Patient-facing apps

Leveraging UX/UI design and next-generation software engineering to build better patient facing apps

A team of software engineers, UX/UI designers, data architects, risk managers and cyber experts have created the first app that connects to a smart medical device to improve the patients’ digital experience.

A challenge that every patient and relative can relate to, is maintaining a regular schedule when taking medicine. Whether that medicine is administered as pills or through injections, patients must be ultra-diligent in following the prescribed process. Something as simple as manually logging every intake is both time-consuming and it comes with the risk of human error. And there is little room for that. Missing or inconsistently administering doses often leads to negative health outcomes, while also presenting increased difficulties for the healthcare practitioner who monitors the patient. 

Sometimes, depending on the severity of the disease, patients and families also need to factor in frequent doctor’s appointments, hospital visits, and in some circumstances, dietary changes, when they adapt to living a life with a chronic disease. Was there a way technology could be applied to improve the overall patient experience?

To address the challenge, a diverse team of Novo Nordisk employees, with a range of digital and scientific disciplines including software engineering, UX/UI design, data analytics, risk management and cyber security, set out to develop a digital solution to support patients in maintaining regular schedule and improving the overall patient experience. 

The aim was to create an app capable of receiving data from smart medical devices and using that data to support patients, families and HCPs with information and scheduling. Crucially, it needed to be engineered to operate in conjunction with an external advanced medical device. Aside from the engineering challenges presented by this, privacy and security were key factors. Connecting to a third-party medical device while also adhering to strict medical regulations, had never been done before.

After spending almost a year in development, the result was a patient facing app for smart mobile devices. It gives parents and caregivers access to automatic injection and medicine logs, clear treatment schedules, notifications and reminders. By keeping all the data and tasks in one place, the app automates the most time-consuming parts. This provides families and patients with greater visibility relating to the patient’s health, and it helps with creating routines as well. The app comes with clever UX design features, such as intensifying the screen colour the closer treatment time comes. 

The product was built using SwiftUI, Apple’s standard development framework, ensuring Apple iOS guidelines were followed closely. Multilingual capabilities were built in using automatic translation tools to streamline the app for launch in multiple countries. Focus groups were conducted involving both non-users and patients to gain real-world user feedback – feature by feature. In this way, the team were able to build an understanding of the needs of the end-users.  

The biggest challenge came from the devices communicating. Because they were working with a third-party medical device, there were software and engineering challenges from the start. The team had to first work out how to integrate with the third-party device. The communications needed to be discovered for the first time, a software engineering problem that crossed into cyber risk security as well as cloud computing.

In overcoming all these challenges, and navigating the minefield of medical regulations, the project marked a pivotal milestone for the team – it became the first pharmaceutical initiative to connect with a medical device via an app.

The app is now pending certification and undergoing pilot programmes in selected countries.

But that’s just the beginning – in Novo Nordisk, there are currently dozens of teams all around the world working to find innovative digital solutions to a range of health conditions using this same model. So, while this app is just the start, there’s every chance that the learnings and opportunities can help improve the patient experience for even more people.