While the main focus of all hospitals is patients and their health, this doesn’t mean you can’t serve them even better with mobile apps!
Most hospitals don’t have a huge IT department, and so they are limited in capabilities to develop their own web tools and applications.
Hiring native developers is a cost factor that’s hard to argue, but most internal developers already know about the web, which is enough to build something truly helpful for the medical services these days.
Good thing the Lehigh Valley Health Network has John Cressman, a 50 year old senior web developer – also capable of building mobile applications due to the rise of cross platform frameworks like Ionic!
John stepped in when the his employer was looking for someone capable of building mobile applications, but read the full story yourself.
Who are you?
My name is John Cressman. A married programmer who just turned 50. I’m an author, magician and hypnotist – in addition to my full time job.
What is your current job position or role?
I am a senior web developer for Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA. I’ve been with the hospital for over 20 years.
How did you get into mobile apps?
About 15 years ago, I had an idea for a self hypnosis mobile application. I worked with some developers, created and marketed it. So when my work asked who knew about mobile apps, I volunteered and wrote the hospital’s first mobile application using Corona SDK.
Why did you chose Ionic?
When we were looking to update the EMS Pro mobile app, I wanted to move away from Corona SDK and looked at other platforms. Ionic appealed to me because I’m a web developer and the web technologies it used were familiar.
How did you initially learn Ionic?
I took some Udemy courses and watched some YouTube videos. My search for more learning eventually brought me to Ionic Academy.
Why did you join the Ionic Academy?
The lessons and quick wins helped immensely with my project.
Which feature of the Ionic Academy do you like especially?
The Quick Wins and Courses are great and I also enjoy the forums and have gotten a lot of help from them.
What apps did you build with Ionic?
I built EMS Pro (iOS, Android), a utility application for first responders in Northeast Pennsylvania.
What were the biggest challenges with that app?
Getting a consistent look across Android and Apple was one challenge. The other was the fact that Apple broke the built-in document viewer functionality a week after we released the app and I had to scramble to fix it.
How did the Ionic Academy help you?
Several of the quick wins lived up to their name and helped me with certain functionality within the application – like viewing PDFs.
Do you plan to develop more apps in the future?
Right now, we are looking at exploring other opportunities to leverage Ionic in the future.
John is an awesome addition for the hospital and all EMS using the app, and continues to provide value through further applications.
If you want to build mobile apps for your company and quickly learn Ionic, you can become a member of the Ionic Academy today and roll out your first applications in no time as well!