Ever since the pandemic, the dynamics in the global healthcare value chain have shifted. The combination of accelerating costs, a challenging regulation landscape, and clinical staff shortages hamstrung the industry. However, a road to greener pastures exists — an infinite potential of digital health.
Let us crack the code on how to develop healthcare software that transforms your delivery of care, improves clinical productivity, and simplifies administrative procedures.
By 2032, the global digital health market is slated to come into $1,694.21 billion in value from $332.53 billion in 2022. The integration of the latest technological advancements, among other things, stands behind this growth. Let’s see how trending innovation enablers can supercharge your medical software and make it more resilient in an evolving reality.
Today, patients want more enablement in their treatment supported with digestible and easily accessible information at their fingertips. It means that care delivery models shift from one-sided interaction to continuous, personalized engagement between all parties.
AI-enabled models continue to be the golden standard for personalized experiences, with a current value of $14.6 billion. Other technologies that improve patient experience include:
Since the pandemic, the demand for convenience and distanced care persists. According to Precedence Research, the US remote care market size stood at around $6 billion in 2022 and is projected to hit over $51 billion by 2030. It makes remote patient monitoring and telehealth table stakes for high-grossing businesses.
In a quest to reduce operational expenses, medical providers turn to at-scale automation for their back-office operations. As it was predicted by McKinsey, automation represents an estimated $150 billion opportunity for operational excellence, including cost reduction and better decisioning.
From a technical standpoint, this can be achieved through a set of following technologies:
Digital transformation in healthcare is directly linked with interoperability at the level of data. Whether foundational, structural, or semantic, interoperability allows clinical data to flow seamlessly from system to system to improve care coordination. Tech-wise, this imperative can be achieved through the use of open application programming interfaces (APIs) and the complete elimination of siloed infrastructure.
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices enable healthcare providers to extend their reach beyond the traditional clinical setting. Home monitoring systems allow doctors to keep track of an individual’s vitals with all data being accessible via a software application.
Paired with artificial intelligence, medical device data becomes the basis for accurate treatment recommendations or alert generation. Therefore, IoMT integration is among other tech trends that will shape the setting in the coming years.
Digital transformation has been something long overdue in healthcare. The pandemic was a catalyst for technology innovation and transformation in the industry, followed by a spike in investments.
In the latest report by HIMSS, they revealed that more than one in two health system leaders plan to implement clinical and enterprise digital initiatives in the next five years. But what benefits make digital health such a lucrative venture?
Healthcare software helps providers automate and streamline a lion’s share of the tasks and processes involved in healthcare. Care teams don’t have to spend hours on administrative and manual work, thus allocating more time to patient management. At-scale automation reduces the amount of time and resources needed to run a healthcare operation.
Moreover, the software supports value-based care models that focus on overall wellness and preventive treatments. Through extensive use of analytics, reporting, and predictive decisioning, digital health helps reduce admissions and readmissions to hospitals, resulting in lower costs.
With the help of health tech, patients can now access their medical records, book appointments, and even order prescriptions online. This has made it easier for patients to get the care they need and made them the center of the process.
Also, by having patient data readily available, clinicians can make better-informed decisions about patient care. Additionally, digital tools improve communication between all sides of care, leading to better outcomes and higher trust.
Digital-first systems are the healthcare security heavyweight, critical for protecting patient data and ensuring compliance. Centralized data storage, end-to-end encryption, secure backups, user-based access, and other buffers are present in software by design. This allows providers to operate in a highly regulated field and provide a safety net for PHI.
The ability to collect, process, and integrate data is one of the vital benefits of healthcare software. And it is not just about implementing EMRs or EHRs. Rather, digitalization enables you to set up an interoperable ecosystem that can be used to collate, store and analyze data for better decision-making.
With the right tools in place, health workers can make better decisions about patient care and deliver faster results. They can also make more accurate diagnoses and prescribe empirically supported treatments based on patient histories.
With agile tools, hospitals can onboard new patients, physicians, and other staff, scale patient engagement efforts, and innovate at a higher pace. Cloud-based architecture also equips your practices with competitive features. Robust data collection, performance updates, and resilient storage improve your capacity to maintain or improve performance as your workload increases.
Before addressing the question of how to create healthcare software, you should take heed of critical points that help steer your development in the right direction.
The healthcare industry is a highly-regulated market. Those in violation are exposed to penalties and regulatory scrutiny. Therefore, your medical application must be developed in line with compliance regulations, be it HIPAA, GDPR, or others.
Although there are many different ways to achieve compliance based on the law, some typical tech measures include:
The research conducted by Bain suggests that interoperability and electronic medical record integration are among the biggest pain points for providers. Therefore, your software architecture should be interoperable by design, with APIs and integrations enabling seamless data flow.
By analyzing your internal infrastructure and business needs, a software vendor selects a set of relevant integrations. The choice of APIs depends on your standards of healthcare data exchange and software goals.
Having an ambassador team is crucial for high ROI and smooth adoption. The key to eliminating innovation resistance, no matter the solution type, is to develop healthcare software based on the real needs of end users.
Therefore, you should put a great emphasis on user research and business analysis before the actual development starts. Your software development team should also prepare documentation and guides, supplemented with training sessions, after the solution deployment.
Usually, healthcare digital innovation requires a collective, company-wide effort that calls for a set of cross-cutting practices to strategize, administer, and encourage it. In our healthcare software development guide below, we’ll touch on the technical side of the question that deals with the actual solution development.
The first step in your endeavor is to determine the type of healthcare software you need. To make that decision, you need an accurate business case on hand that describes the goal you want to achieve with that software.
Are you looking to reduce the billing lag? Do you want a virtual care set-up for outpatient monitoring? Or is it medical record digitization? Once you are on solid ground, it’s time to move on to step two.
Not all medical applications are subject to compliance excellence. But those that collect personal patient data and share it with a medical professional, must adhere to the regulations. Also, if your solution includes a payment processing model, it must be PCI DSS-compliant to protect credit card data from fraud and misuse.
Along with a thorough understanding of applicable regulations, you should also know how they apply to your software design and development processes. This brings us to our next point.
To translate your healthcare software idea into a competitive solution you should be definite on how to find app developer that will build top-quality software for your project. You will need an experienced software development team with hands-on experience in the same or adjacent projects. The selection criteria, in this case, include a diverse portfolio of healthcare projects, a proven track record of delivered solutions, and a technology-agnostic approach. Proficiency in healthcare regulations, data exchange standards, and best security practices complete the picture.
Once you seal the deal with your technology partner, an assigned development team will elicit and analyze functional, operational, and accessibility requirements. The breakdown of those requirements is manifested in a healthcare software specification.
Next, your team will identify the applicable regulatory requirements and include them in the software design and delivery plan. A risk mitigation plan is also among the main deliverables at this stage. It eliminates or minimizes the impact of the risk events, promoting on-time delivery and within-budget development.
After planning, a design team maps user journeys and prepares a few wireframes for you to decide on the final look and feel.
The development process progresses in small iterations, each resulting in a deliverable or tangible output. The iterative approach makes your software features designed, developed, and tested in repeated cycles, which improves the quality of the final product and accelerates time-to-market.
To reduce your software investment, a team first develops an MVP or the pilot version of the software with a set of high-priority features. The set of core features depends on a particular solution. For example, an MVP for a telemedicine application revolves around conferencing features, online scheduling, e-prescriptions, and payments.
At this stage, developers also set up necessary integrations and implement security safeguards.
All deliverables are thoroughly tested against multiple criteria, including performance, usability, integration, and more. Penetration testing finalizes the stage, making sure your software is free of exploitable vulnerabilities. Your development team also conducts a compliance audit, which is a final check for regulation adherence before the launch.
Finally, your development partner prepares compliance documentation that outlines the types of patient data and bases for processing it.
When everything is set to go, your team deploys a solution into the production environment. If necessary, your software is right-sized and adjusted to your workflow. From here, your IT support team optimizes the performance of medical software, performs troubleshooting, and introduces new features.
The cost of healthcare innovation isn’t a cut-and-dried figure, especially considering the diversity of digital tools in the niche. From our experience, it may cost somewhere between $60,000 to $80,000 to build an MVP for a remote patient monitoring solution. A simple appointment scheduling app will cost you around $10,000, while a full-fledged telehealth platform averages $150,000.
Mind that these are rough estimates based on a common feature set. You can contact our team to get an accurate estimation for your project. As for the time range, your team can deliver a fully functional MVP in 2 to 4 months.
To give you a better idea of the pricing, we’ve curated the main cost drivers below:
The rationale behind these cost drivers is simple. The more complex, innovative, and large-scale your software is, the more effort and resources it’ll take to implement it. We always recommend building a Minimum Viable Product first as a means to optimize your costs and minimize risks.
Along with a challenging funding environment, organizations face a raft of formidable hurdles that may stall their development efforts. Below, we’ll share some of those challenges and the ways to overcome them.
Technology is a double-edged sword when it comes to compliance. With so much at stake and the consequences of a mistake being potentially fatal, it's no surprise that healthcare companies have to be especially careful when it comes to this matter. To navigate a regulatory landscape, you need an experienced software provider capable of covering your compliance needs.
Looming inflation puts software development in a low-priority queue. But with the right planning and technology set, providers can reduce their upfront investment and drive better ROI. Developing measurable and quantitative criteria for project success also help move it in the right direction and avoid unnecessary spending.
A lack of digital skills also leads to the list of speed bumps on the way to digitized healthcare.
As most local labor markets are still tight with the demand for tech talent, companies invest in bringing in new employees from outside sources. Outsourcing, in particular, is one of the most popular ways to widen the shrinking pool of workers.
Last but not least, legacy systems may prevent your e-health vision from becoming a reality. Isolated IT infrastructures, siloed data, and outdated back-ends stay in the way of shared data flows and the adoption of new technologies.
Without easy data access and the ability to interact seamlessly with devices, it’s impossible to enable home-based, on-demand, or digital-first care. The workaround is migrating your legacy software or re-engineering it to meet the needs of new-gen healthcare.
As a global technology partner, we deliver high-quality software for healthcare companies, individual practices, and other medical providers. From data integration to from-scratch remote patient monitoring software, our team has a proven track record of successful transformations with long-term value for our clients.
Our software development services are guided by the unique needs of your business and best industry practices. We put a special emphasis on the security and compliance of your solutions while selecting an optimal tech stack that fits your internal ecosystem.
Healthcare is no longer a one-way highway, with patients standing on the sidelines. The patient of today demands more engaging care delivery with the ultimate transparency and involvement in the process. Digital solutions are the best and quickest way to comply with the shifting patients’ needs while ensuring the sustainability of industry margins.
Along with enhanced patient outreach and higher care quality, healthcare software automates manual tasks, improves medical business management, and slashes operational costs. If you are looking for a trusted, full-cycle development team, CleverDev Software is always there to take over your project. Get in touch with our team and we will transform your business idea into a game-changing digital solution.
IT Researcher
At the helm of the tech industry since 2017, Tatsiana's focus is to simplify the complex. Through her love for writing and exceptional research and interviewing abilities, she imparts valuable knowledge about various IT trends.
Our newsletter is packed with valuable insights, exclusive offers, and helpful resources that can help you grow your business and achieve your goals.
