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Project Overview
Project Balance was engaged by Keep Safe Care Corp to design and develop an eCommerce platform where individuals seeking to hire caregivers can find and hire them through the Keep Safe Care Direct website. Those seeking care (Careseekers) and caregivers enter their profile information and through a matching algorithm, the system identifies the best-matched caregivers based on skills, experience, driving distance, and cost criteria. Careseekers have the ability to view caregiver profiles and connect, interview, schedule, and hire one or more caregivers through the site. Ongoing scheduling with care plans as well as all payment processing is done through the site. The site provides services across the United States, including Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico.
After developing the minimum viable produce, the Project Balance team continued to build out the platform to include features for running a private duty agency through Keep Safe Care (keepsafecare.com). Customer relationship management features were added to assist agency owners to track clients through the sales pipeline and while on service. Caregiver management features were added as well as financial reporting for operational and tax purposes.
A mobile app was developed for caregivers to check in and check out at clients and view and manage their time cards.
Solution
Project Balance worked closely with the company owners to produce a highly process-oriented website application that guides the Careseeker through the stages of connecting, interviewing, background checking, and hiring a caregiver. As users are public consumers with no prior training in how to use the application, the application is highly transactional in nature and at each step in the hiring process, the Careseeker and connected caregiver are given prompts and instructions on what to do and how to do it on the website.
Once a caregiver is hired, the application provides scheduling and care plan features as well as billing and payment features. Application data security allows Careseekers to have an administrator who can oversee the entire process remotely. The software has been enhanced since first delivery to allow organizations such as private duty agencies to use all of the caregiver profile, matching, care plan, and back-office billing features for increased efficiencies. It has also been modified to allow other organizations to recruit caregivers off of its vast and growing pool of caregivers.
Technology
- .Net/C#
- MS SQL database
- Bootstrap
- Stripe
- SendGrid
- Twilio
- Google Maps
- Azure Cloud Storage
Specialization
System performance was a design architecture concern right from the beginning of the project. This is a consumer-facing application with thousands of users and transactions, and it was imperative that the application was not lethargic or possess latency. The selection of underlying architecture and database was selected to meet the current and future needs of the application.
Prior to this project, Project Balance did not have experience with credit card and banking processes. The application is fully integrated with the Stripe API for real-time and scheduled preauthorization of funds on credit cards, charging credit cards, and ACH deposits into bank accounts. Financial aspects such as minimum wage, federal and state income taxes, and non-taxable expense items are seamlessly working within the application.
As the product matured, keeping up with technology version updates and newer technology platforms as well as taking care of tech debt was a focus for product sustainability. Project Balance worked with the owners to plan and implement technology changes while providing a stable platform with increasing users.
Impact
After the client’s two earlier attempts with other US vendors, Project Balance delivered the MVP product within 10 months of project initiation. Project Balance has been the vendor of choice since the initial product delivery in 2017. The product has since been enhanced to provide a full suite of features for private duty agencies and other care organizations that hire caregivers. Major enhancements include: customer relationship management for agencies, detailed transactional messing for agency administrators, clients, and caregivers, financial management with Stripe, payroll and bank reporting.
Testimonial
“There is an old saying, ‘The third time is the charm,’ and in my company’s case, it is true. Prior to working with Project Balance, Keep Safe Care had engaged with two other vendors to develop a revolutionary caregiving app, but unfortunately both of them failed to deliver to specifications. So, after a great deal of time and capital spent, we were in a bind and fortunately were referred to Project Balance. Not only did they deliver a superior product, they did it within the time and monetary constraints placed upon them. They approached the problem as engineers first, and software developers second, resulting in a very fine solution.”
Jeffrey Fry | CEO, Keep Safe Care Corporation
