30 minute DIY app for patient's health monitoring

I have been working with an IBS patient who started following FODMAP diet and lifestyle modification to get relief from her 10+ years old IBS issues. Started helping her in health and data monitoring and understanding basic medical queries she was getting, and that's where simple tool like google sheets became very useful to record data and visualize. Later patient herself switched to taking data on paper and update it very rarely to the sheets, and I also realized updating an excel/google sheet was not the easiest way so tried developing an app.

Recently I also completed designing a framework for a community health project which is being executed by a small dedicated team on the ground somewhere in villages. Having the challenge to empower them with the right tools for delivering cost-effective evidence-based and well planned healthcare services with limited resources and technology-enabled ways, I got to experiment the same app development process and outcome is a beautiful and agile technique, sharing step by step tutorial below.

1) Use google forms to create a form having data that patients wish to monitor (data that matter for the patient) and also the data you as a care provider (family, friend, doctor) wish to monitor (and best to be evidence-based and if suitable then also a minimalist on this part).  ( 10 min. ) 

2) Create the google sheet with the form to collect responses and then go to google data studio and connect the sheet as a data source https://datastudio.google.com/  ( 2 min. )

3) Copy the code from github https://github.com/avi33tbtt/DIY-Med-App for a basic webview based android app and import project to android studio, and in the source file / java code just change the URL to your google form URL (avoid using shortened URL). ( 5 min. )

4) Build project and check on your device if it works then send apk to the patient. ( 2 min. )

5) when some data available, experiment with google studio to design your dashboard to help you visualize latest data in interactive way and even in real time. ( 11 min. )

App Screenshot

Dashboard Screenshot

contact me for any technical help to create yours or for any feedback to improve.

Avinash Kumar

avi33tbtt@gmail.com

*Data in the above image is shared with consent.

- Good to explore AppScript for creating web app using excel sheets for getting more power and be able to develop better DIY Tools and even capable to send data to a fhir server/EHR/EMR/PHR.

- These techniques are good for small scale implementation and I believe it to have capability of being highly patient-centric.

- Enable collect emails in form setting and filtering in the google studio dashboard for using same app for multiple users having similar requirements.