Wellsmith

A blended team came together to revolutionize the way people treat chronic conditions.

Overview

We released an MVP product in just six months— a process that would have taken a year and a half if the client had built their own development team from scratch.

Chronic conditions such as diabetes are on the rise across the United States and around the world, leaving doctors and patients alike struggling to find effective and practical ways to manage care. Prescribed medication schedules, recommended exercise techniques or frequent follow up visits may work theoretically, but are not always sustainable for patients trying to manage their health in the midst of their already busy schedules.

We partnered with Wellsmith, a company focused on improving lives through health and wellness technologies, to create a user-friendly application that improved people’s health by being responsive to patient needs and being sensitive to the difficulties that patients experience when managing their health in their daily lives.

The app set out to help individuals:

  • Take their medication on time, all the time
  • Develop eating habits around healthy, appropriately portioned foods
  • Exercise more frequently and with greater intensity
  • Employ consumer-grade sensors and smartphones to provide just-in-time information and support

Our Process

Time was of the essence in the development process in order to stay on track with the clinical trials scheduled in conjunction with the investor. Wellsmith needed to move quickly, and they had no development resources on staff. With our fast-moving development process, our blended team released an MVP product in just six months— a process that would have taken a year and a half if the client had built their own development team from scratch.

The Team

A pair of Calavista Solutions Directors fleshed out the requirements and timeline for the project. Three Calavista Software Architects worked on the design, and more than 30 Eastern European team members completed the team.

Project Execution

We kept the timeline tight and the deliverables strong, so that everyone had plenty of bandwidth to fine-tune the product before, during and after trials to create the best user experience possible. We also navgiated the moving parts of HIPAA and insurance companies during the development phase so that Wellsmith could focus on the critical success factors: marketing, distribution, and the business itself.

Collaboration

To make our blended team even more effective, we provided adjacent office space to Wellsmith as they began searching for a new home. The proximity of our development staff let the client see the changes and enhancements to the application in nearly real time.

Result

We didn’t just write lines of code— we helped revolutionize healthcare.

Not only did we deliver a functional and sophisticated product on time, we participated in building something that is savings lives. Wellsmith’s vision combined with our execution led us to gather 50 participants with Type II diabetes using the product in the first clinical trial. Of those 50 participants, the average participant improved their A1c blood sugar levels by 1.3 points; and 3 of the 50 were considered to be in remission by the end of the 12-week trial. Participants also lost an average of 12 pounds and increased their activity level by 75%.

The software helped people remember to take their medication at appropriate times; with participants increasing their medication compliance rates from 50% to 75% over the course of the trial. The trials ran without errors, and we were able to respond quickly to system updates, such as tweaking the reminder algorithm to be less frequent as to not annoy the trial participants.

The Calavista team did not just develop an application. It helped bring to life an experience that transformed patients’ health and improved and extended their quality of life. We didn’t just write lines of code—we helped revolutionize healthcare.