OGNOMY
Rapidly Innovating a Mobile Telemedicine App to Re-Imagine Sleep Centers and Enhance Health
THE PROBLEM
Dr. Dan Rifkin, Medical Director of The Sleep Medicine Centers of WNY, had long wanted to develop a telemedicine platform for sleep apnea, a potentially life-threatening sleep-related breathing disorder. Sleep apnea affects millions of people worldwide, and 80% of patients in the US alone remain undiagnosed. Given this haunting statistic, Dr. Rifkin dreamt of a fully integrated sleep apnea app where a patient could receive a professional diagnosis from board certified sleep medicine specialists and receive treatment, all from the comfort of home.
Traditionally, getting properly diagnosed involves travel to designated sleep centers, time away from home, and other hurdles. The app would eliminate the need for brick-and-mortar sleep centers by doing it all for the patient and the doctor. From simple scheduling, to telemedicine consultations, to progress tracking, to the ability to order diagnostic tests and treatments, the platform would open up sleep apnea diagnosis and treatment to patients all over the world.
THE SOLUTION
With the help of Sam Marrazzo, Chief Innovation Officer at Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC), Dr. Rifkin’s vision for the Ognomy app began to take shape. Sam led Dr. Rifkin’s team through a Design Thinking exercise to flesh out concepts for the application. Dr. Rifkin envisioned an enterprise-level, patient first, HIPAA compliant application, and in design workshops over two days, ideas became storyboards. As part of these workshops, Sam leveraged Topcoder to run rapid design challenges to quickly flesh out the concepts and extend the usefulness of the Design Thinking exercise.
After the high-fidelity UI/UX was complete, the team continued down the software development lifecycle with Topcoder, completing front-end code, key payment and video integrations, QA and readying the app to be deployed on the app store. This was Dr. Rifkin’s first experience using on-demand remote talent and Topcoder’s platform. He was impressed, saying, “It really went very smoothly and quickly, I loved the process.”
THE RESULT
WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED IN SUCH SHORT ORDER WITH THE HELP OF BNMC AND EXECUTION ON TOPCODER IS TREMENDOUS. THE IMPACT IS HAVING THIS APP DONE AND GETTING TO MARKET VS. STRUGGLING TO EVEN BEGIN.
Dr. Daniel Rifkin
THE IMPACT
An early version of the Ognomy telemedicine application launched in April 2020, just over four months from when development began. Dr. Rifkin’s ingenuity and vision combined with on-demand talent helped bring this innovation to market as rapidly as it did. As the world comes to terms with the COVID-19 crisis, there’s an opportunity to meet new challenges with new ways of doing things. The Ognamy telemedicine app is a wonderful example of this.
Through on-demand talent, the Ognomy team is set to revolutionize sleep wellness through telemedicine.