An Exclusive On-demand Prescription Delivery App With Doctors Onboard

Our client already had a well-established on-demand prescription delivery app, which functioned well with some bugs of course. But now, he realized that if he wanted to develop a stronghold in the present competitive market during the COVID-19 crisis, he was required to offer additional convenience to its users. So, he approached us with two development requests–refactoring of the extant app and development of an advanced module for virtual consultation that include voice, video, and chat modules. His intent was to get doctors onboard from various expertise to facilitate online booking of doctor’s appointments. Besides this, he also wanted to provide the online lab test scheduling to end users. The exclusive on-demand prescription delivery app offers the following features: Scan/Snap and Order: Ordering medicines has become easy with this promising feature that allows end users to scan/snap their prescriptions with all the mandatory details such as–doctor’s details, medicine details, patient details and the doctor’s stamp. Ease of Placing Order: Placing their order for medicines has now become effortless, with this feature where the user can directly access the prescription uploaded by the doctor. They can directly process their orders without having to download the prescription. Real-time Delivery Tracking: Customers can constantly monitor their orders at every stage of delivery–right from the moment of placing an order, acceptance of the pharmacy to the last-mile delivery. Customers can live-track their orders smoothly. Refer and Earn Bonus: This feature is an easy way to make a bonus available to end users every time they refer the app to their peers. The user gets a chance to earn a bonus worth $5 for each reference. Top-up Medicines: This special feature will allow the users to get their medicines auto-refilled after a particular time period. The users can set their auto-refilling duration/frequency, and the application will auto-order the medicines at their desired time. Online Shopping of Pharmacy: The users can shop all their pharmacy essentials using the app with the utmost ease. Alongside, it is their one-stop solution for purchasing all their toiletries and OTC medicines in a jiffy. Hassle-free Scheduling of Appointments: The scheduling of appointments has become effortless, as the users can book their appointments based on the availability of the doctors onboard. Alongside, the users also have the provision of booking consultation at their home, as well as scheduling their lab tests as per their convenience. Video Consultation: Owing to the digitalization, now the users can seek their consultation on the video, which eliminates their need to physically go to the hospital or a clinic.

The client had a broad vision when it came to the development of the online prescription delivery app. The previously built on-demand prescription delivery app worked just fine. However, challenges that surfaced were associated with the addition of the new module. Below were some of the roadblocks in the client’s vision to business advancement: To add the doctor-appointment portal with real-time availability feature. To develop the app in the least possible time to establish the brand during the COVID-19 crisis. To refactor the existing app developed in .NET by keeping a check on the budget. To handle the onboarding of doctors and segregate them based on their area of expertise. To produce search results based on proximity.

The developers at our company identified these challenges and created a roadmap regarding the project lifecycle. The best approach devised was to develop a separate module for the doctor and lab test scheduling functionality. Since refactoring demanded a high budget, given the scarcity of .NET developers, we leveraged PHP – Laravel to have a seamless integration of third-party delivery API. Besides this, we diligently mapped the multiple categories related to the doctors to produce relevant search results for queries. Once the individual module was developed, we integrated the portal with that of the prescription-based delivery app to meet our client’s vision. We conducted several use cases and quality analysis to check the performance post the integration for making it ready to operate in the real world.