Our Solution

When an organ becomes available for a patient on the transplant waiting list, the response time is absolutely critical, it was noted that many patients have previously been uncontactable particularly during unsociable hours with their phones being on silent or do not disturb mode. Due to the need for rapid response, the following solution was uniquely designed for the app and App Management Portal (CMS) to include;

• Bypass silent and Do Not Disturb modes on the users’ phone to ensure critical alerts are never missed
• A standard messaging feature so the transplant team can contact you e.g. to check your bloods are up to date
• Easy system for ensuring your details are up to date and you have notified your Transplant Coordinator / Team of any upcoming holidays etc
• Confirm your availability to attend via the app
• Invitation only system (App and CMS)

After gaining a clear understanding of what the client wanted, we pulled together a comprehensive proposal detailing the MVP, the requirements of the app and CMS using MoSCoW rules and the timescales for each part of the project. We worked closely with the client at every stage from scoping the solution, finalising the name, branding and designs, writing the App store and Playstore descriptions to setting up of various accounts for testing and publishing on behalf of the client. As with MIA, the client required branding for TAA and so our creative team designed various logos and brand themes from scratch. It was important for the logo to reflect what the app was about and to fit with the app concept.

Our creative team wanted to make sure that the client was happy with the end product and so we arranged regular update meetings to discuss any changes or provide expert UX / UI knowledge and advice. Once the designs were signed off, it was time to give the client a working prototype that looked and felt like the finished article. The prototype gave the client the opportunity to see their idea in action and provide feedback on what they liked and any changes or tweaks. After development was complete and our internal testing phases had been signed off we handed the product over to the client as with the MIA solution.

At 4heron we know that Involving the client in the user acceptance testing (UAT) phase is a crucial step to ensure that the solution works perfectly to our clients’ standards and specification before it launches to the wider team and patients. We are constantly looking for ways to improve the user experience e.g. by increasing accessibility, ease of use and how clinical secure it is to put the patient at ease. To make the app more accessible and less time consuming, we added only the minimum requirements for sign up with the application still being GDPR compliant. We worked closely with Trust’s in-house Information Governance Team to ensure the solution met all necessary requirements whilst still using the information to uniquely identify each patient/user (e.g. NHS number). The client emphasised on how many patients lose out on a vital organ transplant by not responding on time or quick enough so for our team this challenge was a top priority. To solve this, we introduced a unique feature where the organ alert bypasses silent and Do Not Disturb modes on the patients’ phone to ensure critical alerts / notifications are never missed. For ease of use and better user experience, we designed the alerts to appear on the first screen when you log into the app.