Buoy Health
Brief information
Overview
Buoy Health, headquartered in Boston, MA, is an AI-powered navigation platform providing consumers with real-time personalized clinical support. Buoy works directly with consumers and employers to help its users get the right care at the right time.
Buoy Health triages patient symptoms through an online questionnaire. Responses are analyzed in real-time to resemble a conversation with a doctor. The patient is then given suggested next steps to help them get the appropriate care for their personal situation. The tool is made possible by an ever-growing database of historical clinical interactions, machine learning algorithms, and experienced medical professionals dedicated to patient care.
The Challenge
When working with artificial intelligence (machine learning), it is important not to lose sight of the human element. Therefore, it was crucial for Buoy Health to find a balance between the technical and personal needs of their clients. With a medical advisory board behind them, Buoy Health’s focus is rooted in what is best for the patient experience and moving the healthcare industry forward. With new data being rapidly collected and analyzed, every development iteration needed to be agile to tackle new insights and make minor refinements if needed.
From a market standpoint, Buoy Health needed to highlight their significant improvements relative to a vast range of outdated, online symptom checkers. Many older applications were less dynamic and lacked sufficient specificity, which was creating confusion and unnecessary anxiety.
It was clear that a solution able to evolve at the speed of medical knowledge was needed in the market.
Project Scope
- Ensure high performance and constant availability even while in peak usage during an unprecedented global pandemic
- Provide robust integration between APIs and third-party tools
- Implement security protocols for sensitive data operations
Partnering with Newfire has allowed my team to gain momentum without the overhead of daily management. They actively find ways to add value even in a complex environment where directives can quickly change. I’m very impressed with their technical expertise and ability to help us scale as an organization.
Greg Joondeph-Breidbart, Senior VP of Engineering at Buoy Health
The Solution
Newfire began partnering with Buoy Health to better understand the organizational needs and develop Agile processes accordingly. The team helped solve some major architectural challenges and was both flexible and creative during an unprecedented pandemic that affected the healthcare industry at large.
The Newfire Global Partners team helped to build a user flow algorithm and contact tracing system from scratch, which was integrated with government and third-party databases. The Agile development process helped developers stay flexible as the situation on the ground quickly evolved.
Outcomes
- Enhanced a microservices architecture
- Adopted asynchronous messaging strategy to allow Buoy Health to scale
- Established product interoperability with custom API integration
We were inspired by Buoy Health’s mission and potential for great social impact. We also felt empowered to propose the best technologies for such an important and complex platform. We implemented a robust microservices architecture, which was a logical decision for this type of mission-critical solution.
Oleksandr, Senior Business Analyst at Newfire Global Partners
