I'm developing a custom CRM for a plastic surgery clinic with two doctors. It needs to manage appointments, reminders, scheduling, patient records, and store documents and media files. The core requirements include a robust scheduling system that integrates with Google Calendar, efficient storage for numerous high-res patient files, and maintainability for incremental feature updates.
Currently, I'm considering React for the frontend and Supabase with Edge Functions for the backend, along with Cloudflare R2 for efficient file storage. My dilemma involves choosing between the hybrid setup of Supabase and Cloudflare, a self-managed VPS that's cheaper yet daunting due to potential maintenance, or fully committing to the Cloudflare ecosystem despite my limited experience with it. I'm especially concerned about scalability to avoid disk space issues, the complexity versus cost of each option, and ensuring doctors can see real-time waiting room status effectively. Additionally, I'm curious about any potential gotchas with syncing Google Calendar for medical appointments. Any insights or simpler structuring ideas would be greatly appreciated!
4 Answers
For a medical application, I'd definitely recommend going with the Supabase and R2 combination instead of trying to fit everything into Cloudflare's ecosystem, especially since you're not super familiar with it yet. The hybrid approach offers more flexibility, plus Supabase's real-time features will be super helpful for monitoring the waiting room status, which is a big plus over building websockets from scratch on Workers.
Great points! For scheduling, I plan to sync with Google Calendar because I think it acts as a good backup system. Patients will book through a Google Calendar widget on the official site, but I hope to enhance the patient experience on my platform starting from the booking event. I'm also looking into cal.com as a potential solution to handle scheduling challenges more effectively.
You're right to focus on storing patient data securely since this is critical for healthcare applications. Make sure to review your insurance provider's requirements for compliance as you design your system. This might change your approach. It's crucial to prioritize security and legalities in your CRM.
I've been through a similar scenario for a healthcare-related project, and I think Supabase plus R2 is the right choice. Their Row-Level Security (RLS) is excellent for isolating patient data, and R2's zero egress fees will come in handy as you accumulate high-res images. The all Cloudflare option looks nice but might struggle with complex queries—you'll want Postgres for that. Also, check if Supabase's pro plan offers a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) for HIPAA compliance. As for scheduling, are you going to build it from scratch or use something like cal.com to hook into the Google Calendar API?
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