Electronic Medical Records Information System
Case study
Developers at Toughlex have joined development forces with Nortal and had a chance to prove their expertise in scaling up front-end development processes in a world of ever expanding medical business needs.
- Complex and ever expanding list of requirements
- Expandable
- Maintainable
- Modular
Context
Electronic medical records system is a tool to manage patients’ visits to the hospital and to document the whole process. Developers at Toughlex were relied on implementing user interface features according to provided designs and business logic. With a system this big, it is a challenge to maintain ever expanding code base. This is where developers at Toughlex helped the most. Deeper knowledge in Angular framework, usage of simplified NgRx patterns and experience in maintaining a massive code base helped to pick up the pace in an ongoing project.
Project Goal
In an environment of ever increasing requirements, we set ourselves a goal to increase the pace of development. We indicated a few key points that would make development faster and maintaining easier:
- Reduce complexity of existing library usage solutions
- Better utilize features of Angular framework (content projection, dependency injection, Angular modules)
- Create useful NgRx patterns
- Help to maintain component library
Solution
We communicated with existing project’s team members in order to investigate project’s current state: most valuable parts, future vision and pain points. This allowed us to prioritize work according to client values. Agile development environment helped to stay on track with correct development direction.
NgRx Store
Improved composition of NgRx redux store modules for easier reusability. Moved more application state to store which helped to create more natural data flow in used components.
Component Library
Helped to utilize library components that help with common user interface solutions. Select, datatable, tree, modal and other component implementations were improved. Used storybook to display created presentational components.
Custom Solutions
Helped to implement a generic solution for various classifier types which is common for medical records. Introduced nested forms which helped to reuse common parts of medical forms.
Results
Toughlex helped to solve quite a few problems and continues to make the best technical decisions for the front-end development side of this project. With core development patterns in place, developers have more time to develop business value details which helps to gain an edge over competitors. The development of the project also became more predictable and we can better rely on current estimations for future releases. Work on this project slowly transitions from figuring out solutions for common and irritating problems to dreaming about ideal generalization and worldwide adoption.
Technologies
Project’s technology stack was already in place and it didn’t need many modifications. It is built and hosted using Azure cloud development solutions. Constantly updated Angular version helped to not fall behind. Application state management was implemented using the NgRx store. Design team can inspect developed presentational components in a neatly organized Storybook application.
Skills
- TypeScript
- Javascript
- Storybook
- Enterprise Software
- Remote Work