Aegis Case Study | Parux - Digital Product Studio

The What –

Build a SaaS Platform from the Ground-Up

Aegis Digital Health needed a partner to conceptualize, design, and develop an MVP solution for its SweetSpot platform. SweetSpot would be used by physicians and their staff daily to monitor diabetic patients.

The Why –

Improve Diabetic Patient Outcomes

SweetSpot enables clinicians to review data from remote patient monitoring of devices such as glucose monitors and insulin pumps in one unified platform. Better data means better care.

A hand pointing at a whiteboard with app interface sketches and sticky notes for project planning.

The Brief –

Aegis Partners with Parux to Design & Develop their Platform

We worked closely with Aegis team to conduct user experience research which fed full-prototyped designs. These designs were then turned into an MVP application with data feeds from multiple sources.

Ideation
UX Design
UI Prototyping
Data Management
Development

Our User –

Meet Dr. Alexander

Dr. Alexander has an endocrinology practice with hundreds of diabetes patients using continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). Each week, he must log into each CGM manufacturer’s portal and download PDF reports for each patient. Each PDF then must be manually reviewed by his team for patients that are at-risk with out-of-range numbers.

Personality

Tech Savvy 3.5/10
Analytics Centric 8.5/10
Open to Innovation 6/10
Organization 4.5/10

Pain Points

Too many logins to remember across all platforms and specifically every CGM manufacturer.
Unable to be proactive with remote patient monitoring to improve outcomes.
Hard to coordinate care across team.
Missing out on new revenue streams for remote patient monitoring.

The Problem –

Clinicians are Overwhelmed

Clinicians are overwhelmed with data from diabetes devices – CGM (glucose monitors) and insulin pumps. This data is great but comes at a cost – it’s time-consuming retrieving and analyzing data from multiple device portals. Each patient’s data requires a separate download and review. It’s a slow and laborious process.

This time commitment limits how often data is downloaded, which is typically done during in-clinic visits. Patients who are out of range that long can be at risk.

In addition, clinics can increase revenue by conducting remote patient monitoring. However, billing is complicated and recording reviews are often missed.

Learning about the problem

Research Overview

A key to building a successful platform was to identify the key pain points of healthcare professionals with diabetic patients. Our research included extensive interviews with endocrinologists and other clinicians, as well as administrators and managers. We learned:

Managing diabetes patient data is slow, cumbersome and largely a manual process.

Practice staff are busy, and workflows were inefficient and burdensome.

This can take hours, and it is easy to miss a data point that might need addressing which could result in a health crisis for that patient.

For each patient, clinicians need to log into one of several portals, download PDF reports, and scan them for problems such as patients who are out of range.

Managers and administrators struggle to get proper billing information. Busy clinicians often miss creating notes and coding, which was significant lost revenue for the practice.

The Solution –

Introducing SweetSpot

SweetSpot gives clinicians a simple, clean dashboard view of all their diabetes patients that highlights those that are at risk with out-of-range numbers. Data is downloaded daily, making interventions with at-risk patients far faster than before.

Dashboard interface of SweetSpot platform showing patient management features.

Designing the Platform –

UX Flows & UI Prototyping

Creating a great user experience and user interface was key to the success of the platform. Throughout the design process, continual feedback with users was used to improve the interface and workflows.

The challenge was to create a dashboard that allowed clinicians to quickly see key data points for each patient within their practice. The data is complex and voluminous, so it was critical to condense that data to the key actionable metrics.

A tiered system allows clinicians to see topline data points, and to drill down for more information. And the original full PDF report is available with a click.

Recording notes is also now far easier, and more accurate. Previous systems required users to view reports and record notes and coding on separate applications. SweetSpot allows notetaking and coding to be done on the same platform, which is far more accurate and less time consuming.

Diagram of practice onboarding flow for a healthcare platform.

SweetSpot’s user setup during onboarding with options to assign roles to new users.

Key UX/UI Components –

Informative UI to Improve Reviews

Patient metrics box showing total metrics in the last 14 days

The Dashboard is the Heart of the Platform

At a glance, clinicians can quickly see which patients are in range and which are not. Out-of-range patients are clearly highlighted showing who needs further analysis or intervention.

Detail of acute events since last review.

Patient reviews are easily done through the patient details screen. Average Glucose Levels, Time-in-Range, Sensor Usage and more are displayed. Notes are entered, and billing codes applied.

Interface showing patient service records for each service date and type.

Streamlined Billing

As each patient is reviewed, SweetSpot tracks that activity. Because reviews are recorded in real time, missed billings are a thing of the past, increasing practice revenues dramatically.

CGM and RPM indicators, showing eligibility status for a medical service.

Easy Patient Onboarding

All patients must consent to remote monitoring and data usage. SweetSpot makes it easy to manage that process. The dashboard shows who has consented, who has denied it, and who is pending.

Developing the Platform –

Building the MVP Platform from the Ground-Up

In addition to user experience research and user interface prototyping, our developers began working on the scalable cloud-based solution for the platform. Development solutions included data warehousing, custom patient-monitoring, billing algorithms, backend and front-end framework implementation. The goal was to build a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) platform that would scale with Sweetspot.

Collage featuring three scenarios: a team discussion, programmers coding, and a UI/UX feature list.

Development Highlights –

Scalable Development Solutions

Data Management

To provide medical clinicians with a unified platform, the patient data needed to be aggregated from each of the Continuous Glucose Monitoring platforms. Our data management team worked to create an robust solution that took data from each provider and transformed them into one unified, secured database.

Custom Algorithms

Once patient data was pulled from the CGM manufactures, the platform needed to normalize patient data into a uniform scoring system. We developed a custom algorithm that analyzes each patient and assigns risk ratings based on their data.

Backend and Frontend Development

The development team combined the data and algorithmic solutions into a cloud-based platform. Using an API-first methodology, the platform leveraged Laravel and React to build a responsive, and scalable platform that makes managing patient care easier.

The Result –

A Successful MVP Launch with Select Practices

In three months, Parux helped Aegis conduct user research, created full application prototypes, and launched a production-ready MVP application. Aegis started to onboard select clinics and the application received glowing feedback. SweetSpot has proven to be a valuable tool for the care of diabetes patients.

Key Result

Aegis preliminary analysis shows that patients with poorly controlled diabetes had improved glycemic control after participation in SweetSpot’s remote patient monitoring.

Dr. Alan Rauba Endocrinologist, Jefferson City Medical Group

Download Aegis Case Study as PDF

The What – Build a SaaS Platform from the Ground-Up

The Why – Improve Diabetic Patient Outcomes

The Brief – Aegis Partners with Parux to Design & Develop their Platform

Our User – Meet Dr. Alexander