Pim de Ruijter (anesthesiologist) and Jessica Workum (Intensive Care Fellow) of the Intensive Care Unit of the Radboud Hospital in Nijmegen developed a calculation method to support tuning ventilators for COVID-19 patients. They were looking for ways to make this available for their colleagues throughout the world, so Pim posted the following call on LinkedIn: “I’m looking for a web developer who can help us develop a simple online medical calculator for intensive care”.

My colleagues Sharat and Sander decided to contact Pim and offer to develop the calculator using a no-code platform. Pim was confident that he would be able to explain to them what he was looking for in one and a half days. What he did not anticipate was that the calculator was actually built in this same period!

The process that Pim, Sharat, and Sander went through is typical for a lot of the no-code projects that we do. We call it real-time application development. Instead of capturing requirements on paper, followed by developing the application in a “factory setting”, no-code allows you to capture the requirements in an initial working application. By working on the actual application together with the customer, he gets a full grip on the process of developing his application. The customer becomes an equal member of the development team. This avoids much miscommunication and the rework that results from that!

Within two weeks the VentiCalc application was developed and launched to a worldwide audience of Intensive Care physicians. Since then hundreds of physicians all over the world have used the application.