Smart Data

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Im the CEO & Chief Medical Officer of iDocData Software, as an orthopedic surgeon I saw the need for more efficient generation of medical documentation for electronic medical records. The software is used in medical offices, hospitals, and ambulatory surgery centers for documenting medical encounters and capturing data. The software is also customized to each individual physician's workflow limiting the impact of technology on the physician/patient relationship.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Smart Data, and what were your goals?

iDocdata (then medidoc software) was originally developed using a client/server model, it soon became difficult to easily scale and support the software to multiple offices and hospitals. In order to expand to cover a larger geographical area and to minimize the overhead of supporting multiple systems it was necessary to convert the software to a web-based application. This would require changes to the overall structure of the software implementing state-of-the-art technologies. This was beyond the scope of our developer at the time and therefore we looked for outside help. We then entrusted the conversion of our outdated software to a state-of-the-art technology stack to Smart Data.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I believe I found them through word of mouth. This was many years ago and to be honest I'm not 100% sure. I do know that their agile development process really caught my eye and was one of the deciding factors for choosing them.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The original software used Java and xml to run the application and for structuring the data. This was converted to React and Json without disrupting the underlying data structure or impacting a large number of patient medical records. It was also interfaced with Epic, a leading electronic medical records system through an HL-7 interface. The data was then stored and accessed using an AWS cloud server. The greatest challenge facing Smart Data was converting the complex data structure that had been customized to multiple physicians and surgeons who were actively using the software without affecting their workflow or patient care. They also had to recreate, using newer technologies, the underlying mechanism that allowed iDocData to customize each physician's UI and document structure. This was fundamental to recreating the key feature that made the original software successful. This all had to be structured in such a way that it could be passed to the EMR with an HL-7 interface.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I believe at the start there was 5 people on the core team, including a scrum master, and multiple developers. At the start he CEO was even present on this team but has since stopped working on projects (this was many years ago.) Over time this changed and as the project is still ongoing, we are ceurrently using a hybrid-model with some developers here in the states and a team of developers in India.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Thanks to Smart Data, the conversion was successfully completed with minimal downtime for the physician users. iDocData software which was being held geographically by its original client/server model has now expanded with upcoming implementations in Florida and Colorado. We are able to engage with national companies that represent multiple hospitals and physician practices due to the cloud-based application they now run. The more robust data model has also allowed us to support multiple clinical trials using the software with 2 studies about to be published.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The team we worked with to start and the current hybrid team with work with now have both been great, and we have not had any complaints. The agile development process has been a key highlight for me. Common communications are through email and google meets. But it was commincated that there were many options of communication. That is just what i picked and we have stuck with it.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The communication with developers at any time was really nice. Again the agile development process was something new to me at the time of hiring Smart Data and has continued to be a impressive part of the company. The skill of the singular developers has also always blown me away. I've always felt that their developers are extremely skilled for the size of the company.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head. I have only been pleased with the work Smart Data has done so far. As this is still an on-going project however, i'll be sure to update this if anything changes!