SUCCESS CASE
Develop regulated medical software for rehabilitation
QuicklyPro is an innovative medical device company focused on gait rehabilitation. They provide a wearable device, the Q-Walk, that allows people suffering from chronic degenerative diseases or recovering from orthopedic surgery to improve their gait. The wearable medical device features a pair of knee pads that project personalized visual feedback that shows the patient the ideal support point for each step, providing guided walking. Built-in software allows continuous monitoring of the patient’s gait, activity, and exercises.
To support service delivery and the patient relationship, the client selected Mia-Care as the technology partner for the development of a cloud platform used by physiotherapists and specialists to manage and monitor the therapy set for their patients, and a dedicated smartphone App for the end patient to perform the rehabilitation exercises assigned by the physiotherapist.
Benefits and KPIs
+300
Care professionals
involved
+5
Countries
reached
70%
Adoption
Rate
6 months
Product
Time-to-market
The Need
Q-Walk was created through a patient-centric approach ensuring ease of use and an adaptable design. Despite the effectiveness of the device, some market needs remained unresolved: distance between the healthcare professional and the patient resulting in a lack of communication between the two parties and poor adherence to the rehabilitation plan to the patient’s needs.
The cutting-edge medical device has to be supported by a reliable, secure, and performant IT architecture to perform at its best and to provide the smoothest user experience for all stakeholders involved, from clinics to patients. Wrapping up in a few sentences, the main needs are the following:
- Leverage cloud-native and microservice-based technologies to envision a scalable and evolvable solution over time;
- Provide the best UX/UI to let patients perform rehabilitation exercises in the most peaceful environment possible;
- Build an intuitive and interactive cockpit for physiotherapists to improve clinical performance and the decision-making process.
The Challenge
The Q-Walk product is considered a Class I medical device, so the digital platform enabling medical device-related functionalities falls under the definition of “Software as a Medical Device” Class I.
Therefore, it is critical to build an MDR-compliant architecture to proceed with medical device certification. To achieve this goal, it will be imperative to rely on modular compliant-by-design solutions that can be easily and quickly implemented and certified as SaMD.
In this scenario, if QuicklyPro needs to incorporate other functional modules in the future, certification won’t be critical and business continuity won’t be affected.
The Solution
QuicklyPro, with the support of the Mia-Care Tech Team, has developed a digital architecture that includes two innovative solutions:
QP-Rehab (Web App)
A cloud-based platform used by physical therapists and specialists to manage and monitor the therapy regimen for their patients. Physical therapists will be able to:
- Define the therapy plan for each patient;
- Submit exercises and continuously monitor the patient’s progress in following the established rehabilitation plan;
- Easily and securely manage patient registries;
- Calendar of training sessions through a simple and intuitive interface.
QP-App (Smartphone App)
iOS and Android Smartphone Apps are used by physiotherapists and patients, with different roles and privileges. The users, through the smartphone application, will be able to:
- Set Q-walk and collect data;
- View the therapy plan (exercises, cadence, and schedule);
- Activate and execute the rehabilitation plan according to the current session;
- Rely on direct communication with the specialist through video visits, and push notifications.
The Impact
- Enhancing remote care: QuicklyPro, in cooperation with Mia-Care, is working on enhancing remote healthcare by enabling physiotherapists to provide effective rehabilitation treatment remotely. This not only improves patient accessibility but also opens up new avenues for healthcare delivery.
- Improving the patient and therapist experience: QP-Rehab provides physiotherapists a dynamic platform to create and monitor patients’ treatment plans. QP-App enables patients to engage in their rehabilitation pathway by using digital devices and communicating directly with specialists, promoting a more collaborative and effective therapeutic experience.
- Facilitated certification: Mia-Care helped the QuicklyPro team to design and develop a digital product Compliant by Design with MDR, FDA, and ISO 13485, allowing a fast internationalization and certification process. This helped to scale the market by opportunity and maximize the diffusion of the solution.
Why Mia-Care
TECH EXCELLENCE
The migration to a microservices-based architecture lowered the certification complexity thanks to a modular approach and a process framework specifically designed to speed up the conceiving of the solutions, always focusing on high‑quality code.
COMPLIANCE
Mia-Care technology enables the creation of SaMD to be easily certified thanks to its MDR-ready and compliant-by-design Platform Builder that meets all the requirements requested by current and future regulations (MDR 2017/45).
RELIABILITY
Since QuicklyPro aims to be ready to scale the market once critical mass is reached, relying on ready-to-use components and software components that are stable and updated recurrently is mandatory.
DELIVERY SPEED
Thanks to the nature of Mia-Care composable technology, once the kickoff analysis ended, the developments went fast and in line with the initial requirements by reaching and scaling the market quickly when needed.
