Starting 14th September of 2019, the world commemorates the World Patient Safety Day. Endorsed by WHO, this day should raise awareness and encourage solidary actions to improve patient safety. WHO research reveals that up to 4 out of 10 patients are harmed in primary and ambulatory care settings, mostly by human errors and harmful medication use.
Each year, 134 million adverse events occur in hospitals in LMICs, contributing to 2.6 million deaths annually due to unsafe care. As the complexity of tasks and equipment increase, the caregivers’ performance, communication skills and effectiveness are put under extreme stress. One of the ways to reduce healthcare workers’ burnout and improve patients’ outcomes is to enhance medical devices UI/UX design to make it ergonomic: simple, intuitive, and consistent.
An analyst of Clutch.co (CA), an independent B2B ratings and reviews site, has recently interviewed the head of R&D of a EU-based medical device manufacturer (C) that contracted Auriga to design the user interface for their imaging solution playing a vital role in cardio surgery. We are honored to take part in such innovative and important project. Please, find some of the insights shared by our customer below.
BACKGROUND
CA: Introduce your business and what you do there.
C: I’m the head of R&D for a medical device company based in Madrid, Spain. We’re a privately funded company that’s been in the market for eight years.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
CA: What challenge were you trying to address with Auriga, Inc.?
C: We needed help with development.
SOLUTION
CA: What was the scope of their involvement?
C: The team at Auriga, Inc. is developing the interface for our application. They usually work using C++ or C#, but we had different specifications. They’re using Python along with C#.
CA: What is the team composition?
C: We’ve worked with about seven people from their team. There are about five or six engineers. We also had a project manager and high-level management involved. They sometimes have to switch between different people during the project.
CA: How did you come to work with Auriga, Inc.?
C: We started looking for different candidates and researched companies in the UK, Europe, and the US.
Somehow, we received feedback from another company we knew who had worked with Auriga, Inc. in the past. Their prices were more competitive than others, so we decided to give them a try.
CA: How much have you invested with them?
C: So far, we’ve spent around €600,000 (approximately $675,000 USD).
CA: What is the status of this engagement?
C: We’ve been working with Auriga, Inc. since March 2017.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
CA: What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
C: I’m quite satisfied. We’re a startup company, and there’s a lot of risks, so it’s always challenging to find partners that work at the same pace as us. It’s been different with Auriga, Inc. They’re more in line with the restrictions for medical devices.
Their team always pushes the right implementation. The project has gone up and down throughout the years. We started doing a specific development with one technology but then switched to a different platform.
We’re always running and changing requirements and milestones. It’s complicated for them to work, but I think they’ve done a great job. The way we measure them is by pace and milestones where they have needed to deliver part of the code.
Sometimes they deliver on time, and sometimes there are delays. It’s likely not their fault because we make a lot of changes. It would be fair to say that their team works pretty well.
CA: How did Auriga, Inc. perform from a project management standpoint?
C: I wasn’t that involved daily. I connected with them maybe once a week to get on the same page. We needed to communicate on a task and get them to do what we want, but once we got to that point, they performed very well.
CA: What did you find most impressive about them?
C: I would say their commitment. We’ve gone through difficult moments where they’ve had to deliver complex prototypes. They worked day and night to get it done, which to me, is extremely impressive.
Other companies would shut down at 5 o’clock and do it on a different day. Auriga, Inc. was committed to the project and its deliverables.
CA: Are there any areas they could improve?
C: Sometimes it was challenging to rearrange team members from other projects. They tried to do it sometimes, and they just had different meetings with members to get all the information for all the partners.
I think what they can do to improve is to have more versatile engineers to know more about low level, mid-level, and high-level software skills so that they can complement each other a bit more efficiently.
CA: Do you have any advice for potential customers?
C: Know all of your requirements and work step-by-step on the SOW. Never change anything in between.
About Clutch.co
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