RENEW
A study app for managing fatigue with scleroderma
scleroderma study app · Michigan Medicine
- App Store
- code is private to Michigan Medicine
RENEW is a Michigan Medicine study app for people living with scleroderma. It helps them set wellness goals, track how they're feeling, and work through lessons on fatigue self-management, and it includes Sprout, the AI health coach. I took over RENEW in September 2025 and own the app, its backend, and its releases.
- role
- Engineering & product design
- with
- Michigan Medicine
- when
- 2025 – present
- stack
- React Native, Expo, TypeScript, TanStack Query, PHP, MySQL
platform
I own RENEW's backend: a PHP and MySQL API on Michigan Medicine servers, with schema changes managed as Knex migrations.
Every AI feature in the app runs on Sprout. With each message, the app sends the context the coach needs: the participant's health summary, their goals with schedules and recent check-offs, and the modules they're enrolled in. Conversation summaries are incremental, so resuming an old conversation sends only the new messages. User ids are namespaced by environment, which keeps development and production data apart, and the chat shows the sources Sprout cites.
Sign-in uses one-time email codes, and every endpoint goes through the same authentication checks. In production, error responses hide internal details, and endpoints validate their input.
On the client, TanStack Query caches server data and the tab screens load at startup, so switching tabs doesn't wait on the network. Lesson images and audio come from the RENEW WordPress site through a media proxy.
I also keep the app current and ship it: three Expo upgrades, from SDK 50 to 57, an Android 15 target, scripted production deploys, and TestFlight and Play Store builds.
redesign
I'm redesigning the app screen by screen. Home is a new tab that opens with a daily check-in and a weekly mood trend. The goal composer asks one plain question per card, goals can repeat on chosen weekdays with a reminder, and goals have their own statistics screen. Long lessons have a table of contents and find. The chat screen, profile, and login were redesigned too.
The public release doesn't include every screen shown here.