A pediatric group loses sight of its patients the moment a family drives to the emergency room. Most ER visits could have been handled in clinic, but staff only find out weeks later from claims data, long after the visit could have been deflected.
The Problem
A pediatric group loses sight of its patients the moment a family drives to the emergency room. Most ER visits could have been handled in clinic, but staff only find out weeks later from claims data, long after the visit could have been deflected.
The Approach
We built a parent app and staff platform around one idea: know about the ER visit while the family is still in the parking lot. The iOS and Android app signs parents in with a phone code, screens symptoms with red-flag triage, and registers OS-level geofences around 18 South Florida ERs. When a device enters one, parents get a push and staff get an alert in a queue that refreshes every 15 seconds. Staff SMS uses opaque reference links so no patient data rides in a text message.
Deep Dive
## What we built A parent-facing mobile app (symptom triage, child profiles, push alerts) and a staff dashboard (ER alert queue, patient registry, configurable risk scoring, care-gap tasks, audit log, white-label theming). The core loop: a phone crossing an ER geofence turns into a staff alert in seconds, so the clinic can call the family before the ER does the workup. ## Tech FastAPI and SQLAlchemy on encrypted AWS RDS, Next.js staff dashboard, Capacitor mobile apps, Firebase push, Twilio Verify for parent sign-in, partner SMS API for staff messaging. HIPAA-aligned throughout: encrypted storage, audit logging, and de-identified notifications. ## Results 18 ER geofences monitored, 15 second alert latency target on the staff queue, 32 database models, 30 backend test files and 13 end-to-end browser specs, shipped to production in about 2 months. ## What is next Expanding the geofence catalog beyond the initial ER list and tuning the risk-scoring rules as real visit data accumulates.
The Outcome
Keep Exploring
18 ER geofences live in South Florida
staff alert queue refreshing every 15 seconds
parent app on iOS and Android with phone OTP sign-in
32 database models
30 backend test files plus 13 end-to-end specs
de-identified SMS with zero PHI in message bodies
