The challenge
During a crisis, acting quickly makes all the difference. Just as COVID-19 became a pandemic, healthcare technology company Sensyne Health quickly jumped in to help. Its objective was to help people track their symptoms to assess their COVID-19 risk, share the required information with doctors to expedite decision-making in critical situations and avoid unnecessary hospital trips that could increase their health risk. Sensyne envisioned an app for the community that is both easy to use and accessible across devices to maximize use, especially among people with poor technology literacy or no access to the internet. Because the solution would contain sensitive healthcare data, it also needed to comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and feature advanced security. Sensyne approached Cognizant to create the digital symptom tracker app.
Our approach
Cognizant proposed an app based on the Microsoft Healthcare Bot service, integrated with not only Microsoft Azure-based authentication and database services but also Microsoft Healthcare Bot verification. Building the app within a low-code/no-code environment and leveraging our close partnership with Microsoft helped speed development. The application development team applied tried-and-tested best practices for agile development and conducted separate virtual meetings with Sensyne staff and technical teams to enable around-the-clock development. We used Microsoft Teams to communicate with critical stakeholders.
As speed was key to the engagement, we accelerated delivery at every stage. In five days the team had a working prototype to take into production. By day 10 the app was completed, and by day 16 we had launched the app. The global team delivered a mobile-first, GDPR- and security-compliant COVID-19 health monitor with Microsoft Power BI reporting in place.
