Telehealth solutions allow healthcare professionals to deliver different health services, including remote consulting, education, and training. The entire treatment can be run through a telehealth application depending on the patient’s condition. That is why the market value and demand for telehealth and mobile health solutions have been steadily drawing more attention to the prospects of healthcare software development.
The vital role of telehealth solutions creates new capitalization opportunities for industry leaders and startups. But how do you initiate the MVP telehealth software development process and promote success of your healthcare products? See how SPsoft approaches this process by cutting off the redundancies and focusing on the essentials.
Lean Healthcare MVP Development: Build Fast with Business Goals in Mind
Before you go all-in and throw a considerable amount of resources into the development process, you need to test your hypotheses about the market needs and validate your product with the target audience. That is why you must first develop a minimum viable product (MVP) – a basic version of the product you can launch fast to observe its market performance.
The goal is to see whether your hypotheses for the end product are valid and whether the solution performs as intended. It is a relatively short process compared to full-cycle telehealth development allowing you to quickly deliver a basic product to your clients. A typical MVP telehealth development process consists of 6 main steps, and healthcare applications are no exception:
Research and Discovery
Research is fundamental for building an MVP for healthcare software systems as it helps you understand the project goals. What are you trying to build and achieve? What do your potential users need? Will your solution make any difference? What unique value does it bring?
You must compare your intended solution to similar healthcare applications already available. See what can be improved to make your product stand out from the current market offer. The project discovery phase is meant to answer many critical questions:
- Who is your target audience?
- Does your solution address any of the target audience’s pains?
- Who are your main competitors, and what makes your product stand out?
- Is there a demand for the solutions you are trying to build?
Figuring these out will help you validate the requirements for the product, which is the next step of the process.
Requirement Elicitation
You need to have a clear vision of what your mHealth software will look like. We will help you validate your ideas and requirements for the project. Understanding your business and technology goals is essential before kicking the project off. During this step, you will have to make decisions regarding:
- Service offering and delivery strategy
- Product design that aligns with your business identity
- Product’s basic features and future growth
- Monetization strategy
That will help to optimize the telehealth development cost and mitigate risk. And SPsoft will help you define the requirements for security compliance and expected development timeline and map out the final deliverables.
Core Features Identification
The final product may be as feature-rich as you like, and depending on your budget, you can equip your healthcare apps with all sorts of whistles and bells. However, an MVP is a whole other story – it has to reflect the core value of your solution in just a handful of key features.
You will have a clear picture of who your target audience is and what features they would need based on your research. So, now you need to isolate those core features and find a way to incorporate them into the MVP telehealth software fast. Our experts will help you map out the essential features in your product and expertly realize them in your MVP. Typically, the core features would include:
Though it might feel like bare bones, these features would already give your users a clear picture of your product.
Choosing the Right Tech Stack
Naturally, you will need to select the right tech stack to realize all your ideas while keeping an eye on the future needs of your business and scalability. You will need a strong team of experts to help you select the right tools and telehealth development frameworks to help you build a perfect solution that corresponds to your business and technology goals.
Different healthcare applications use different tech stacks, so it is important to base your choice on the findings of the discovery phase. Do not choose whichever technology is the most popular now; choose the one that suits your unique needs. The SPsoft team will assemble a custom toolkit for achieving the specific goals of your project.
Healthcare MVP Design and Development
That is where we get to design and develop an MVP telehealth solution. With the previous stages done right, the design and development stage will have to go smoothly. You have a precise vision for the MVP, defined its core feature, and selected the right tech stack – now, it is time to put all of that work together and develop your mHealth software. This stage would include the following steps:
- Key features development
- UI/UX design and wireframing
- Periodic progress demos and presentations
- Unit test coverage for all features
- Compliance certification support (HIPAA, GDPR, DPA, etc.)
Having a reliable telehealth development partner guarantees efficient cooperation and stays in touch throughout the development process is critical. SPsoft offers an agile development methodology that increases product development efficiency and decreases project failure risks to a bare minimum.
You will also receive regular updates on the project’s progress. In addition, we will run quality tests to ensure your mHealth software runs smoothly and corresponds to the highest industry standards.
Improvements and Iterations
Your MVP is now ready to launch. Your audience will access your product’s basic functionality, giving you the time to collect feedback and improve upon the app. We will analyze the product’s performance and see how the clients react to it. We will identify the most popular features, define the areas for improvement, and fix possible issues.
From that point on, we will continue working on the product while keeping an eye on the MVP’s performance. That way, your product will begin to bring ROI while we keep improving it, adding new features, and polishing the existing healthcare software systems.
Pitfalls of the Healthcare Development Process to Keep in Mind
Regardless of how eager you are to begin turning your ideas into solutions, starting your project on the right track is vital. You cannot run before you walk, and you must consider all the potential bumps on the road.
Compliance Issues
Security is paramount to any software dealing with sensitive client data. That is especially critical for healthcare applications as they deal with large amounts of confidential patient records.
Your MVP telehealth solution has to have:
- Bullet-proof cloud infrastructure
- A backup and recovery plan
- Authorization and encryption measures to secure the data flow
In addition, some international laws and regulations define how healthcare software systems collect, store, and use patient data. Therefore, your MVP must comply with all the relevant regulations. Otherwise, you will not be allowed to launch it.
Rushing the Process
One of the main reasons why healthcare software development projects fail is that businesses often underestimate the value of the discovery phase and MVP as its main deliverable. Sure the discovery phase and MVP development might take anywhere from 2 to 6 months of your time, depending on the project’s specifics. Still, a failure to conduct a proper discovery will cost more time and money in the future.
Poor Tech Decisions
This pitfall derives straight from the failed discovery stage. Not having a precise understanding of what your product will look like will result in picking all the wrong tech solutions for achieving vague goals. You need a healthcare software systems development partner with sufficient experience with similar projects to not only come up with the general idea of the project but to clearly define the essential toolkit.
Cybersecurity Threats
Cybersecurity is one of the major concerns in this day and age. As we develop more robust security systems, so do the hackers find new ways to breach the firewalls. So naturally, cybersecurity has to remain one of the primary concerns when building mHealth software. Cyberthreats are everywhere, and you must protect yourself and your users by implementing professional assessment, risk reduction, and management solutions.
Wrap Up: Build a Successful Healthcare MVP with SPsoft
The tech revolution of the past two decades has reshaped the face of many industries, but the healthcare sector has arguably benefited from technological advancement the most. Better tech allows healthcare practitioners to successfully diagnose and treat diseases that would have been fatal just a couple of decades ago. You cannot ignore the importance of telecommunication technology in spreading access to quality care to wider audiences.
A strong team of MVP telehealth development professionals can help you go through the discovery phase smoothly, develop an MVP for your product, ensure its fluent performance, and keep improving it for as long as needed. SPsoft experts are ready to turn your ideas into reality and create a product that brings measurable value to your business.
