
