Technical Discovery & Modernization Roadmap for a Production Healthcare Mobile App

DBB Software ran a Technical Discovery engagement on a subscription-based clinical-reference and practitioner-community mobile app, focused on turning accumulated technical debt and recurring production bugs into a buildable modernization roadmap.

Industry

Healthcare & Biotech

Service

Product Discovery

Team

DBB Software Architecture Team

Project State

Completed

Country

Not disclosed

About the Client

The client operates a production cross-platform mobile application for medical professionals that combines a clinical-reference and protocol library, a practitioner community, and recurring subscriptions. The product was already live and serving paying users, but it had accumulated significant technical debt.

The Client's Initial Request

The client engaged DBB Software for a Technical Discovery to receive a System Design Document that the client could fund and execute against.

Stabilize the Production App

Root-cause the recurring push-notification failures and the lack of crash visibility, and define how to make them observable and fixable.

Untangle the Architecture

Replace a monolithic and inconsistent structure with a clear and maintainable target structure where unrelated concerns, scattered Firebase logic, and duplicated files were slowing delivery.

Establish a Design-System & Accessibility Foundation

Define the semantic-token and theming foundation a healthcare product needs to reach WCAG-grade accessibility and dark mode, without a file-by-file rewrite.

Sequence It Safely

Provide a phased plan that modernizes a live app without destabilizing it.

Make It Executable

Deliver a delivery timeline, per-area acceptance criteria, and a risk register with mitigations so the work could be staffed and committed with confidence.

The Deliverables

DBB Software delivered a complete System Design Document that converts accumulated technical debt into an executable, risk-managed modernization plan.

Production-Stability Diagnosis & Remediation Plan

Root-caused 3+ critical push-notification defects and specified a single centralized Firebase module of 5 service files to own initialization, messaging, remote config, analytics, and crash reporting. Crashlytics is designated as the central error handler, replacing zero real-time crash visibility with a dashboard that surfaces every failure with full device, OS, and action context.

Target Architecture & Monolith-Split Plan

Specified a 3-layer architecture (core / presentation / data) with 9 feature-scoped folders under presentation, plus a concrete monolith-split plan for the 710-line Home screen, so UI, data/service, and shared-logic changes have clear boundaries and can no longer reach across layers.

Healthcare-Grade Remote Control & Analytics Design

Designed a Remote Config layer with 7 named feature flags scoped to healthcare needs (emergency feature shutoff, disclaimer-version forcing, maintenance mode, gradual rollout, minimum supported version, paywall control, sensitive-feature gating), every flag changeable without an app-store release. Proposed an analytics layer with 7 typed GA4 events that answer product questions that the existing backend analytics can't with no backend deployments required.

Design-System & Accessibility Foundation

Specified semantic color tokens and a named typography system to replace hardcoded hex values across 40+ files, plus a 5-phase accessibility roadmap toward WCAG AA, justified by where clinicians actually use the app.

Risk-Managed Delivery Plan

Delivered a 4–6 week, 6-sprint plan for 1 Senior Flutter Developer across 3 phases, with per-area acceptance criteria covering 10 outcome areas, 5 explicitly named out-of-scope items to protect focus, and a 5-risk register with likelihood, impact, and mitigations.

Results Achieved

A Bounded Plan

Recurring production bugs and an unmaintainable codebase are now a phased System Design Document the client can fund and execute, bounded by an explicit no-new-features and out-of-scope line.

Stability Diagnosed and the Rewrite Staged

The production stability defects and the crash-visibility gap are root-caused with monitoring established first with a clear target architecture, per-area acceptance criteria, and a risk register.