I Built a Care Home Compliance App in 2 Weeks — Here Is the Tech Stack

#javascript #firebase #pwa #healthcare

I built a full compliance evidence app for UK care homes in 2 weeks. Here's the tech stack, architecture decisions, and what I learned about building for healthcare.

The Problem

UK care homes must maintain continuous compliance evidence for CQC (Care Quality Commission) inspections. There are 29,700+ registered care locations in England. 37% still use paper. The rest use expensive all-in-one platforms (£179-£4,500/month) that require ripping out existing systems.

Nobody offers a lightweight evidence-only layer that works alongside existing software.

What I Built

AlwaysReady Care — a PWA that does one thing: compliance evidence capture, review, and export.

Live: tool.teamzlab.com/apps/always-ready-care/

Features

12 evidence templates (medication, personal care, safeguarding, incidents, etc.)
AI-assisted evidence structuring (rule-based, no API keys in frontend)
21 compliance categories mapped to CQC 5 key questions
Role-based access (Carer → Senior → Manager → Director → Admin)
Real-time evidence review (approve/reject workflow)
Compliance readiness dashboard with SVG score circle
Follow-up action tracking with overdue alerts
One-click inspection pack generation
Offline-first (Service Worker + IndexedDB + Firestore persistence)
Team management (admin panel)
PWA installable with app icons and status bar theming

Tech Stack

Frontend: Pure HTML/CSS/JS (no framework, no build step)
Backend: Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Storage, Hosting)
Auth: Google Sign-In + Email/Password + Anonymous
Offline: Service Worker + IndexedDB queue + Background Sync API
AI: Client-side rule-based analysis (12 risk keyword categories, tag extraction)
Design: Custom CSS with dark/light theme via CSS custom properties
PWA: manifest.json, 10 icon sizes, apple-mobile-web-app-capable

Total JS: ~2,500 lines. Total CSS: ~2,000 lines. No dependencies except Firebase SDK.

Why No Framework?

Healthcare software needs to be:

Fast — carers have 60 seconds between tasks
Offline-ready — rural care homes have spotty internet
Simple to deploy — one folder to Firebase Hosting
Easy to audit — no node_modules black box for compliance review

Vanilla JS + Firebase compat SDK gave me all of this with zero build complexity.

Firestore Structure

orgs/{orgId}/
  users/{uid}        → role, siteIds
  sites/{siteId}     → name, address
  evidence/{id}      → type, status, rawText, manualTags, attachments
  actions/{id}       → title, priority, status, dueDate
  packs/{id}         → dateRange, evidenceCount
  config/categories  → required compliance categories
  auditLogs/{id}     → immutable action log

Security rules enforce org-level isolation. Evidence documents can never be deleted (audit trail requirement). Audit logs are create-only (immutable).

The AI Part (No API Keys Exposed)

Instead of calling Gemini/OpenAI from the frontend, I built a rule-based analysis engine:

22 tag categories with keyword matching (medication, safeguarding, falls, etc.)
12 risk detection keywords (fall, injury, bruise, bleeding, choking, etc.)
Risk level scoring (low/medium/high based on keyword count)
Follow-up action suggestions based on detected risks

It's not as smart as an LLM, but it's:

Free (no API costs)
Private (nothing leaves the browser)
Instant (no network latency)
Deterministic (same input = same output, important for healthcare)

A real Gemini backend is planned for the Pro tier.

Organic Growth Strategy

Instead of paid marketing, I built:

40 location-specific SEO pages targeting "care home compliance software [city]" for every major UK city
3 free CQC tools (checklist, score calculator, readiness quiz) that funnel to the app
FAQ schema targeting "how to prepare for CQC inspection" and similar questions

All leveraging an existing tool site with 2,100+ indexed pages and established domain authority.

What I'd Do Differently

Start with the PDF export — care managers care most about the inspection pack
Build the admin panel first — the buyer (manager) needs to add their team before carers can use it
Talk to a care home manager before building — I built features based on research, but real user feedback would have saved time