Priya's Progress Flag

Therapists type a few numbers after each session, and the app quietly raises a hand when a patient has stopped getting better.

Who this is for

Priya Deshmukh runs a physiotherapy clinic above a chemist shop in Nashik. Two other therapists work with her, and Sunita at the desk takes the money and the appointments. There are about forty patients on the books, eleven or twelve in a day. The moment that matters is Tuesday morning, before the seven-thirty knee case walks in, when Priya has four minutes with her tea and wants to know which of her forty are not moving.

How the job is done today

There is a register with ruled columns. After each session the therapist writes the knee bend in degrees, pain out of ten, and sometimes a word like better or same. The register is honest and nobody reads it backwards. The numbers only get looked at when a patient says at session ten that the shoulder feels exactly as it did in the first week, and then Priya turns the pages and sees it was true from session four. The other place things get noticed is the clinic WhatsApp group, where a therapist sometimes types that a patient seems stuck, and it scrolls away under an appointment change by evening.

The screens, in order

1. Today's patients — Shows the therapist only the names booked for that day, in time order, so the session entry is one tap away from walking into the room.
2. Session entry — Takes the two or three numbers measured in this session and nothing else, so it can be filled in the thirty seconds after the patient sits up.
3. Flags — Priya's morning screen, listing the patients whose numbers have not moved for three sessions, with the reason shown plainly next to each name.
4. Patient history — Lays out one patient's numbers session by session so Priya can see where the improvement stopped before she changes the plan.
5. Patient list — Lets anyone add a new patient and set which two or three things will be measured for them from the first session onwards.

What it keeps track of

• Patients — name, phone, what they came in for, which side, which two or three things we measure for them, first visit date, still coming or finished
• Sessions — which patient, which day, which therapist, the numbers measured that day, a short note if the therapist wants one
• Flags — which patient, the day it was raised, which measurement stopped moving, still open or looked at, who looked at it
• Therapists — name, whether they can see everyone's patients or only their own

The one decision that matters

The one thing to get right is the keyboard. Priya's therapists read Hindi far more easily than English, so every label, every flag reason, every prompt should be in Hindi. The tempting next step is to let them write notes in Hindi too, with a Hindi keyboard or English-to-Hindi conversion. Do not. Switching keyboards with hands that have just come off a patient's back, five times a day, is exactly the friction that makes people go back to the register. Read in Hindi, type in English. What actually gets typed is numbers and short words like same, stiff, better, and those come off the normal keyboard without thinking.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out charts. A line graph feels like the obvious answer to a question about progress, but Priya does not need to see a shape, she needs a name. Also leave out anything that reaches the patient, no messages, no reminders, no report to hand over. The moment the app talks to patients, it stops being a quiet assistant and becomes something Priya has to check before it speaks. Keep it inside the clinic for the first version.

How you would know it worked

A frozen shoulder patient gets her plan changed at session five instead of session eleven, and Priya knew about it on a Tuesday morning from her own phone rather than from the patient's son asking on the stairs why nothing has changed.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run a physiotherapy clinic in Nashik with two other therapists. After every session we note a few numbers for each patient, like knee bend in degrees, pain out of ten, and how many times they can stand up from a chair in thirty seconds. I want a phone app where the therapist opens the patient's name from that day's list, types those numbers, and that is the whole job. If a patient's numbers have not improved across three sessions in a row, I want that patient's name waiting on my screen the next morning with a line saying what has not moved, so I can look at the treatment plan again. Please keep all the words in the app in Hindi because my therapists read it far more comfortably, but everything they type will be numbers and short English words, so do not make anyone change keyboards.