Building a Scalable, HIPAA-Compliant Portal for a Dental Lab

The Approach: Mapping Out Plans for an Elevated HIPPA-Compliant Portal

For DDS, speed and reliability were two of the driving factors behind the new portal. To ensure that the DDS team had a fully functional customer portal—and one that could eventually integrate seamlessly with Salesforce—the LaunchPad Lab team decided to leverage Heroku, a Platform as a Service (PaaS).  

Technology

Heroku

Heroku, a game-changer in the development space, reduces the need for complicated hardware and foundational development to successfully launch web and mobile apps. By leveraging Heroku, we can dramatically reduce development time and spending, scale apps with ease and efficiency, and provide standard security practices.

SendGrid 

SendGrid is the world’s largest cloud-based email delivery platform, designed to deliver transactional and marketing emails. By leveraging SendGrid, DDS can rely on the company’s cloud servers instead of setting up an email server. 

DropZone 

DropZone is an open-source library that makes it easy to preview images within a web or mobile app and easily store attachments. 

The Solution: Launching a Responsive, HIPAA-Compliant App

Now, the DDS app includes an array of features, including: 

Authentication and Roles

Specifically designed for admins, technicians, and doctors, each role can log in separately to use the portal. For each specific user and their needs, different functionality becomes available. 

Mobile-Friendy & Responsive 

Because many technicians and doctors don’t spend their entire day at a desk, the DDS portal is mobile-friendly and responsive—so all users have a seamless experience whether they’re on their phones or their computers. 

Case Management 

With the portal’s functionality, doctors can effortlessly create cases based on pre-set case categories and types. Then, they can add attachments for the dental imaging, making it easy for DDS to obtain the images needed for the case. 

Throughout the entire lifecycle of a case, doctors and technicians can add comments to communicate with one another and keep an easy-to-follow communication channel. 

Doctor and Patient Management 

To streamline the process of adding users, admins and technicians can add new doctors to the portal by creating a profile for them and sending an email invite. Doctors can also easily add their patients to the portal so they can track their case progress. 

Email Notifications 

To ensure that no one misses an update, emails are sent from the portal to alert users about invites, new case alerts, status updates, or new comments. To aid in the amount of information received daily, users can adjust their notification frequency settings through their profiles. 

The Results: Shipping a HIPAA-Compliant App in Under 3 Months

By building the app on Heroku, DDS’s portal is now streamlined, efficient, and user-friendly. Dentists can easily submit requests to the portal. Technicians at DDS can accurately open a case, read through the notes, and understand the ask within minutes. 

DDS is now processing nearly 600 treatment plans per month with precise accuracy. This has prompted feedback from their users, saying “I enjoy the lab script page and where to upload the zip file. I feel like all necessary information is requested when filling out this form. I like that there is a free text box on the lab script area and I can complete the form on the go with my mobile device.”