iOS Telemedicine App for a Mental Health Startup Delivered in 4 Months
Customer
The Customer is a promising US startup launched by a team of experienced mental health professionals.
Challenge
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Customer spotted a market niche for online on-demand mental health care services.
Based on their practical experience in the field, the Customer wanted to launch an Uber-like telemedicine application to connect people experiencing anxiety, depression, crises, etc. with mental health practitioners. The application was to support the patients on their journey to mental health improvement: help them track their emotions, daily mood changes, as well as discover self-help tools and tips approved by the medical professionals.
The Customer decided to create a native iOS mobile app, and they were looking for an experienced healthcare mobile development team to deliver an MVP within 4-6 months.
Solution
Impressed with ScienceSoft’s iOS development expertise and healthcare IT experience since 2005, the Customer chose ScienceSoft as a tech partner to take charge of HIPAA-compliant development of a mobile application for mental health.
ScienceSoft assembled a project team comprising a project manager, a lead business analyst, 2 senior iOS developers, 2 senior PHP developers, and a senior QA engineer. ScienceSoft’s team carefully analyzed the Customer’s startup idea and designed the future mental health solution. ScienceSoft split the project into 4-week iterations and delivered an MVP of the app with the following functionality:
Appointment scheduling
- Initial patient survey to help identify the patient’s needs and concerns. Based on the survey results, the app provides a list of best-suited mental health specialists who can help deal with the described issues.
- Selection of a mental health professional from the list suggested by the app. The patient can view the photo, job title, education, experience, competency area, location, pay rate, patient reviews of a mental health specialist to find the one that suits them best.
- Urgent help for unauthorized users (using Need to Talk Now button). The patient is connected with an available mental health specialist that accepts the emergency help request.
Patient-therapist communication
- Online therapy sessions to discuss patients’ concerns using in-app video calls. The session with the therapist may be immediate or scheduled. After each session, the patient can rate the provided services and leave the feedback on the therapist’s services in the app. If the session was successful and the patient wants to continue working with the specialist, they can add the therapist to favorites and reach out to them again.
- Instant messaging. The patient and the therapist can exchange text messages, images, and links.
Mental health self-management (for patients)
- Mental health journal. To better cope with their emotions, the patient can daily log their mood and create private journal entries.
- Personalized self-help tools. Based on the analysis of the patient’s mental health log, they can access a list of curated articles or videos related to their specific issues.
- Notifications on the upcoming therapy sessions.
Payment module
- In-app payment gateway (working with a credit card, Apple Pay) for automated billing according to the pay rate of a mental health specialist.
The project team used PHP to build the back end of the mental health app MVP and MongoDB and MySQL for databases. When developing the app, ScienceSoft implemented PHI protection measures required by HIPAA regulation (e.g., end-to-end PHI encryption, multi-factor user authentication).
Results
The Customer received a fully functional MVP of their iOS mental health application within 4 months. To ease the future evolution of the software, ScienceSoft provided detailed and clear documentation on the mental health app MVP.
Satisfied with the delivered functionality, the Customer launched the MVP to the market to gather feedback from a focus group of patients and mental health professionals.
Technologies and Tools
PHP, WebRTC, WebSocket, iOS, MongoDB, MySQL.
