DEV Community: Mangi Lerine Laslie JR

I Built a Laboratory Management System Before I Fully Understood the Laboratory

Mangi Lerine Laslie JR — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 22:36:46 +0000

The first time I tried building healthcare software, I was solving a problem from the perspective of a patient.

This time was different.

My uncle owns one of the biggest medical laboratories in Cameroon, and after one of our conversations about his work, I started looking at the problem from a completely different perspective.

I had already gained considerably more experience as a developer.

I had worked with real products, learned from other developers and become more comfortable with modern application development.

So I decided to build him a system.

This wasn't another small experiment.

I wanted to build something his laboratory could actually use.

I started building with React and Firebase. I implemented authentication and began creating different roles and workflows for the people who would interact with the system.

The more I built, the more excited I became.

I remember looking at the application and thinking:

This could actually work.

But I was still making an important mistake.

I knew how to build software.

I didn't yet understand the laboratory well enough.

The difference between building software and solving a problem

From the outside, a laboratory workflow can appear simple:

Patient → Test → Result.

But that's nowhere near the full picture.

There are people involved in registration, sample collection, testing, result entry, verification, approval, reporting, inventory and administration.

Different people have different responsibilities.

Different actions require different permissions.

And a system that ignores those realities can become more of a burden than a solution.

My uncle helped me understand that.

He gave me insight into how the laboratory actually operated and pointed out things I hadn't considered when designing the system.

That changed the way I thought about the project.

I began realizing that I couldn't simply build what I thought a laboratory needed.

I had to understand what a laboratory actually needed.

So I went back to the application.

I changed things.

I removed things.

I added new workflows.

I adjusted the way different users interacted with the system.

Eventually, I had something much better than my original eHealth project.

A basic laboratory management system.

And I genuinely believed I was finally getting somewhere.

But there was a problem I couldn't solve with code.

Life was about to interrupt the project again.

And for the second time, something I had spent so much time building would end up sitting on a shelf.

I just didn't know it yet.

I Tried to Build a Healthcare App Before I Understood the Problem

Mangi Lerine Laslie JR — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 20:54:48 +0000

When I started building my first healthcare project, I thought the hardest part would be writing the code.

I was wrong.

The hardest part was understanding what I was actually trying to solve.

In 2024, I had just been admitted to a public hospital in Limbe after being diagnosed with a bacterial infection. While I was there, I experienced some of the frustrations that eventually made me start thinking about healthcare software.

After returning home, I opened my laptop.

I decided to build something.

At the time, I was primarily working with Flutter, and my understanding of backend infrastructure was still developing.

I had used mock data before, but I wanted to make the project feel more real.

That's when I started experimenting with Firebase and Firestore.

The problem?

I barely understood what I was doing.

I knew I needed authentication.

I knew I needed somewhere to store patient information.

I knew different parts of the application needed to communicate with each other.

But knowing what you want a system to do and understanding how to architect that system are two completely different things.

So I started with what I knew.

I built screens.

I created flows.

I connected things together.

I tested.

I broke things.

I searched for solutions.

And I repeated the process.

Eventually, I called the project eHealth.

Looking back, it was a very ambitious project for where I was technically.

But it taught me something that has stayed with me ever since:

You can build a technically impressive application and still be solving the wrong problem.

I understood my experience as a patient.

I didn't understand the experience of the people operating the system.

I didn't know how nurses actually received information.

I didn't understand how laboratory technicians handled samples.

I didn't understand how results moved through a laboratory.

I didn't understand the operational constraints.

I was essentially designing a healthcare system from the perspective of someone who had used healthcare services.

That wasn't enough.

Eventually, I paused the project.

At the time, I thought I had simply failed to finish something I had started.

Today, I see it differently.

That first project wasn't the final product.

It was the beginning of my education about the problem.

And perhaps more importantly, it taught me that software development isn't just about knowing how to code.

You have to understand the people who will use what you build.

You have to understand their workflow.

You have to understand the environment.

And sometimes, you have to be willing to throw away something you've spent weeks building because your understanding of the problem has changed.

Years later, that lesson would become extremely important when I returned to this idea.

But I didn't know that yet.

At the time, I simply closed the project and moved on.

The next chapter would have nothing to do with healthcare.

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The 16-Year-Old Cameroonian Betting on Himself to Transform Laboratory Management In Africa

Mangi Lerine Laslie JR — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 15:17:10 +0000

EPISODE 1: THE HOSPITAL ADMISSION THAT SPARKED THE IDEA

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I never planned to build a healthcare company.

In 2024, I was preparing for my GCE Ordinary Level examinations.

Then, just days before the exams, I was diagnosed with a bacterial infection and admitted to a public hospital in Limbe.

My grandmother accompanied me.

Suddenly, instead of sitting at home preparing for my exams, I was studying from a hospital bed.

I remember many things about that period.

The people who showed me kindness.
The food.
The care I received.

But I also started noticing things that bothered me.

Appointments could be missed.

Information didn't always reach the right person at the right time.

There were moments where it felt like people were doing their best, but the system around them was making things harder than they needed to be.

Then I had to go to the laboratory.

I waited.

And waited.

Eventually, I was told that the doctor had arrived and that it was finally my turn.

I gave my sample.

And then I left.

I wasn't given a way to monitor what was happening with my test.

I was simply told that I would be contacted.

At the time, I didn't know it, but that experience was going to stay with me.

Because when I got home, I did something very typical of me.

I opened my laptop.

I didn't have a company.

I didn't have investors.

I didn't even have a proper understanding of how healthcare systems worked.

I just had a problem I couldn't stop thinking about.

And I wanted to see if I could build something.

To be continued.

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