A private investor and an experienced doctor came to us with the idea of building an AI healthcare platform to make it easier for people in Saudi Arabia to access primary care doctors. He wanted to create a solution that helps users make informed health decisions and get a second opinion by chatting with an AI Health Assistant.
Easier Access to Healthcare with an AI Healthcare Platform
Based on his research and experience, the doctor wanted to create an app where patients send symptoms to an AI, producing a report with a possible diagnosis. The patient can then share this report with any doctor, including those collaborating with the app and those the patient chooses to visit afterward. This approach aligns closely with modern AI solutions for healthcare screening, enabling more accurate diagnoses and streamlined patient-doctor interactions.
Our team’s task was to build a minimum version of such a product (MVP) that would be tested with actual patients and doctors.
Importantly, our client is investing his own money, so he wanted to keep the project within a specific amount set at the beginning of the collaboration.
Challenges of the Fixed Price Model
Rigid financial frameworks in MVP projects pose a big challenge because new programming needs may emerge during design workshops. This is particularly true in complex projects like building an AI healthcare platform, where new features might be required to meet user expectations or improve functionality.
For example, despite business intuition and research on similar solutions, the client might not notice some crucial features for the final test version of the app, mirroring the complexities often encountered in challenges in healthcare education and technology integration, where adapting to emerging needs requires careful prioritization and resource management.
Additionally, the appetite grows with what is being fed. When the business owner sees the basic features on the mockup, they may want to add more functionalities despite the budget constraints.
The team then faces a choice: do we stick with the original budget and skip an important feature, or add it but expand the scope and thus the price?
The key challenge here is to manage priorities skillfully, that is, to determine which functionalities are essential from a business perspective and eliminate all the rest.
Finding Must-Haves Among Nice-to-Haves
We looked for answers to these questions during design workshops. With support from developers, our UX/UI specialist Paweł sat down with the doctor and went through all the initially defined functionalities step by step.
A mockup was created, allowing the team to view the application from the perspectives of both the patient and the doctor. It was then that several original assumptions needed to be extended for the MVP to test some business assumptions realistically.
For example, originally, there was no option to rate the conversation’s effectiveness; the doctor requested adding this feature over time, assuming the app critically needed it.
Additionally, while doctors could initially create patient profiles and patients could create their accounts independently, we introduced a new feature to link a patient’s existing account to their doctor using a unique ID code provided by the patient, which streamlined the integration of data provided by the patient.
Time for Testing
Ultimately, the development team transformed the initial project scope into an entire backlog and designed the MVP.
The time and budget frames did not deviate and stayed within expectations despite changes in scope.
Currently, the client and his team are conducting internal tests of the application, which will allow for the detection and removal of any errors and the adaptation of the tool to the specific needs of users.
The next step is to extend the tests to a selected group of the app’s actual users over the coming months to assess the platform’s practical application in natural conditions.
This feedback will be crucial for further developing and improving the app, and our development team is ready to introduce the necessary changes and improvements continuously!
