Readify help Mater enhance patient care

Mater Health Services (Mater) is a not-for-profit provider of health services, which operates seven hospitals, a medical research institute, and pathology and pharmacy businesses in South East Queensland.

Readify's history with Mater involves a successful project delivery on Mater's Patient Portal Website. It is with this track record that Mater's Software Development Manager recommended Readify to its Gastroenterology Department to help develop an application which assess and manages patients with hepatitis.

Solution
Readify embedded themselves in Mater's environment in order to understand the current medical processes, shadowing the doctors in their clinic and observing how they treat their patients. This assisted in developing an application suited precisely to Mater's requirements.

The project was delivered using a Readify Devpod, with Readify providing two developers (one onsite and one working remotely) to deliver an application in seven weeks.

Devpods are based on a team-oriented project delivery capability, which combines a high performance development team using an Agile method (specifically Scrum). The team is augmented with tools selected from Microsoft's ALM platform which ensures that the team can accurately progress against development objectives.

Benefits

Enhanced Treatment of Patients
By taking the time to understand Mater's current practices, the team was able to influence the design of the application, which in turn enhanced how the patients were treated.

Reduced Timeframe for Feature Development and Delivery
In contrast to their experiences with Waterfall, Mater quickly noticed the benefits of utilising SCRUM. Specifically, quick feedback cycles in requirements gathering and feature development ensured that delivery expectations were met.

Increased Visibility
Leveraging Devpod infrastructure meant that ramp-up time for the team was minimal, team progress radiated, and Mater always had an environment to explore what was being built. The weekly SCRUM stand-up meetings allowed for visibility, accountability and presentation of new features.

Technology and Methodology

The solution was achieved using the following technologies and methodologies:

• Microsoft Team Foundation Server was used for the entire ALM solution including Source Control Management, Scrum Project Template, Product Backlog, Work Item and Bug Tracking. The seamless integration with Visual Studio helped avoid switching between several applications to perform a particular task which allowed for greater productivity.
• SCRUM is an agile project management methodology used by Readify, consisting of Sprints and Iterations.
• DevPod - Readify Devpods exist to give our clients an alternative to traditional combative engagement models which lead to cost overruns, incomplete software and ultimately failed projects. A Readify Devpod is a software development engine that can be plugged into an existing organisation to achieve high quality and predictable results.

For more information on Mater Health Services, please visit the website http://www.mater.org.au/.

For more information about Readify services, call +61 3 9600 2339 or 1300 666 274 (within Australia) or visit the Web site at http://www.readify.net/

Via: WhaTech