CASE STUDY. Varian ARIA Offering oncologists better tools to help patients

Transcription

1 CASE STUDY Varian ARIA Offering oncologists better tools to help patients

2 When ipads were first gaining popularity in 2010, Varian Medical, a leader in oncology medical devices, had a hunch that mobile applications could revolutionize care delivery for cancer patients. They envisioned oncologists having fingertip access to patient records, scheduled appointments, diagnostic images, and more as they moved through their day. Varian ARIA Offering oncologists better tools to help patients 2

3 Introduction Mobile access to all the information they needed would facilitate impromptu consultation with other experts, and allow more informative meetings with patients. We wanted to see whether we could develop a mobile device app that would help improve workflows in oncology clinics, explains Erwin Nell, Senior Manager of User Experience at Varian. We could see the potential of a mobile application and were getting questions from users about whether we planned to create something for a mobile device. To try this idea out, they wanted to showcase a prototype Electronic Medical Records application for the ipad at an upcoming tradeshow. But not only was the show three months away, they had no experience writing software for a mobile device in fact, virtually no one did at the time. With their developers already busy on other projects, there was no time to learn either. Armed only with some preliminary design concepts, Varian went looking for outside resources to get the project done. But the options were few most development shops were just that outsourced developers who work from a client design. What Varian needed was assistance designing a state-of-the-art mobile app, not just writing it. So when they discovered Macadamian, it was a perfect fit. More than a software company, Macadamian stays at the leading edge of new technologies, mastering platforms, frameworks, languages, and UI metaphors as they emerge so they can steward a project from conception right through development and deployment. User Experience Design With this feedback in hand, they launched a series of ideation sessions with Varian, and collaboratively produced a new design that was more useful and usable. Macadamian follows the same user research practices that we do so it was very Varian ARIA Offering oncologists better tools to help patients 3

4 easy to communicate with them and get them up to speed on what we were looking to do, says Nell. They understood immediately what we were looking for. Mobile Software Prototyping Macadamian follows the same user research practices that we do so it was very easy to communicate with them and get them up to speed on what we were looking to do. They understood immediately what we were looking for. While the ipad was the first viable tablet to market, Varian knew there would soon be others, and they wanted to keep their options open. This meant finding the right balance between exploiting the hardware features of the ipad and the portability of HTML5, another emerging technology. Macadamian worked on the prototype using a combination of new cross-platform technologies such as Sencha Touch and PhoneGap. PhoneGap s native plug-in capabilities gave them direct access to the ipad s hardware. Combined with Sencha Touch they built a JavaScript/HTML5 interface with some specialized caching, image handling and encryption systems built on the native ios hardware. This gave them the right balance between portability and performance. Ready just in time, Varian won highest marks in their category for their mobile prototype at the ASTRO oncology trade show. Thanks to Macadamian, we were able to put the application in the hands of oncologists that visit our booth and gather their feedback, recalls Nell. Erwin Nell, Sr. Manager UX, Varian Commercializing a Mobile EMR The successful tradeshow not only validated Varian s concept, it gave them the momentum to budget for and build a commercial version of the oncology app, which Macadamian built over six months in collaboration with Varian s internal development team. Part of this effort was connecting an innovative mobile front-end to multiple source back-ends from their Medical Oncology and Radiation Oncology databases via a new API layer. Varian ARIA Offering oncologists better tools to help patients 4

5 Innovative Mobile Software Architecture The pioneering commercial success of Varian ARIA for ipad one of the first apps to show off the potential of mobile in health care, earned a lot of industry attention. Macadamian, Varian, and Sencha hosted a joint webinar to discuss the innovative combination of mobile cross-platform frameworks used on the project that enabled the right user experience, scalability, performance, and multi-platform support. Macadamian was also invited to deliver a session on the topic at SenchaCon, an industry conference for mobile developers. An Application That Makes a Difference The final product, Varian ARIA for ipad, is actively used today, and the code is based on cross-platform mobile frameworks that will allow Varian to port the product to other platforms such as Android and Windows 8. It gives oncologists simple, mobile access to radiation, medical, and surgical oncology information in a complete, oncology-specific EMR that lets them manage the patient s entire journey from initial diagnosis through post-treatment follow-up, enabling the best possible care. Varian ARIA Offering oncologists better tools to help patients 5

6 Thank you. Macadamian is a full service software design and development firm. From product ideation to market ready and everything in between, we provide a complete range of usability, design and engineering services. From big consumer brands to enterprise, telecom, and healthcare; our solutions are founded in design that thinks of the customer first while leveraging the cloud, Big Data, and Internet of Things to deliver context-aware and adaptive experiences.. The result? Engaging software solutions that have a direct impact on the bottom line. Visit.com Call