Patient Reminder Messages

Twenty patients need a daily exercise reminder, so the app writes each message and the physio reads it, fixes it, and sends it on WhatsApp.

Who this is for

Shreyas Kulkarni runs a two-room physiotherapy clinic near Gangapur Road in Nashik. Twenty-two patients are on home exercise programmes at any time, from a cricket coach with a torn rotator cuff to three grandmothers recovering from knee replacements. The moment that matters is 8.40 am, sitting on the clinic steps with the shutter half up, phone in hand, first appointment at 9.30.

How the job is done today

There is a notebook on the desk with patient names, the week they are in, and which exercises they were given. Every morning Shreyas opens WhatsApp, finds each patient's chat, scrolls up to yesterday's message, copies it, changes the count from twelve to fifteen, and sends. Some days a patient gets yesterday's message unchanged because the scrolling took too long. Some days two patients get nothing because the 9.30 appointment came early. The whole thing eats an hour and the last few messages are the worst written.

The screens, in order

1. This morning — Shows which patients are due a reminder today and how many are still waiting to be sent.
2. The message — Puts one written message on the whole screen so it can be read at a glance in sunlight and changed if the patient is sore or has moved to the next stage.
3. Send — Hands the approved message to WhatsApp with the right number already chosen, then marks that patient done for the day.
4. Patient page — Holds one patient's exercises, week of recovery and any notes, so the message written tomorrow is right.
5. Add or change a patient — Lets a new patient be set up in under a minute between appointments.

What it keeps track of

• Patients — name, phone number, what they are recovering from, which language they read, which week they are in, whether they get messages daily or thrice a week
• Exercises — name of the exercise in plain words, how many repeats, how many sets, any caution to mention
• Messages sent — which patient, which day, what text went out, whether it was changed before sending

The one decision that matters

One message filling the screen at a time, or all twenty in a scrolling list with a send-all button. The list looks faster and is the wrong answer. On a five-year-old phone held at arm's length in morning glare, a list of twenty small grey lines is unreadable, and a send-all button means nobody ever reads what goes to the grandmother whose knee is swollen. One message, big dark text on plain white, one thumb-sized send button. Reading takes four seconds each. Twenty of those is under two minutes, against an hour of typing, and every message has actually passed under a human eye.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out timed sending, patient replies, and any tracking of whether the exercises were actually done. Timed sending removes the only part that matters, which is a physio reading the message. Replies already arrive in WhatsApp where they are answered anyway, and pulling them into a second place means two inboxes. Also skip any paid messaging service and simply use the WhatsApp already on the phone, so there is nothing to sign up for and no per-message cost.

How you would know it worked

By 8.55 am all twenty-two messages have gone out, Shreyas is drinking tea before the 9.30 patient arrives, and nobody rings the clinic asking how many repeats they were meant to do.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run a small physiotherapy clinic in Nashik and every morning I send about twenty patients a WhatsApp message reminding them of the exercises for that day. I want a phone app where I keep each patient's name, number, their exercise list with repeats, and which week of recovery they are in. Every morning it should show me who is due a message and write the message for each one, in Marathi or Hindi depending on what I have set for that patient. Show me one message at a time in big dark text I can read outside in sunlight, let me change a line if the patient is sore or has moved to the next stage, then let me press send so WhatsApp opens with that message ready for that number. Keep a record of what went out so I never send the same person twice in a day.