Ambulance Service Mobile Intranet and Medical Record App

Project Background

Our client, a provider of commercial ambulance services in the U.S., asked Sibers to develop a mobile version of their Intranet website. The client wanted to provide their on-the-move paramedics with a way to access critical information from their mobile devices.

After completing the initial project, Sibers developed several more applications to better serve the client’s needs.

Solution

The existing Intranet portal, built for desktop, was too heavy to be displayed on mobile devices. Pages were loading too slowly, and it was impractical to read anything on the mobile device’s small screen. Also, rebuilding the website from scratch wasn’t an option: the budget was limited and time was of the essence.

Luckily, the existing system was architecturally well-built, with clear divisions between back-end (APIs, business logic and application service layers) and front-end (presentation layer). Since the data and logic could stay untouched, it was simply a matter of devising a new presentation layer.

The client considered two options: building a native iPhone application, or designing a mobile website. Initially, they thought a native iOS application was the right choice, since the majority of their paramedics were iPhone users. However, some were not, and so the second option gained traction. Also, the second approach gave Sibers the opportunity to reuse some old code, further reducing delivery time and cost. In the end, we used a jQuery UI to develop a mobile version of the website, which loads fast and is simple to use.

The second task Sibers was entrusted with was to create an updated analogue to a medical, vision and dental records iPhone application. The application enables rapid personal and family medical data capturing: insurance information, allergies, diagnoses, immunizations, procedures, tests, hospital/office visits, and prescriptions. The app also allows for scheduling medication and appointments, and medical expense tracking. The app, which is free for patients, is mostly geared towards ambulance specialists, and provides them with access to the patient’s health-related data in case of emergency.

Our third task was to build a one-page web-based system for ordering and scheduling non-emergency medical transportation for authorized partners, such as insurance companies, hospitals and nursing homes.

Tech highlights

• ASP.NET MVC
• .NET
• jQuery Mobile
• 51Degrees+wurfl
• Objective-C
• UIKit
• Core Data
• SQLite
• Accelerate Framework
• Event Kit
• Security Framework
• Foundation Framework
• System Configuration Framework
• Message UI Framework
• Quartz Core Framework
• Core Graphics Framework

Results

The customer has its own in-house development team of .NET programmers, but since they were busy with other projects, the client needed part-time staff to supplement their internal resources. After working with Sibers, the client said that we were 2x more effective and 4x cheaper than any outsourcing partner they had previously tried in the U.S.

Paramedics gained reliable Intranet access from their mobile devices, and patients received a branded, easy-to-use, time-saving application for their health management. The end-result for the client was increased customer loyalty, higher employee satisfaction, and financial security for the business’s non-emergency transportation branch.