An automated meal planning app; improving the information delivery and communication system within nursing homes.

Seniors rely on a specific diet in their old age to maintain not only their physical health, but their mental health as well. 30% of seniors tend to skip at least one meal a day due to forgetfulness or even financial burden. Not monitoring their diet can lead to malnutrition which effects 15–50% of the elderly in North America.

Nursing homes aim to serve the elderly but in terms of nutrition, the problem of skipping meals is still present due to bland, routine food. Approximately 20% of nursing home residents suffer some form of malnutrition. Furthermore, wrong orders in nursing homes can be fatal because of a senior individual’s allergy. Seniors need to be on a meal plan in which they participate in the planning and their preferences are taken into account.

Having experienced the effects of bad nutritional health in the elderly second-hand through our family members, we chose seniors as our target audience for this health focused project.

Vital is a system where caretakers can track their assigned patients’ nutritional health, build personal connections with patients through meal planning, as well as ease any worries a patients’ family members may have by sending regular reports. All in order to make sure seniors have good nutritional health in their old ages.

Some of Vital's solutions include:

• Tracking nutritional health & visually displaying data for caretaker to understand
• User is assigned patients every day, establishing a familiarity with certain patients and allowing them to build relationships during meal planning
• Meal planning section allows patient to build relationship with caretaker, improving mood and at the same time appetite.
• Rating system allows seniors to choose favourite meals or ingredients, making the process of meal planning simpler as the app is used more.
• Vital info is displayed such as seat number in the dining room, allergies, any current medical conditions or ailments and suggestions in how to alleviate.

Using Sketch and Sympli, we designed the app after solidifying the concept of Vital. Using Sympli, we were able to send over the design specifications through Android Studio to create our working prototype.