Money isn’t enough to develop up-to-date and high-quality healthcare software. You need to know why you’re developing the app, how it will help your clinic, medical staff, and patients. After all, if the platform doesn’t solve users’ problems, what does it matter how much it costs and what technologies it’s based on. The main reason for project failures is a lack of preparation. Let’s figure out how to plan healthcare software development so that your healthcare project doesn’t fail.
Digital health industry overviewÂ
Over the past two years, the healthcare industry has evolved under the influence of COVID-19. On the one hand, some minor projects have been put on hold because of the coronavirus. On the other hand, it accelerated industry digitalization. Both healthcare institutions and patients have realized that they need tools for remote consultation, monitoring, and treatment.Â
Investors began to provide financing to digital health companies. In 2020, investments in the industry reached their peak of $ 21.6 billion.Â
The global digital health market is projected to grow from $175 billion to $660 billion by 2025. The US market is one of the largest.
What are the types of software in healthcare?
The healthcare technology market includes solutions for healthcare institutions, medical staff, and patients. The most popular solutions include:
Patient apps:
- platforms for making doctor appointments;
- self-diagnosis apps;
- healthy eating apps;
- fitness apps;
- telemedicine solutions;
- health monitoring apps;
- mental health apps;
- electronic medical records.
Healthcare software solutions help patients to remotely consult with doctors, monitor health and treatment progress, view their medical records, streamline communication with doctors, get prescriptions and sick leaves.
Solutions for healthcare institutions:
- Patient platforms for remote monitoring
- Software for diagnosing diseases
- EHRs/EMRs
- e-prescription apps
- Hospital management software
- Billing apps
- Customer relationship management software.
The above apps automate routine administrative tasks from data and hospital management to diagnosis and treatment of diseases. A healthcare institution can increase its productivity, improve communication with patients, raise its rankings, and outperform competitors without changing the size of its team.
Solutions for healthcare workers:
- EMRs/EHRs
- Equipment tracking apps
- Inventory management platforms
- Medical analytics systems
- Software for training employees
Solutions for healthcare workers free medical staff from paperwork allowing them doctors to focus on patient care. The solutions make it easier for doctors to manage patient data, exchange information with other specialists in order to find effective treatment methods, ensure compliance with industry laws, and improve their skills by training online.
How to develop custom medical software in six steps
Now you only need to plan the healthcare software development process so that an IT team can work on the necessary features.
Step 1. Find out who the target audience is.
Doctors, administrative personnel, and patients need different app features. While a chief doctor may need an inventory tool, a patient may require a health tracker, and a doctor might need to use electronic medical records. It’s crucial for a doctor that medical terminology is used in the app, while for a patient it’s important to receive complex information in simple language.
Therefore, you need to determine what your goal is, who your app’s users are, and what problems the platform will solve. This initial information affects the future system’s functionality and the course of healthcare software development.
Step 2. Choose the app type and platform.Â
When we talk about healthcare software, healthcare development services type depends on the project goal and your audience. For example, if your goal is to reduce the number of no-shows to a clinic, you need a platform for making doctor appointments that will include the feature of sending reminders to users. In addition, you should always keep in mind who your audience is as there might be users of different ages, with different income levels and backgrounds.
Step 3. Consider custom medical software requirements.
You should describe product vision and business requirements in a Vision and Scope Document and a System Requirements Specification. These documents are elaborated by a business analyst. Programmers, testers, and other specialists turn to these requirements when they develop healthcare software. The documents help them to avoid misunderstandings, errors and speed up product development.
Step 4. Find a development team.
To turn your idea into reality, you need to find an IT team with healthcare software development expertise that worked on similar projects before, is able to ensure compliance of the future product with HIPAA and GDPR legislation, and has the necessary technology stack. Make sure that the team implements the best Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and Agile development practices.
Step 5. Develop a minimum viable product.
If you want to know what your audience’s reaction to the app is and whether your product will succeed on the market, you should develop an MVP. It’s a product version that includes only the basic features sufficient to make your app work. MVP doesn’t require much time and money to create. If users are not interested in the app, you’ll save your business from substantial financial loss. If they are, you can improve product functionality by adding more features to the app.Â
Step 6. Product development and support.
New functionality is gradually added to an MVP turning it into a fully-featured app. Consider hiring an IT support team to make sure your app will be regularly updated. System engineers will monitor the performance of your products and fix bugs.
Conclusion
Digital technologies are becoming the basis for medical institution modernization. Those who innovate faster than competitors receive tangible benefits cutting costs and attracting new customers. Therefore, custom healthcare software development is required to keep your clients from turning to a more advanced technology competitor.
