Modernizing Pigeon Medical's HIPAA-compliant messaging platform
Industry
Healthcare
Services
Product Discovery
Strategy
Design
Development
Tech used
Flutter / Dart
NodeJS
Riverpod
Firebase
AWS
Background
Pigeon is a HIPAA-compliant messaging and Telehealth platform designed for healthcare providers to communicate directly with patients via SMS and video chat. Initially aimed at a limited user base, the platform had been developed and managed by various entities over several years.
This fragmented development eventually led to considerable technical debt, issues with scalability, maintainability, and the overall user experience. As Pigeon Medical looked to expand its market reach, particularly to enterprise clients, these challenges became increasingly apparent and urgently needed addressing.
Pigeon Medical needed a comprehensive solution that not only resolved their existing problems but also provided technical expertise and a strategic vision for developing a modern, scalable, and more robust version of the platform, capable of meeting the evolving demands of the healthcare market and user expectations.
That’s where Singlemind came in.
Technology challenges hindering growth
The primary hurdles were the technical limitations of their existing platform, which, while functional, was not equipped to handle the scale and complexity required by larger healthcare organizations.
The project required a careful balance between maintaining service continuity for Pigeon’s current users while developing a more scalable, feature-rich, and compliant new version of the platform. It demanded a nuanced understanding of the existing system’s limitations, robust planning for the new system, and a seamless transition strategy, all while ensuring minimal disruption to current users and aligning with enterprise-level client expectations.
Project Goals & Objectives
- Support and Manage Existing Platform:
One of the primary objectives was to provide ongoing management and support for the existing Pigeon platform while the new version was being built. This involved addressing immediate operational needs, bug fixing, and ensuring the platform’s stability for current users. - Design and Build a New Platform:
The project aimed to design and construct a new, scalable version of the platform (V2 Platform). This new build was intended to take Pigeon Medical’s product offering to the next level, making it suitable for enterprise clients. It involved rethinking the platform’s architecture to ensure scalability, maintainability, and enhanced features. - Seamless Transition to V2 Platform:
The transition from the existing platform to the new V2 Platform was a crucial goal. This involved rolling out the V2 Platform to all current V1 user groups, ensuring a smooth and disruption-free migration. - HIPAA Compliance & Feature Enhancements:
Ensuring that the launch exercises and the platform itself were HIPAA-compliant was a priority. Alongside this, the project focused on refining features and fixing bugs to enhance overall platform performance and user experience.
Singlemind's Approach
Our approach was multi-faceted, combining strategic planning, technical expertise, and collaborative ideation. We initiated the project with an in-depth Discovery & Planning Phase, involving key stakeholders in workshops and discussions to align our goals and visions. This phase laid the foundation for the design and development work that followed.
Discovery
The project commenced with an in-depth Discovery phase, crucial for understanding the current state of Pigeon Medical’s platform and setting the direction for its overhaul. This phase involved detailed analysis and familiarization with the existing product, identifying the technical debt, and assessing the functionality, user personas, and technical requirements.
Key activities included alignment and discovery workshops with stakeholders, developing a creative brief, and creating user personas and scenarios. The outcome was a comprehensive roadmap for the product design and a clear understanding of the challenges and opportunities for the platform. A prioritized product backlog was created, outlining the core features and functions needed for the initial release.
Design
In the Design phase, the focus shifted to conceptualizing the new platform. This involved translating the insights from the Discovery phase into actionable design strategies.
Significant attention was placed on revamping the platform’s user interface to give it a more modern and appealing look. The design team undertook a thorough redesign of the UI, color palette, and iconography, infusing contemporary aesthetics and functionality into the platform.
The product dashboards and several other key areas of the platform were completely redesigned, ensuring they were not only visually appealing but also enhanced the overall user experience.
This redesign extended to the mobile applications for both iOS and Android platforms, ensuring consistency and a seamless user experience across all devices. The aim was to create an interface that was not just visually engaging but also intuitive and user-friendly, aligning with the latest trends and user expectations in the healthcare technology sector.
Development
The Development phase was where the plans and designs were brought to life. Using Flutter for cross-platform development, the team worked on building the new V2 Platform. This phase involved rigorous software engineering, adhering to best practices in coding, and implementing the planned features and functionalities. The development process was iterative, with continuous testing and quality assurance to ensure that each feature met the required standards and performed seamlessly across different devices.
The choice to use Flutter was driven by its unique advantages aligning with the project’s needs. Flutter’s ability to provide a single codebase for Web, iOS, and Android platforms was a significant factor, offering a streamlined development process and ensuring consistency across different platforms. This cross-platform capability meant faster development and easier maintenance, crucial for a project with a tight timeline and the need for regular updates.
Additionally, Flutter’s rich set of pre-designed widgets and its customizable UI toolkit allowed for creating an intuitive and responsive user interface, enhancing the overall user experience. Its performance advantages, owing to the Dart programming language and the Skia graphics engine, further solidified Flutter as the ideal choice for developing Pigeon Medical’s messaging platform, ensuring a smooth, native-like performance on both mobile and web platforms.
Delivery
The Delivery phase marked the culmination of the project, involving the rollout of the V2 Platform to users. This phase was characterized by careful planning to ensure a smooth transition from the old platform to the new one. Training and support were provided to current users to help them adapt to the new system.
Post-launch, the focus was on monitoring the platform’s performance, gathering user feedback, and making necessary adjustments to ensure that the platform continued to meet user needs and business objectives effectively.
Each phase of the project was executed with a clear focus on the end goal, transforming Pigeon Medical’s platform into a robust, scalable, and user-friendly solution, aligning with the evolving needs of the healthcare technology market.
Results
The result was a revitalized Pigeon messaging platform, now fully equipped to handle the complexities and scale demanded by enterprise-level healthcare providers. It marked a significant leap from the legacy version, offering enhanced features, improved performance, and, most importantly, the flexibility to scale as per market demands.
Conclusion
Pigeon Medical envisions a future where its platform is a leading tool in healthcare communication, bridging gaps between providers and patients with efficiency, security, and ease of use. Singlemind’s comprehensive approach not only resolved the immediate challenges but also paved the way for Pigeon Medical’s sustained growth and market expansion.