SININ
The clinic ran on paper. I built what the legacy system didn't do, one gap at a time — then helped replace it.
THE SHORT VERSION
The clinic handled by hand everything its legacy software didn't cover. I built SININ to fill those gaps one at a time, in the order the administration asked for them: which dentists were present, telling them their patient had arrived, then the charts they used to manage the day. It ran for about four years and earned the clinic's Inovar distinction. Then a larger hospital system arrived that did all of it natively, and I worked on the implementation that replaced mine.
- WHEN
- 2017 — 2021
- MY PART
- Built and maintained it while running the clinic's IT section.
- BUILT WITH
- PHP · MySQL
CONTEXT
Before SININ there was no system for any of this. Processes and information were handled by hand, and the clinic's legacy software didn't cover them.
It started small: knowing which dentists were present, in the clinic and in which room. Then it told the dentist in the room that their patient had arrived at reception. Then it turned all of that into charts the administration used to manage schedules and see where the day was going wrong.
DECISIONS
- 01
Build only what the administration said was missing
The rule was to implement whatever the clinic's administration identified as missing from the legacy system, and nothing else — which kept every feature attached to someone who wanted it.
It also meant the system was useful in its first week rather than after a year of design.
- INSTEAD OF
- Designing a complete clinic management system
- WHAT IT COST
- SININ had no coherent architecture. It grew by accretion, and each area looked like whoever asked for it. A system built this way is easy to start and hard to reason about later.
- 02
When a better system arrived, I helped replace mine with it
The clinic adopted a larger hospital system that did natively what I had built by hand, and I worked on that implementation rather than defending mine.
Keeping SININ alongside it would have meant two systems doing the same job and a clinic deciding daily which one to trust.
- INSTEAD OF
- Arguing to keep SININ running next to it
- WHAT IT COST
- Four years of my own work stopped being used.
WHAT CAME OUT OF IT
- 2018
- Inovar merit distinctionawarded by the clinic for work that improved its processes; not a competition
- ~4 years
- in daily use, until it was replaced
WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
A system whose job is to fill gaps in another system has a natural end date. I didn't design SININ for that and I should have — knowing it would one day be absorbed would have made me keep its data in a shape that was easier to hand over.