Welcome to the twenty-second issue of Inside Medicalchain, our regular newsletter to keep our community up to date. If you missed the twenty-first issue, you can catch up by clicking here.
Product development
We are still busy in developing our blockchain-based EHR and MyClinic.com products.
We’re looking forward to sharing upcoming exciting developments soon! Hold on tight.
MyClinic.com Update
The increasing adoption of MyClinic.com Rooms has been fantastic, and we thank all of you who have helped share and increase awareness about it. We are now operating across the globe. NHS users are the most prolific users of MyClinic.com. Further, we are being used by wide-reaching medical specialities, from Dermatology to Physiotherapy to Mental Health.
If you have any questions, do check out our Help Centre and don’t hesitate to get in touch at [email protected] if you have any suggestions.
Media
Our CEO Dr Abdullah Albeyatti was featured on the Belgian National News outlet VRT News, discussing his experience with working on the frontline of the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic. You can check it out here
Dr Albeyatti also recently spoke on the Talking HealthTech podcast about our experiences working with Mills & Reeve during lockdown and the rapid growth of MyClinic.com. Check out the short video here.
Inside perspective
This section aims to provide an insight into the project, including the people behind the scenes who are working extremely hard to make our vision a reality. In this edition of Inside Medicalchain, we bring you Luca Costa.
Luca is a Full Stack developer here at Medicalchain, working on our back-end technologies (C#, .NET Core) and developing our APIs for our mobile and web-based products.
We asked Luca some questions about what it is like to be a developer at Medicalchain. Enjoy!
What is a typical day like as a developer?
The first thing I do every day is to review my personal notes so that I know exactly what I was working on the day before. Then I check my emails and calendar before I mentally prepare for the day ahead and plan what I want to achieve. Most days I have a clear idea of what has to be done, so I can go through my tasks quite fast. This usually involves developing some new APIs for a new feature in one of our back-ends. In other words, I start writing code or extending an existing one.
Other days aren’t exactly as straightforward. I need to gather requirements, doodle possible solutions and architectures on a piece of paper, check the literature for validation or find novel ideas to help me with the problem at hand. Finally, I always make sure my coworkers (who are focusing more on the front-end) have all the information they need to do their work effectively. These kinds of days are not the easiest and it often takes time to see any progress. I find that keeping track of everything that I do in my notebook helps prevent me from getting discouraged from not seeing immediate progress!
We have two development meetings every week, where we share with our co-workers updates about our progress, and then a weekly meeting across the whole company for general updates. We also have regular sprint planning meetings to decide what to work on for the following two weeks, and this is a good occasion to share cool demos and chat a bit with the rest of the team.
What are the main Medicalchain/MyClinic.com products you have been working on?
I joined Medicalchain almost two years ago to work on the Android App for MyClinic.com. I then moved onto working to the back-end for MyClinic.com and, more recently, I have been dedicating more of my time developing new features for MyClinic Rooms.
What are the main challenges that you find yourself facing when developing?
The biggest challenge I find in being a developer is trying to find the balance between craftsmanship and engineering. On one hand, you get to be creative. On the other, there is not exactly a solution that works for every project.
Building software to be effective within complex human systems (such as healthcare) is not easy. It has to work 24/7, be fast, secure and flexible. Often, I find that the initial problem (which may have seemed very simple) quickly becomes very complex. In addition, the software has to be immensely robust to use, so that you can guarantee that it will work despite how the user will use it. So all-in-all, it can be quite daunting at times!
A final challenge is making engagement with the software enjoyable (which I find is often missed). Ultimately, we have to build something that people want to use. This is the most intangible requirement and really makes the difference from solving what you think is your users’ problem versus actually solving their problem.
What is it like working on healthcare technology? How is it different to other projects you have worked on?
I believe that the healthcare field has the best mix between an interesting domain with the potential to make new stuff as technology in healthcare is still a relatively new thing. This is the main reason why I enjoy working in this area so much.
My impression is that we are only beginning a new era of patients and doctors adapting to use technologies to provide better and more efficient healthcare. My experience with other fields is that it is harder to make an impact, mainly because there are so many large and established players.
Do you have any advice for any aspiring developers out there interested in this area?s
I would recommend developing an interest not just for the technical aspect of the job, but also for the domain of your work, whatever that might be.
This will often require your adventure into something that you do not know and never thought you should have known. Crucially, technology comes and goes. While it is good to be passionate about the technical details, at the end of the day, we should strive to make life easier for someone else. Only with the insight that you gain with that knowledge, you can make something unique and useful.
Social Media
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to ask us questions and engage with our communications team. If you have not had the chance to say hello yet, please click on one of the links!
Join a Medicalchain Community Today!
· Telegram (English)
· Telegram (Japanese — Medicalchain 日本公式コミュニティ)
· Telegram (Chinese — Medicalchain 官方中文群)
· Telegram (Italian — Medicalchain Italia)
· Telegram (Korean — Medicalchain 공식채팅방)
· Twitter (Japanese)
· Medium
· Youtube
· Linkedin
Don’t forget to sign up for your free healthcare passport
The Medicalchain Health Passport signup is live! Prospective patients and medical practitioners can register their interest now, by clicking here.
Upcoming Issues
- About our formal launch of MyClinic.com with onboarding of new clinics.
- Partnerships within the NHS and private sector that we are very much looking forward to sharing with you all.
Thanks for reading the twenty-first newsletter of Inside Medicalchain. For more information on where to purchase our tokens (MTN), click here. Follow the development of Medicalchain on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and join the community on Telegram.
