The People and Medicine (PL Ludzie I Medycyna) Foundation was established in 2018 with a focus on patient experience, creating and using different solutions for helping people living with diagnosis.Testing, describing, and working towards a better experience using Participatory Design methodology, where actual users are researching, designing, testing, and agreeing on a final solution, among others. This was done for Patients4Patients. 

Patients4Patients is a peer-support-based mobile app – an innovative yet scientifically-grounded support system. There is a safe place where all questions can be asked, such as, “How will this affect my love life?”. The system allows recovered or experienced patients to provide practical and emotional support to the “novice” patients via 1:1 chat. After signing in, users can select their conditions and predefined conversation topics. In the app, they can filter anonymous patient databases based on this information to find matching peers.

Since 2022, Foundation set approach where users are actually invited to participate in decision-making and treated as members of the Product Team, which is what sets them apart from a typical approach! They want to be the first Polish, NGO-centered “project UTOPIA”-like [2] initiative to set pioneer standards for working with marginalized groups on Digital Products using Participatory Design.

As the war in Ukraine began, the idea was to translate the app into Ukrainian so that the estimated 2-3 million Ukrainians in Poland could also use it for emotional support.

In what condition did Lumen Spei find the project?

The Foundation received grant funding for the development of the application, the deadline was a bit challenging.

Before Lumen Spei’s involvement, there were around 600 active users. We decided to use the following stack of technology: 

• Flutter for the simultaneous development of the iOS & Android mobile app 
• Firebase for notifications, storage, database, and authentication

In the following five months of our operative development, the application was completed with all of the prior requests met, and was successfully deployed on the 22nd of August 2022 to the App & Play Store.

Here is where you can find the app right now:

• Pacjenci Pacjentom Play Store
• Pacjenci Pacjentom Apple App Store

What are the results before vs. after?

Our pro-bono contract was complete, and the Foundation planned to add Clubs and an educational space (module) for patients to learn how to:

1. provide instrumental and emotional support to each other,
2. maintain psychological well-being in illness,
3. create partnership relations with doctors and specialists,
4. think critically in the world full of fake medical news,
5. implement self-advocacy in their lives.

This new feature was developed shortly after both versions had their first production release (Store) and is scheduled for release as an updated version at the beginning of March. It was a milestone in the long-term partnership, which saw Lumen Spei become a contracted tech partner with the Ludzie i Medycyna Foundation, where we continued to develop and maintain their mobile applications. 

It’s clear that this application is making a significant impact and helping people in their everyday lives. As part of this case study, we even received a testimonial from an app user who says the following:

Helpful app with a very nice user interface

and

Very helpful app <3

We would like to include quotes from the main project’s shareholders involved in this collaboration at the end. Here are their thoughts. 

We want to thank everyone for their involvement in the project, and the resources given for this case study.

Lumen Spei is here to help anyone who needs tech support for a worthy cause. You can get in touch with us through Tech To The Rescue or directly. Throughout the world, technology should be able to help people and empower communities.

The post Collaborating for Good: How Our Pro Bono Work with a Polish Non-Profit Health App Became a Lasting Partnership first appeared on Lumen Spei.