MVP Development for a Mobile eHealth Solution

Challenge

Although the project did not have direct competitors in its home country yet, the eHealth market is growing at a rapid pace; so, the earlier a new solution emerges, the more likely it is to launch successfully. This is why, after many deliberations with the client, we decided to start with developing an MVP first and then scale it to a full-fledged solution.

The MVP in question is a mobile application for patients to store, share, and monitor their health data in a convenient way. Since the application was intended to be used by a wide range of users of different age groups and technical proficiency, it was important to make the product user-friendly and stable. Moreover, because eHealth products deal with the most sensitive patient data, making the application secure was also a priority. Finally, an integral part of the project was to make the product compliant with the necessary industry standards, including HL7, HIPAA, and GDPR.

Solutions

For the MVP stage of the project, QArea was tasked with developing applications for iOS and Android platforms with a matching back-end solution for storing and processing data. To better accommodate the client’s business needs, we delivered the work in several iterations, with each iteration adding new functionality and improving the user experience offered by the application. The features in the final MVP version included:

• User registration
• User login using two-factor authentication
• Profile creation with fields like age, gender, physical parameters, and pre-existing conditions
• Adding dependents (elderly relatives or children) to the profile
• Uploading medical documents, test results, clinical charts, and more
• Transferring documents from email and messengers
• Sharing uploaded documents with healthcare providers
• QR code generation for emergency access to health records
• Setting up notifications to take medication or perform medical procedures
• Monitoring health and fitness parameters, including weight and activity levels

The choice of technologies for this project stemmed from the original product requirements. To make the application lightweight and scalable for future growth, we used Node.js for the back-end part. The front-end part of the applications for both Android and iOS was developed using React Native, which offers cross-platform compatibility and outstanding usability. We used Odoo as the product’s ERP system. Finally, we used AWS Step Functions to create a serverless project architecture that supports lambda functions for the ultimate security of the data stored in the application. 

After completing the development part of the project, we used manual testing techniques to check the product’s functionality, usability, compatibility with different Android and iOS versions and screen sizes, correct localization, and other essential features.

The team working on the project consisted of:

• Business Analyst
• UI/UX Designer
• Solution Architect
• Front-end Developer
• Back-end Developer
• Manual QA Engineer

Throughout the project, we maintained close communication with the client’s team. Because of the basics of MVP development and the fast-paced nature of the eHealth market, the client sometimes requested last-minute changes and our team made sure to dynamically introduce the changes to the product.