For most healthcare providers, application development is no longer a luxury. You need to stay ahead of the competition. Telemedicine, or the ability to receive healthcare through an app, is an industry disruptor. It is reaching all market segments, from emergency response and disaster management to routine patient care. (…)
For most healthcare providers, application development is no longer a luxury. You need to stay ahead of the competition.
3,200 lives through this access.
These are just a few of the uses for apps for healthcare professionals that are revolutionizing the industry and helping patients everywhere. However, this technology is only successful when appropriate standards are defined and met.
Defining validation standards and practices for healthcare applications
Because apps for healthcare professionals are a new technology, no one offers guidance on how to measure their quality. It doesn't help that there are so many of them. Healthcare providers must establish some minimally acceptable standards and correlated validation processes to make the right choice. We created this table to help you decide.
Standards |
Validation |
| Value: A healthcare app adds value by helping patients get better. This could mean better overall health management or targeted management of specific conditions like diabetes, heart disease, depression and other illnesses. | Clinically significant progress: In healthcare, proof of clinically significant progress is sufficient to prove value to users. The value of a diabetes monitoring app, for example, could be validated if the user consistently input blood sugar results within an acceptable range. |
| Simple user interface: In many cases, app users will be elderly people with little technology knowledge. Even the best app can't help someone who doesn't know how to use it. | Beta testing: Experts may not be able to give an opinion on the user experience because they know the app's functions very well. Beta testers can provide a layman's view of the app's usability and function. |
| Function: The application should not crash or delay during consultations. This is a particular challenge in applications for healthcare providers, as they often use demanding processes such as video streaming and augmented reality . | Latency monitoring: Latency testing occurs during development and later by beta users who report results in different environments using various connections and speeds. |
| Security: In the US, all applications that use and store personal health information (PHI) must be HIPAA compliant and accessible only by authorized users. It's a good rule of thumb to apply these requirements across markets to ensure maximum privacy and security measures. | Application Security Testing Orchestration (ASTO): This is not a single process but refers to all security testing processes throughout the lifecycle of an application development project. It covers everything from internal testing to third-party testing or Application Security Testing as a Service (ASTaaS) . |
Apps for healthcare providers range from simple scheduling services to complex augmented reality programs designed to recreate the in-office experience. Your choice will depend on the needs of your practice. At the same time, your patients put a lot of trust in you and the apps you recommend. Carefully examine these applications based on common standards and that trust will not be lost.
Source: BairesDev
