Contents

Introduction

Alcohol Monitoring iOS App

Wireframes

Development

Feedback

My educational background is in bioengineering, specifically with biomedical devices. During my undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I worked as a research assistant in a sensor fabrication lab, focused on fabricating and designing biosensors devices for monitoring personalizable user health scenarios including:

• Monitoring glucose levels for diabetic patients

• Measuring potassium levels to calculate muscle fatigue for fitness optimization

• Monitoring Parkinsons patients’ medication (Levodopa) intake to personalize their treatment for optimal intake

I co-authored several publications for this work, which can be seen here.

Given my research work in biomedical sensors at the time, my partner and I decided to create an iOS application for a iOS development course. We wanted to create a software interface to support a wearable health device for those suffering from alcohol addiction and/or want to monitor liver health or alcohol consumption.

The goal of the app was to:

• Allow users to track and understand liver health and blood alcohol content with incoming device data.

• Provide forum with a concept of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for emotional support

• Direct users to closest health clinics and AA meetings

Tools & Techniques

XCode

Team

Design & Development: T. Liaw, S.Chin

Final Product

Overall App Flow

We determined that potential users of the app were:

• patients with liver conditions related to alcoholism

• medical professionals of the patients

• casual drinkers who want to monitor their drinking.

Given the target user groups, we planned features of the app to include:

• A data dashboard for users to monitor in real-time their liver health/alcohol consumption from their wearable device

• An interpretation of that data in the form of possible diagnosis and symptoms of liver health and/or alcohol levels

• Help forum based on Alcoholic’s Anonymous (AA) for users to anonymously interact with each other to help with people suffering from alcohol addiction

• Map feature to direct users to the nearest AA meeting or hospital/clinics

Limitations included:

• The device being created to deliver alcohol consumption and liver health information would not be finished by the application deadline

• 2-month app development timeline

APIs/SDKs:

• Firebase: Store and manage user data

• HealthKit: Integrate data into Apple’s Health Records

Data Dashboard

In order for users to track their alcohol consumption, we needed data from the device on blood alcohol content (BAC). We also needed to report significant biological factors (enzyme, proteins) from the device that indicate liver health.

Biomarker data included:

• aspartate aminotransferase (AST)

• alanine aminotransferase (ALT)

• albumin

• bilirubin

To effectively display the data, we decided to implement a table for the users to go through each type of data (BAC, AST, etc.) and include with each data an hourly-updated chart of the data points, the current levels and a description of the data for users to understand what each data is.

APIs/SDKs:

• Charts

Suggested Diagnosis & Treatment Plans

We researched the most common liver diseases that were related to alcoholism and decided to include them in an algorithm based on literature using device data to determine the most possible outcomes of the user’s health status.

Implemented diseases/conditions:

• acute alcoholic hepatitis

• acute viral hepatitis

• chronic hepatitis & cirrhosis

• nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

• alcoholic fatty liver disease

• overdose

• alcohol poisoning

FORUM & MAP

We researched Alcoholic’s Anonymous (AA) and existing app forums such as Reddit to come up with the design of our forum. For the map feature, we wanted to reveal the nearest AA meetings and hospital/clinics that can treat users’ existing conditions.

API/SDKs:

• Google Maps SDK

The application was developed in XCode using the mentioned APIs/SDKs.

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Data Dashboard & Suggested Diagnosis

Forum

Map

We presented our first iteration of the app to iOS mobile developers from companies in the Silicon Valley area. Their main comment involved FDA regulation and ensuring our mobile app is up to protocol. One mobile developer informed us that since we are not medical professionals, we are not allowed to diagnose and can only give suggestions.

Our code for the application presented can be found on github.