Online Doctor Visit

- A Case Study

Industry

Healthcare

Project Size

Large

Problem

A healthcare company wanted to enable patients to consult with their physicians online. While this feature would not replace the traditional office visit, it would allow patients with non-emergency needs to receive medical advice from their physicians. The system had to support creation of new templates for consultations based on specific disease condition. This would help in online general consultation, prescription refills, exchange of notes, educational materials and referral to other physicians.

Solution

Build a fully interactive website that allows patients to communicate specific medical conditions online with their physicians.

Software Features

Functionality highlights include:

Creation of consultation templates based on disease conditions
Patient selects a disease condition
Sends the message to the physician
Sends the message to the physician
Physician responds to the disease condition and prescribes medication if any.

Technology

Java (JSP, Servlets, DAO, EJB), Hibernate, XMLC, Websphere, Oracle-9i, Domain Driven Design, UML. As this was a new concept, mapping the domain to the application classes and user interfaces required usage of different analysis patterns. This had rich domain classes that had to be mapped to the dynamic user interfaces

Challenges

The form displayed to the patients depends on the disease condition, or symptoms the patient is experiencing. Since the system supports various consultation templates, the forms need to be dynamically generated. Access to the consultation templates depends on the patient's insurance company and the associated provider.