HIPAA-Compliant Fitness & Wellness Tracker for University of Vermont Students
Client
UVM WE
App Category
Health & Fitness | Well-being
Engagement
New App Development & Maintenance
Technologies
Brief
UVM WE is a health and mental wellness tracker application that was conceptualized by the University of Vermont as part of their research project. This is part of a larger study at the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College and is currently limited to participating students only. The aim of this project is to evaluate the well-being and fitness of students who take admission in their medical program and identify ways to improve retention.
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The Challenge
While any survey app could have fulfilled the initial requirement, the University of Vermont wanted to get a custom solution that not only ensures data security, but also allows the solution to be developed for wearable devices to give easy access to health metrics.
In terms of data security, the University wanted to exercise control over the access by providing single sign-on only for the preferred study group.
Moreover, the dashboard had to be integrated with their existing system to allow dynamic reporting with day-to-day activities and health metrics.
Proposed Solution
After understanding the long term vision and goals of the research project and the concerns shared by the client, Galaxy’s Mobile team proposed a robust and scalable application for mobile as well as wearable devices.
This would allow the sensors in the wearable devices to collect health metrics and share it directly with the cloud for real time sync of data. In order to incentivize the participants to complete daily surveys and track their well being, the app has a reward system that assigns points to the users that can be redeemed for rewards offered by the University. This project started as a 3-4 month engagement which led to a 3+ years association for product maintenance and upgrades.
Key Deliverable
Development Stages
Key Feature Enhancements
User Management
As the client had requested for single sign-on option for signing up, we synced with their student enrollment system for dynamic updates to user creation and permissions. This ensured that the app access was provided strictly to the approved participants from the University of Vermont.
User Survey (Daily / Weekly)
In order to track various activities, we created surveys for evaluating the health and well-being of the students based on their responses. The surveys can be configured for daily, weekly, or monthly recurrence. The data is synced over the cloud and reflected in the reporting dashboard of the user as well as the admin.
Activity Logger
The activity logger was created to track activities based on the user’s personal preferences. This required providing information about activities like hours of sleep, quantity of fluids consumed, etc. The data is synced over the cloud and reflected in the respective dashboard.
Health Metrics Tracker
As health is an important metric required by the research, we synced the wearable app to provide dynamic input for metrics like steps, stress, etc. This also allowed repetitive questions to be avoided in the surveys with the data being pulled from the wearable devices directly.
Reward Program
It was important to keep the participants engaged and motivated to complete the daily tasks and activities. We ensured this by introducing a reward program where every successful activity completion would allow the user to earn points. Upon accumulating a particular value, the user is eligible to redeem them for rewards from the University’s inventory.
Health & Wellness Dashboard
The dashboard provides a trend of activities and health metrics with the use of visual charts and graphs. While users are able to access their own reports, the University Admin can access the data of all users. The reports may be downloaded as PDF documents for future reference if required.
Calendar Integration for Scheduled Events
The University has a calendar of events that students may be interested in participating. In order to facilitate the discovery and planning of these events, we provided a Calendar Integration that would sync with the University’s and students’ calendar from the app directly.
Delivery & Deployment
The app was successfully launched on the Google Play Store and Apple iTunes store along with a formal launch at the University of Montreal. Following this, Galaxy’s Mobile team has been working on maintenance of the app while ensuring 100% uptime. The client now has plans of creating multiple versions of the app to include other departments for expanding the scope of their research.
Value Creation & Impact of the Solution
Commercial Impact
As this is a custom solution, the client benefited from avoiding a per-license cost which would have restricted the scope of the research project based on available funding. Now that they have plans on expanding the user base to other departments, the custom app will go a long way in increasing ROI. Moreover, the results of the survey have helped the University achieve a 90% student retention rate in their program which has a direct impact on their primary revenue.
Impact on Brand Equity
As the research is being conducted jointly by the University of Vermont and the State Agricultural College, having a robust application with advanced reporting and documented data trail in the cloud helps them authenticate the value of their research findings. Moreover, their concern regarding the health and wellness of students adds goodwill to their brand.
Social Impact
By leveraging technology to analyze the health and wellness of students, the University is helping to create awareness not only amongst their students, but students in general. From a social perspective, this could create a foundation for more research to be undertaken along similar lines.
Platform for Future Innovation
The app has been configured with wearable devices for syncing with real time health metrics. This has allowed the app to be sustainable (from a technology perspective) and the cloud based storage allows for possible future developments like artificial intelligence, NML, and voice assistant integration.