Beyond Off-the-Shelf: Why Custom Software Development is Essential for Modern Healthcare

Did you know that almost 88% of organizations around the world face business disruption due to the use of legacy systems?

Unfortunately, a 2021 HIMSS survey found that almost 73% of healthcare providers rely on legacy systems as medical practice management software. Though the number has reportedly decreased in the past few years, a huge gap is left behind as they are not HIPAA compliant software.

Now relying on these legacy systems in healthcare is not a problem, but the disruption it causes is something that needs to be addressed. To give you an example, on an average a physician spends around 49.2 minutes per day using EHRs. Furthermore, a survey by the American Medical Association revealed that 87% of physicians believe EHR interoperability as a major challenge in smooth flow of care delivery.

And if you observe, you’ll find one connecting link in all the problems mentioned above, yes, you’re right it’s the use of legacy systems.

Legacy and off-the-shelf healthcare software solutions have become an integral part of the modern-day healthcare system. However, over the years, as it has become outdated, they are hindering efficiency with limited functionality and are creating data silos.

So, what can be done to solve this problem of the usage of legacy systems in healthcare practices?

Custom software development in healthcare is what can help institutes overcome and even prepare themselves for the future.

Let’s explore how the best custom healthcare software solutions can help you thrive in the digital age of healthcare.

The Challenges of Off-the-Shelf Software

Before getting into custom software development in healthcare, let’s first understand why off-the-shelf healthcare software solutions are not the right fit for your practice to function at maximum efficiency. Below are some pointers that you should know:

1. Generic Functionality: The major problem with off-the-shelf healthcare software solutions is that they do not cater to any specific workflow. Since every healthcare practice has a unique workflow—as yours—it may not fit your clinical workflow, needs, and unique processes. This makes it hard for the software to align with your specific clinical needs.

2. Limited Customizations: Another challenge of off-the-shelf healthcare software solutions is that they come with pre-defined features and functionalities. Due to this, a very limited scope for customization is left, which makes the software hard to adapt to their specific needs and requirements, creating inefficiencies and workarounds.

3. Data Integration Issues: One of the main reasons why off-the-shelf healthcare software solutions do not comfortably integrate with existing legacy systems is because of the outdated technology being used in the development of those systems. This leads to the creation of data silos and disruption of the information flow in the software.

The Advantages of Custom Software Development

In this digital age of healthcare, the only reason why custom software development has an edge over all healthcare software solutions is due to the lucrative advantages. Here are some of the advantages that makes it a perfect healthcare software solution for independent healthcare practices:

1. Tailored Solutions: The secret lies in the process of custom software development in healthcare. These are designed to match and align with the specific needs and requirements of healthcare organizations. This optimizes their efficiency and elevates the user experience because it also acts like medical practice management software, which makes the solution perfect for aligning with your practice.

2. Enhanced Functionality: Every healthcare practice has unique challenges, which custom software development in healthcare naturally becomes the ideal choice to address those. The best custom software development companies for healthcare address and support the specific goals within the healthcare organization by developing certain features that enhance the functionality of the software.

3. Seamless Integration: Another advantage that sets custom healthcare software development apart from others is the software’s ability to seamlessly integrate with the existing healthcare IT infrastructure. Suppose your practice needs to be integrated with clinical research software apart from EHRs; then the software is customized accordingly. This ensures a smooth flow of data within the healthcare organization and eliminates the risk of data silos.

4. Scalability & Future-proofing: The scale of any healthcare software depends on the technology used to build it. Being an important aspect of any medical practice management software, custom software development in healthcare gives you enough room to customize, integrate additional features, and accommodate future technological advancements. This is important because as your practice grows, the software should be able to scale and manage the amount of data being managed and shared through the application without compromising any other aspect of its functionality.

Custom Software for Different Healthcare Needs

Different healthcare practices have different needs and requirements apart from other healthcare practices. That is why off-the-shelf healthcare software solutions are not fully able to accommodate or align with their needs. On the other hand, custom healthcare software development in healthcare becomes an ideal choice for its ability to be developed to address their unique needs and requirements.

Here are some of the unique needs of different healthcare organizations that custom healthcare software can address:

1. Improving Patient Engagement: Patient engagement tools in medical practice management software define how well you are able to engage the patient in their healthcare journey. For instance, developing custom patient portals after thorough research about the patient and users can instantly evaluate the user experience, leading to proactive participation of patients. Along with that, patient engagement tools like appointment scheduling and HIPAA-compliant telehealth solutions give patients more control of their health, enhance patient-provider communication, and foster collaboration between care teams.

2. Streamlining Administrative Tasks: A major part of medical practice management software comes in the form of managing administrative tasks. Here, custom healthcare software can bring in automation to streamline those tasks and improve the efficiency of the workers. For instance, administrative tasks such as billing, coding, and claims management can be automated using advanced technologies in custom software development in healthcare. This way, you can improve efficiency and reduce the chances of errors.

3. Clinical Decision Support Systems: The edge custom healthcare software solutions give healthcare professionals by assisting them in clinical decision-making. The development of clinical decision support systems can help them with faster diagnosis and treatment by providing them real-time insights at the point of care, which is basically patient portals or HIPAA compliant telehealth solutions.

4. Data Analytics & Reporting: Most of the custom software development in healthcare comes with a requirement for custom dashboards and reporting tools. This is crucial because dashboards and reporting tools give professionals direct access to healthcare data analytics, which helps them improve their decision-making and track quality metrics to improve patient outcomes.