Helping people live better with diabetes

Diabetes presents a significant and growing healthcare challenge worldwide. This chronic condition affects millions of people, disrupting their daily lives and requiring diligent self-care. The complexity lies in the delicate balance of blood sugar control, where even minor fluctuations can have severe consequences.

For patients, living with diabetes can be a constant struggle. The condition demands ongoing attention, discipline, and adherence to strict self-care routines. Daily activities such as monitoring blood sugar levels, administering insulin injections, managing medications, and making dietary choices can become overwhelming and burdensome.
Moreover, the lack of comprehensive support and accessible resources often leaves patients feeling isolated and uncertain about effectively managing their condition. Addressing these challenges and providing patients with tools and support to navigate their diabetes journey is paramount in improving their well-being and empowering them to lead fulfilling lives.

These real life needs translated into a complex feature set with many technical challenges that I had a direct impact on solving.

To overcome these technical challenges, I leveraged cutting-edge technologies including Kotlin, Coroutines, and Jetpack Compose, which are the latest advancements in the industry. Additionally, I followed industry best practices such as adopting the MVVM architecture and Clean architecture principles to guarantee well-structured, maintainable, and high-quality code. Doing so, here is a list of the main feature I applied my knowledge on:

Interactive 2D Model: To facilitate proper insulin injection site rotation, I developed an interactive 2D model that allows patients to visualize and manage injections sites.

Physical Activity and Sleep Tracking: I integrated Google Fit synchronization to retrieve body data, heart rates, physical activities and sleep segments. Those data are synchronized with our API and provide valuable insights into the impact of lifestyle choices on blood glucose management.

Meal Planning and Nutrition: I developed a module to support meal planning and nutrition management. Users can create personalized meal plans manually, leverage the OpenFoodFact API for nutritional information, and utilize a barcode scanner for easy tracking of food items.

Connectivity with Medical Devices: I added Bluetooth-enabled glucometers pairing and synchronization, to streamline blood glucose data to our API.

Interactive Charts: I developed multiple charts to display different types of data:

• Lazy-Loading chart: Heavy data loads with infinite scroll. Must be performant and seamless. It was a rewarding technical challenge.
• Heart rate chart: Showing heart rates on a candle stick type chart.
• Blood glucose impact: A chart that displays the min, max, and average values over a period of time.
• Sleep segments: Displays the patient sleep segments (paradoxal, deep, light, ...) during a sleep session.‍‍

In-App Messaging: I created a homemade realtime messaging feature allowing patients to discuss with their healthcare professionals. This chat uses Firestore, Cloud functions, and notifications services from Firebase.

Even though I developed these feature by myself, their creation was still a collaborative effort that involved the entire team, including the Product Owner, other developers, and the QA tester. Throughout the process, I actively engaged with the team, seeking their input, incorporating feedback, and ensuring that the features aligned with the project's goals. The collaborative environment allowed us to collectively shape the direction of the features and ensure their successful integration within the larger scope of the project. The combined efforts and contributions of the team members were instrumental in achieving a high-quality end result.