A mobile EHR for clinics, from iOS developer to product manager

Unified Practice makes electronic medical records and practice management software for acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine clinics. Its native iPad app was the first one designed specifically for TCM practitioners, and its iPhone app keeps a clinic’s agenda in the practitioner’s pocket. I spent four years there: two building the apps, and two deciding what they should become.

Building it

I joined in November 2020 as an iOS developer, working on the iPhone and iPad apps in Swift and UIKit. In a medical product, every line of code has real patient outcomes behind it, and that changed how I thought about software.

• I developed and maintained the iPhone and iPad apps used in real clinics every day.
• I led a full redesign of the iPhone app’s interface.
• I integrated secure APIs for patient data and worked closely with the design and backend teams.

Leading it

In October 2022 I became the product manager for mobile, owning the roadmap for the iOS, iPadOS and Android apps. The questions changed from how to build a feature to why it mattered to practitioners, how it would improve patient care, and what would happen if it failed.

• I owned roadmap decisions for the iOS, iPadOS and Android EHR apps used by clinics.
• I worked across engineering, QA, design, support and stakeholders to ship meaningful improvements.
• I used research, data and technical judgment to choose what to build and when.

The iPad app is where most clinical work happens: the calendar and agenda, appointment details, the patient list, messaging and file sharing with patients, TCM charting, electronic prescriptions, subjective and physical exam charting, and reference databases.

What it taught me

Being both the engineer and the product manager on the same product taught me that the best products come from understanding both the how and the why. I wrote more about that move from code to product in From iOS Code to Product Vision.