Healthcare software development is the creation of software to facilitate healthcare. These applications allow users to manage health records, monitor patients, provide diagnoses and treatments, and more.
Some of the top priorities for healthcare organizations are improving patient care and reducing costs. High-quality software that’s easily maintained and updated over time is essential, but it’s not easy to keep up, considering how rapidly technology advances.
From patient to provider, healthcare software development is critical. There are many ways to improve healthcare technology, and new ideas are constantly emerging. Reaching out to experienced developers can accelerate the process.
What Are Some Common Types Of Healthcare Software?
As the healthcare industry evolves, modern technology helps manage operations and patient care. Healthcare IT (Healthcare Information Technology) has come a long way from the paper charts and filing systems once used for patient data and billing. Today, a plethora of healthcare software development services are available to streamline operations and make the lives of physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals easier. Here are some common software solutions used in healthcare:
- EHR (electronic health recording) software is a digital database used to collect information about patients and provide data analytics for their medical history and more.
- Hospital management software is a fully integrated system that assists medical workers and hospital administration in their daily tasks.
- Medical billing software automates billing processes and keeps track of all financial operations.
- Telemedicine software makes medical treatment online accessible and effective and may include a mobile app.
- E-Prescribing software makes it easier for doctors to control medication prescriptions for their patients.
- Appointment scheduling software automates patient scheduling by coordinating provider calendars with patient appointment requests and confirming available time slots.
What Are The Benefits of Healthcare Software?
Although many healthcare software options are available, the basic purpose of all healthcare software development is to ensure that doctors, caregivers, and other medical personnel have easy access to patient data. This includes a complete medical history, current and previous medications, allergies, family members’ medical histories, and medical devices used if any. This information and more help medical teams perform effectively while ensuring they don’t overlook anything important when treating a particular patient.
Some healthcare management software options include EMR (electronic medical records), PACS (picture archiving and communication system), RIS (radiology information systems), and PM (practice management). In addition, many applications that digitize healthcare fall under headings, such as picture archiving systems for radiology departments, medical records, electronic laboratory notebooks for labs, etc. To recap:
- Benefits for doctors:
- Reduced paperwork
- Increased collaboration with other specialists
- Efficient patient management
- Benefits for patients:
- Enhanced patient outreach
- Improved healthcare quality
- More effective communication
- Easy access to medical data
- Benefits for healthcare organizations:
- Improved medical business management
- Increased patient satisfaction
What Are The Stages Of Healthcare Application Development?
The process of healthcare application development can be divided into three stages: planning, design and development, and implementation. The planning stage is when all the significant decisions regarding the project’s specifics are made, including selecting a platform, determining functionalities, creating a timeline, and conducting feasibility studies.
After this stage is complete, the design and development stage begins with analyzing the information gathered during planning. During this phase, features are created and approved, and the user interface is designed based on these features with specific target groups in mind (such as doctors or nurses).
The implementation stage involves coding based on the designs and ideal UX. When all stages are completed, it’s time to test everything and ensure correct functioning before releasing it to users.
Here are some specifics that occur in each stage:
Planning
- Pre-project work
- Preliminary collection of requirements
- Preparation of an initial estimate of the budget and timing
- Clarification of requirements and update of the assessment
- Coordination between the service provider and you
- Analytics
- Understanding what features and use cases need to be part of the application
- Agreeing on an interactive application prototype
- Writing terms of reference
Design and development
- Mobile application development
- Application interface layout
- Implementing navigation between screens
- Logic programming
- Server API integration
- Server development
- Database development
- Server API development
- Writing API documentation
- Admin panel development
- Integration with third-party systems
Implementation
- Publication in app stores
- Registration in app stores
- Preparation of application pages in the app stores
- Preparing and uploading screenshots
- Laying out builds
- Passage of moderation
- Support and development
- Elimination of bugs and errors
- Additional development of new functions upon request
What Are the Advantages of Outsourcing Healthcare Software Development?
Outsourcing software development is a great way to reduce the cost of healthcare software development. There are several reasons for this. First, it allows companies to access global software developers and high-tech services. With the right healthcare software development agency, you can get almost any service or developer on demand. This saves your company time and money by eliminating the need to maintain a large domestic team with access to expensive resources. In addition, it allows your company to tap into new markets and technologies that you may not have otherwise been able to access.
A flexible team is another way a custom healthcare software development company can help reduce costs. Because these developers typically manage their own time as project-based, independent contractors, you’re not required to pay for costly benefits and other perks that full-time employees expect. In addition, because your team includes different specialists, you can quickly scale up or down as needed without worrying about layoffs and other labor costs. This can shorten the timeframe for your healthcare software development while also reducing costs. Outsourcing advantages include:
- Economical and efficient companies can save money on the investment cost of developing application infrastructure, recruitment, hiring and training professionals, and deployment and pre-installation setup charges.
- Access to global software developers and high-tech services means you can have the advantage of a superior talent force and medical domain experts who specialize in developing high-tech applications.
- A flexible team allows you to scale resources up and down according to your needs.
- Rapid time to market means you can amplify the time to market and offer patients faster treatment and better use of technology.
- Improved results mean application outcomes will be superior, fine-grained qualitative products.
What Are Some Success Stories?
- ERT
- Problem: Documenting testing with paper records was inefficient, stretching the testing process to 15 days. 21% of studies released per month had critical defects, resulting in expensive fines and rework costs.
- Solution: ERT outsourced its software development and implemented qTest and 72+ integrations.
- Results:
- More transparency and reduced overhead time and audit processing effort by 200%.
- Higher productivity and fewer defects.
- ERT can now design, develop, and test studies in just nine weeks instead of the 14-week timeline they previously had.
- Brightree
- Problem: Internal Bandwidth issues, cost constraints, outdated legacy platform, and over 1.1 million lines of undocumented code.
- Solution: Brightree utilized software development services to migrate the complex enterprise home healthcare platform from a VB/ASP platform to ReactJS, C#.NET, and SQL Server.
- Result: Brightree was able to improve efficiencies, streamline processes, and increase profitability.
What Is the Future Of Software Development In Healthcare?
As healthcare moves toward prevention and early treatment, custom software development deepens this progress by generating transparency between patients and doctors. As a result, the future will look to:
- Focus on self-care and online communication.
- Involve blockchain innovation that safely discloses internal operations, making the exchange more transparent, trustworthy, and collaborative.
- Expand EMR software.
- Increase telemedicine.
- Incorporate more extensive AI.
As cybersecurity remains critical to patient privacy, legislative intervention will likely be required to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, regulating EHRs and enforcing standards across the healthcare ecosystem. Not only will legislation help streamline the exchange of information between these two parties, but it will also help establish a consistent cybersecurity protocol across the healthcare ecosystem.
And impacting the U.S. broadly, skilled labor shortages will continue to make staffing resources scarce. Outsourcing software development to companies that specialize in healthcare is an ideal way to reduce the cost of developing your own software, with the added bonus of tapping into broader healthcare and technical expertise. Healthcare software is an industry that requires specialized knowledge and technical skill, but by outsourcing it, you can tap into these resources without major investment in personnel. This pays off especially well if you’re not familiar with the healthcare industry yourself, or if you’re looking for more software development expertise.
Need help? KMS can provide the support you need with our dedicated team of experienced developers.
