Project Overview
Imagine sitting in a hospital waiting room, filling out the same information on multiple paper forms, waiting for a secretary to manually input your data into an aging system. This was the daily reality for Vivalto's patients before our intervention.
As lead developer, I spearheaded an ambitious project aimed at radically transforming the pre-operative administrative experience for patients. Our mission? To bring the patient journey into the digital age with a human-centered approach, while optimizing workflows for medical staff.
Duration: 4 months of intensive development across three integrated projects
The Triple Challenge
The project revolved around three complementary pillars, forming a cohesive digital ecosystem:
1. Redesign of the Patient Web Application
Transforming an administrative form into a seamless user experience
The old interface resembled a tax form - intimidating and confusing. We transformed it into an intuitive experience that naturally guides patients through each step, significantly reducing input time and errors.
2. Creation of Self-Service Check-in Kiosks
Empowering patients from the moment they arrive
These kiosks represented much more than just touchscreens. We designed a complete system integrating:
- Health insurance card readers for automatic patient data retrieval
- Interface adapted for users of all ages and technical abilities
- Ticket printing with queue numbers and estimated wait times
- Accessibility features (adjustable height, high contrast)
3. Backoffice Application for Medical Secretaries
Optimizing behind-the-scenes administrative management
This application represented the operational heart of the system, allowing secretaries to:
- View patient flow in real-time
- Instantly access complete patient files
- Quickly identify missing information
- Efficiently orchestrate personalized patient journeys
Technical Architecture: Simplicity and Robustness
For this project, I opted for an architecture prioritizing maintainability and scalability:
- Frontend: Angular for all interfaces, with a shared component library across the three applications
- Backend: REST API in Node.js, structured around business domains
- Database: PostgreSQL with a relational model optimized for frequent queries
- Infrastructure: AWS deployment with auto-scaling to handle peak loads
This modular architecture allowed us to maintain visual and functional consistency while adapting each application to its specific context.
Challenges and Solutions
Hardware Integration Challenge
The touchscreen kiosks represented a genuine technical puzzle. Getting a modern web application to communicate with health insurance card readers and thermal printers required creative solutions.
Solution: We developed a local Windows service that served as a bridge between our Angular application and the devices, communicating via WebSockets. This approach allowed us to maintain the web architecture while seamlessly integrating specialized hardware.
Balancing Security with User Experience
Medical data demands the highest level of security, but constraints like GDPR and medical regulations couldn't compromise the user experience.
Solution: We implemented a contextual authentication system that adapts its requirements based on the sensitivity of the data being accessed and the context of use, with short sessions for public kiosks and more persistent connections for authenticated medical staff.
Resistance to Change
As with any digital transformation project, human resistance to change represented a major obstacle, particularly among administrative staff accustomed to their paper processes.
Solution: I personally led onboarding workshops where I presented the system not as a replacement, but as a digital assistant freeing up time for human patient support. This approach transformed skeptics into project ambassadors.
Leadership and Collaboration
As lead developer, my role extended far beyond writing code. I:
- Mentored a team of 5 developers, emphasizing knowledge sharing and constructive code reviews
- Established a bridge between technical and medical teams, translating clinical needs into technical specifications
- Implemented an agile methodology adapted to the hospital context, with short cycles allowing rapid integration of feedback from actual users
Results and Impact
The success of this project was measured both in numbers and user satisfaction:
- 68% reduction in average patient registration time
- 42% decrease in administrative errors
- 12,000 sheets of paper saved per month across all facilities
- Patient satisfaction score increased from 3.2/10 to 8.7/10 regarding the administrative process
Beyond the numbers, the most significant change was observed in the atmosphere of waiting rooms: less stress, more time for staff to answer important medical questions rather than managing forms.
Lessons Learned
This project profoundly impacted me in several ways:
- The importance of usage context: The same functionality needs to be rethought differently depending on whether it's for a stressed patient at a kiosk or a medical secretary at their workstation.
- The value of continuous learning: I had to quickly familiarize myself with medical standards and constraints specific to the hospital sector, which enriched my vision of software design.
- The power of simplicity: The most elegant solutions are often the simplest. This maxim guided our architecture and user experience choices.
Personal Reflection
This project perfectly represents my development philosophy: creating technological solutions that, far from dehumanizing services, free up time for more quality human interactions. Technology isn't an end in itself, but a means to improve the human experience.
By transforming a tedious administrative process into a smooth and intuitive experience, we not only modernized a system but also changed how patients perceived their medical journey - making a potentially anxious moment more serene and respectful.
It's this kind of meaningful transformation that gives purpose to my work as a developer.