HelpAround

HelpAround, Inc is a healthtech startup whose purpose is to serve patients with chronic diseases. The company is a well-known healthcare provider operating in the US and planning to expand to new markets.

In the beginning, it was a support network for people suffering from diabetes. Patients could join various helper communities and count on support with glucose management, carb counting, CGM, insulin, and more.

Later on, the project evolved into a complex platform specializing in immunological, oncological, neurological, pediatric, and other chronic diseases as well as procedures like infusions and hemodialysis.

HelpAround today is a bridge connecting patients with the resources they need to navigate the complex specialty medication journey, giving pharma companies a better way to get patients on therapy and keep patients on therapy.

Initially, the Client needed to rework iOS and Android applications, which were focused on patient communities. Besides, there was a necessity to refine the website and support servers.

Later on, when the project evolved from a social network to a mobile platform for specialty patients, the need emerged to rework the whole system, add functionality, and expand the functions to mobile and web.

Overall, the project promised to be quite ambitious and complicated. Numerous patients’ treatments depended significantly on the stable work of the app, so the system had to run like clockwork.

The system required major updates and enhancements in the following directions:

It all started in the spring of 2013 when HelpAround chose the Vakoms software development team from various Eastern European IT outsourcing companies.

At that time, HelpAround was a small startup building a mobile network of “helpers” for diabetics. Initially, the Vakoms team was commissioned to do the following:

Later on, the Client made a pivot that dramatically changed the idea of the startup, requiring changes to the specification and broadening the scope. The challenge was to make HelpAround a multifunctional tool that enhanced patient support programs for pharma companies.

The mobile app development team started by updating mobile apps. Vakoms has completely reworked the mobile apps: moved from Objective-C to Swift for iOS and from Java to Kotlin for Android.

The scope included:

Currently, HelpAround is a mobile concierge that simplifies patients journey, including helping patients:

The web app is being developed using Vue.js for the front end and PHP Laravel for the back end. Through the mobile-friendly web app, clients can go through the onboarding process, enroll in a support program, contact the company for more information. Currently, Vakoms is working on making all HelpAround mobile features accessible from the web.

Vakoms’s Ukrainian web developers provide a full range of support for the HelpAround server deployed on Amazon EC2. The back end is developed with Laravel, a PHP framework, with a lot of cutting-edge solutions aimed at increasing performance and reliability.

All project data is stored in a cross-platform document-oriented database MongoDB. Request processing is managed by a high-speed ZeroMQ asynchronous messaging library. Mongrel2 — an efficient open-source system — is responsible for input queries.

Now the Vakoms development team is implementing a new working scheme for the server. It includes the deployment of Ansible Technology to bring better flexibility, efficiency, and uptime to HelpAround service. To increase the processing speed, as well as improve data security the team created synchronized copies of the database within the so-called Replica Set.

To keep up with the security requirements, Vakoms has implemented multifactor authentication. Apart from that, Vakoms’s healthcare software developers are constantly implementing new ways of reinforcing the security of HelpAround.

In 2018 HelpAround became compliant with the HIPAA regulation, which is one of the obligatory standards for healthcare providers in the US. It means that HelpAround is properly protecting its patients’ personal information.

Vakoms is continually improving the HelpAround project to keep it up-to-date and flexible. To enhance the performance, the team has migrated the HelpAround server from PHP 5 to PHP 7.

HelpAround today is a multifunctional mobile concierge that serves both patients and pharma companies. The tools created by Vakoms help patients with chronic diseases get timely help, follow the treatment, keep updated on their health conditions, get easier access to specialty pharma, and more.

Vakoms has completely reworked mobile applications while making the system reliable, secure, compliant, and kept up with the latest healthcare technology trends. Apart from that, the team has created a mobile web application for those who prefer using the web over installing apps.

HelpAround has received investments from the industry giants like IQVIA, ConnectiveRx and Windham Ventures.

As of early 2021, the Vakoms HelpAround development team consists of: