A mobile learning and media platform for healthcare professionals

The challenge

Our client operates at the intersection of EdTech and Healthcare, creating specialist educational content for healthcare professionals.

They wanted to move beyond standard podcast distribution and create a dedicated mobile experience for a highly specific professional audience. The platform needed to make medical audio and video content easy to discover and consume, while giving the business far greater insight into how healthcare professionals engage with that content.

The brief centred on a mobile-first application for iOS and Android, combining secure authentication, media streaming, content discovery and detailed engagement analytics.

There was an additional requirement specific to the healthcare audience. Users needed to be authenticated through their National Provider Identifier (NPI), allowing the platform to verify professional users while keeping the sign-in experience simple.

Our solution

From podcast player to professional learning platform

A standard podcast application could handle playback. The client needed something more specialised.

WeAreBrain designed the solution around the complete content experience, from discovering an episode to listening, returning to content and understanding engagement afterwards.

The MVP was structured around several core capabilities:

• Secure NPI-based user authentication
• Audio and video streaming
• Downloadable content and background playback
• Playback speed controls
• Episode browsing by category and tags
• Search and content discovery
• Push notifications
• Tracking of listening starts, completions and drop-off points
• An administrative analytics dashboard
• Cloud infrastructure and deployment setup

Together, these features created the foundation for a dedicated digital learning environment rather than another generic podcast player.

Designing for professionals on the move

Healthcare professionals consume information between appointments, during commutes and whenever short windows become available. The mobile experience therefore needed to make accessing educational content quick and frictionless.

The product was designed mobile-first, with React Native providing a shared foundation across iOS and Android. Core media functionality included streaming and downloading episodes, background playback and adjustable playback speeds.

Content discovery was equally important. Categories, tags and search allow users to move quickly from a broad content library to material relevant to their interests and professional needs.

Push notifications provide another channel for bringing users back to new or relevant content without requiring them to actively check the platform.

Turning listening behaviour into useful data

One of the most important requirements was understanding what happens after someone presses play.

Traditional podcast metrics often stop at downloads or aggregate listening figures. The platform was designed to capture more detailed behavioural signals, including listening starts, completions and drop-off points.

An administrative dashboard brings this information together so the client’s team can better understand which content generates engagement and where audiences stop listening.

This creates a feedback loop between content production and audience behaviour. Editorial teams can use the data to improve programming, while commercial teams gain stronger evidence when evaluating engagement around sponsored content. The project brief specifically identified actionable analytics and sponsor engagement as key requirements.

Building a foundation that can grow

Rather than treating the MVP as an isolated application, WeAreBrain approached the architecture as the starting point for a larger product.

React Native was selected for the mobile layer, with Firebase proposed for backend services and authentication. AWS S3 with HLS was considered for media streaming, while Mixpanel or PostHog could provide granular product analytics.

The modular setup leaves room for future capabilities such as personalised recommendations, deeper educational functionality and CME credit integration, which were intentionally kept outside the initial MVP scope.

WeAreBrain brought together product management, solution architecture, UX/UI design, React Native development, backend engineering, QA and DevOps within one multidisciplinary team.

Outcome

The project was structured across four main stages:

1. Discovery and planning to define requirements and technical architecture.
2. UX/UI design and prototyping to turn specialist workflows into a clear mobile experience.
3. Development and integration covering mobile, backend, streaming, analytics and administration.
4. QA, testing and deployment across iOS and Android.

The initial MVP programme was planned across approximately 14 to 16 weeks.

Creating better digital learning experiences in healthcare

For companies operating across EdTech and Healthcare, building a successful learning product involves more than publishing content.

Authentication, usability, analytics, media infrastructure and product architecture all need to work together.

By combining mobile product design, engineering and data capabilities, WeAreBrain helped create the foundation for a specialist learning platform designed around how healthcare professionals actually consume information.

It gives the client a direct digital relationship with its professional audience and a platform that can continue evolving as its educational offering grows.