Client – A Retail Hearing Aid Company – Operating hundreds of clinics across the US

Problem

In early 2020 our client was operating 200+ clinics nationwide with plans for continued expansion when the COVID-19 Pandemic shuttered their clinics. This left hundreds of employees with no work, and thousands of patients with little access to audiological care. 

With their brick-and-mortar clinics unable to operate, our client contacted us to explore the development of an audiology-specific telehealth that would enable their staff to continue to safely provide needed audiological care to their patient base.

Solution

Our team set to work brainstorming with our client and developing an audiology specific, state of the art (now patented) telehealth that featured:

• Appointment scheduling
• Patient intake
• Video conferencing
• a first of its kind internet-based audiometer
• Hearing aid and accessories purchasing
• Patient Self-assessment tool

The software presented unique UX requirements for two distinct user groups. 

On one side of a session sat the client’s audiologists and hearing aid experts who were thoroughly trained on how to use the software.  On the other side were patients, often not tech savvy, who would need a highly intuitive UI to avoid problems. 

This led to interesting feedback and issues during launch.  Each reported issue was evaluated to identify if (1) it was a bug that needed to be fixed or (2) if the issue was better resolved with more user constraints or better alerting and warnings.

Capabilities Demonstrated

• Web App Development
• .NET Development
• Business Process Improvement
• Custom 3^rd party software integration
• User Training
• Exception Handling and Alerting
• Cloud Integration

Overview

With the unprecedented environment caused by the pandemic, and the knowledge that the solution that was needed did not exist, many of the traditional steps we take with our clients such as software needs assessment, demo, scoping, etc., were not possible.  The solution needed to be developed as quickly as possible and would result in something that had not been done before. 

Our team and the client stakeholders worked at a feverish pace to develop an MVP (Minimally Viable Product) in three months.

We worked with:

• sound engineers,
• the client’s audiologists,
• the client’s UI\UX designers,
• and marketing teams

to develop an audiology-focused telehealth solution that now holds a US Patent.

The launch of the application in beta allowed the audiologists to gradually start meeting with patients who required assistance, and provide feedback to us on:

1. the functionality of the application
2. bugs, and
3. desired features. 

After launch, our team continued an Agile development approach to:

1.  patch bugs,
2. enhance the function set of the application, and
3. improve the application based on user feedback.