CardMedic

The Challenge

In April 2020, Dr. Rachael Grimaldi, an NHS Anaesthetist, reached out to us with a pressing issue. She had created a series of communication flashcards for frontline healthcare teams struggling to communicate with patients while wearing PPE during the pandemic. The flashcards were hosted on a simple SquareSpace site and quickly gained popularity. However, the website’s reliance on an internet connection became a critical barrier for users in many healthcare settings. Dr. Grimaldi needed an app that could provide offline access while retaining the platform’s core functionality, and she needed it fast.

With additional capacity due to pandemic-related job cancellations, we were excited to jump on board and help develop the app.

Our Approach

Given the tight timeframe, we mapped out a minimum viable product (MVP) in just a couple of long conversations. The MVP needed to:

• Support multilingual translations
• Include text-to-speech functionality for those with visual or literacy impairments
• Allow users to upload a profile image for a more personalized experience, especially important when faces were hidden behind PPE
• Enable a quick search function for flashcards

We opted to build the backend using Laravel, which would handle crucial processes such as authenticating translators, importing existing content from SquareSpace, managing translations via the Weglot API, and generating audio files using SiteSpeaker. The app’s data would be cached and exposed for easy consumption by the mobile application.

The mobile apps were built using React Native, and we used Expo for rapid prototyping and distribution. This choice allowed us to quickly test and deploy the app, particularly important since Dr. Grimaldi was working remotely in the U.S. and needed fast access to the Android version for testing.

The Launch

Despite the complexity of the project, we managed to get the app to market incredibly quickly. Just ten days after writing the first line of code, CardMedic was live in the App Store. The rapid development was a testament to the close collaboration between our team and Dr. Grimaldi, as well as the flexibility of our tech stack.

The Results

The success of CardMedic was almost immediate. The app was featured by major media outlets such as The Guardian and BBC, promoted on gov.uk, and even received personal recognition from the UK Prime Minister. Since its launch, CardMedic has been instrumental in improving communication between healthcare staff and patients, particularly in high-pressure environments where traditional communication methods fail. The platform continues to evolve, and we’re proud to have played a key role in its development.