Healthcare app development for The Children’s Hospital at Westmead
The team from the James Fairfax Institute of Paediatric Nutrition (JFI) at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead (CHW) approached us with the aim to modernise their long-standing publication, The Feeding Guide. They wished to transition from the original paper format to a user-friendly digital app. The JFI team needed a solution that would allow healthcare professionals to calculate and update nutritional information with ease.
We helped them to deliver a scalable healthcare app that simplifies content updates, supports real-time nutritional formula calculations, and offers the opportunity for future international expansion and subscription-based functionality. Check out how we did it below.
Introducing The Children’s Hospital at Westmead
The Children's Hospital at Westmead (part of Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network) is a paediatric hospital dedicated to helping young people live their healthiest lives. They care for thousands of children every year, providing specialist healthcare services and operating as a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Sydney.
Away from paper, a shift toward digitisation of healthcare resources
The JFI team at CHW approached us with a need to digitise their long-standing publication, The Feeding Guide, which was available as an A5 booklet and used by healthcare providers such as paediatricians and dieticians.
"We had The Feeding Guide for a very long time as a hard copy book, and we wanted to transform it into a mobile app to keep up with modern times."
The key challenge they were facing was the static nature of the paper format, which hindered quick access and real time updates. They sought a mobile solution to allow healthcare workers to access critical feeding information at the patient’s bedside.
Another of their core problems was the process of updating nutritional formulas, which change regularly. The Feeding Guide needed to provide in-depth nutritional composition data for a variety of nutritional formulas used across Australia and New Zealand and be updated with ease.
"One of the main issues was that the products change frequently, new ones become available, and some products are discontinued.”
Creating accessible resources through healthcare app development
The project started with a comprehensive UX phase, focusing on definition of requirements and design to ensure the app was user-friendly and fit for use by healthcare professionals.
“We took the JFI team through a series of collaborative activities to deconstruct their problem space, find inspirations and opportunities from the surrounding digital landscape, and weave together an experience that suited the core needs of time-poor clinicians – who needed quick, practical solutions to prescribe to their patients” – Nick Simpson, Head of UX
We developed a mobile solution that digitised their Feeding Guide and provided a back-end CMS (sanity.io), allowing for easy, remote updates to nutritional formula information. The app also needed to support the ability to calculate nutritional values, including energy and macronutrient requirements, for when feeds are customised by health professionals to meet a patient’s unique requirements.
Feeding Guide app designed for healthcare workers
The project resulted in a transformation of The Feeding Guide, making it more accessible for healthcare professionals. With the new app, the team at CHW can now update feeding formulas remotely, saving time and effort.
Additionally, the app features calculators that allow for quick and accurate nutritional calculations in real-time, improving convenience and reducing manual work. Other features include a customisable favourites list and the ability to filter through nutritional data, ensuring healthcare providers can easily find what they need.
App functionality includes:
- Database of paediatric and adult formulas
- Calculators for nutritional and energy requirements
- Reference tables for clinical use
- Guides for managing allergies, gastroenteritis, and preparing formulas
- Breakdowns of nutritional content for easy formula comparison
- Filtering and favourites functionality to allow for quick access to essential information
The app includes complex feeding calculators, such as those for estimating energy requirements and determining the nutritional breakdown for various nutritional formulas, which previously required manual calculation in spreadsheets.
The Feeding Guide’s future includes subscription capabilities and potential international expansion
There is potential for expansion of The Feeding Guide app. With development of subscription capabilities underway, the app will be able to generate revenue to fund future updates and enhancements such as potential international expansion so the guide could support a wider audience.
The use of Sanity and its non-profit plan has meant the JFI team at CHW can maintain and update content with ease and with minimal cost, allowing for continuous updates to nutritional formulas and feeding practices without the need for full app updates.
If your organisation is looking to develop a healthcare app that improves access to critical resources and supports patient care, reach out to us via our contact form or by emailing hello@airteam.com.au. Or learn more about how we can help you with your healthcare app development needs on our healthcare software development services page.
