The Opportunity
In a world where technology is evolving each day, the dental industry is revolutionizing and experimenting with advanced dental application solutions. Our customer at the center of this case study is a revolutionary startup that is transforming how oral care works, by proactively identifying potential health issues prior to onset or when showing very early signs and symptoms.
With the dentistry industry being highly competitive, the company needed its saliva testing app to be accurate and instantaneous. However, it faced challenges with its previous solution, lacking image scanning overlay integration and simplified instructions for users. Therefore, the customer engaged SourceFuse to help overcome these challenges and develop a solution that could help achieve its goal of rapid diagnostics innovation.
Key Challenges
At SourceFuse the process begins with a deep analysis of the challenges in the journey. This process is initiated by analyzing gaps in supply and demand with the existing solution provider, and concludes with a comprehensive understanding of the current situation and its demands.
Similarly, the customer faced two key issues that were impacting its mobile application:
- No image scanning & overlay integration
The previous version of the application/system needed support for image scanning and overlay integration. As the lack of support led to issues such as blurred and inconsistent test card images, ultimately it was creating inaccurate test results. - No simplified IFUs for user to take the saliva test
The customer’s application needed detailed step-by-step instructions for use (IFUs). As a result, users were often confused and frequently required assistance in performing the saliva test accurately. The absence of clear and precise guidance hindered the efficient utilization of the application and contributed to delays in the testing process.
The Solution
Being a HIPAA-compliant company with a niche focus of delivering secure, scalable cloud-native solutions in the healthcare and life sciences industry, SourceFuse has proven experience and skills that made them an ideal partner to address this customer’s challenges. As an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner, with AWS Healthcare and AWS SaaS competencies, SourceFuse ensures its customers realize exceptional value and leverage the full benefits on AWS Cloud.
After the discovery and assessment phase, SourceFuse proposed a test cassette image scanning feature using overlay functionality, represented in the following steps:
- Preprocess the images to ensure they are of consistent quality and format.
- Align the images so that they are properly registered with each other.
- Fine-tuned the overlayed images to achieve the desired result.
- Automatically enable the flashlight for better image quality.
- Perform a quality check to ensure that the overlayed image meets the desired standards.
- Once the quality check above has passed, save or upload it in the desired format as per CV API.
- Retain any metadata or additional information associated with the original images and send to the CV API.
In addition to the above solution, SourceFuse incorporated detailed IFUs to enhance the user experience of the saliva test kit, making it extremely user-friendly, and increasing the success rate and accuracy. To give an idea of the end-user support required, the entire saliva test process consists of three phases, with each phase consisting of a number of steps:
- Fifteen steps encompassing initial instructions for saliva collection, including registering the kit and validating the cassette lot number, and selecting test type, e.g. a cavity risk assessment (CRA) or diabetes risk assessment (DRA).
- Two steps detailing the correct application of saliva to lateral flow lanes.
- Three steps explaining the application of saliva to colorimetric wells.
While performing the test, each step comes with an explanatory image and the end user is able to move back and forth between instructions until completed.
Key Application Features
- Home Screen – once securely registered and logged in, multiple profiles can be created to identify who is taking a test e.g. children, spouse, relatives, etc.
- The Centralized Dashboard displays the results under five categories with an indication of level of risk or whether the result is normal, optimal, or sub-optimal.
- Test results can be filtered by date and viewed for each different user profile.
- Reports can then be generate as PDF reports.
The Results
Every project is unique and so are the experiences and learning encountered along the way. Working with this organization for its application feature enhancements proved to be an extremely successful and rewarding project, making sure that the client receives the best services in the designated time frame.
The customer has been able to achieve:
- Fine tuning of overlayed images and universal aspect ratio of the camera have ensured accurate results of CV bio-markers.
- Detailed and simplified IFUs have resulted in better understanding of the end user while performing the oral health saliva test.
- Easy reference of colorimetric wells bio-markers in the app for users to input those colors on the test cassette for consistent results.
About The Customer
Headquartered in Carlsbad, CA, the dental care customer is a first-of-its-kind organization transforming how oral care works. With a revolutionary early detection saliva test, it utilizes adaptive learning to identify oral health conditions and offer a customized preventive oral health care plan. Despite being in the initial stages, the organization is nothing short of innovation and aims to bring a revolution in dentistry by not just being the fixers, but reaching the root cause for dental disease’s prevention.
