Developing a Mobile App for a Veterinary Clinic
An app for a vet clinic solves a specific operational problem: the patient doesn't call the administrator back to book an appointment or get test results. Everything's in the phone. The specifics of the veterinary segment — each user has multiple pets with different histories, and the card needs to be clear.
Pet Profiles and Medical Record
Each pet is a separate entity: species, breed, age, weight, chronic diseases, allergies. Visits, vaccinations, tests, prescriptions are attached to it. Data structure is flat, but many connections — multi-level lists in UI become a problem on a small screen.
Solution: tab navigation inside pet card (DefaultTabController in Flutter or TabBar + TabBarView). Tabs: "Visits", "Vaccines", "Tests", "Medications". Each tab — lazy load data only on opening (AutomaticKeepAliveClientMixin to preserve state when switching tabs).
Vaccination Reminders — mandatory feature. Annual shots, quarterly parasite treatment. Local notifications via flutter_local_notifications with tz.TZDateTime.now(local) for correct time without timezone drift.
Online Appointment Booking
Doctor schedule with available slots — the trickiest component for sync. If a slot shows as free while another user books it — conflict arises. Solution: optimistic UI update + backend slot lock via transaction on tap, with 5-10 minute reservation TTL.
Visualization: horizontal scroll by dates + vertical list of slots. PageView with controller.animateToPage() for smooth date switching. Booked slots — gray, user's reserved — highlighted.
Teleconsultation — via WebRTC (Agora SDK for Flutter: agora_rtc_engine). For basic clinic, video call without complex medical logic is enough.
Push Notifications and Visit Reminders
24 hours and 1 hour before appointment — mandatory. Firebase Cloud Messaging for server pushes, flutter_local_notifications for client reminders about vaccinations.
Calendar integration: add_2_calendar package adds visit record to system Calendar — users appreciate this.
Stack and Timelines
Flutter (single codebase iOS + Android), Riverpod for state management, Supabase or Firebase as backend service for MVP. REST API from clinic if they have own CRM.
MVP (pet profiles, booking, medical record, pushes): 8-12 weeks. With teleconsultation and loyalty system — plus 4-6 weeks. Cost calculated individually.