How to Choose the Right Custom Healthcare Software Development Partner? – A Comprehensive Guide

Make a wild guess and tell how many hospitals have adopted custom healthcare software for their practice?

Surprisingly, as of now, the market stands at $102.35 billion and is projected to reach $728.63 billion by 2029. Apart from this, healthcare providers have also realized the role of mobile healthcare applications in scaling and reaching out to patients in underserved areas. This has initiated another trend in the healthcare industry, where almost 66% of the largest US hospitals have already assessed mobile apps for their practice back in 2016.

However, the data seems to have progressed a lot, and the COVID-19 pandemic is seen as one of the major driving factors. For instance, almost 96% of healthcare providers are planning to offer telehealth services.

Being a healthcare provider, you must know for the success of this, you not only have custom healthcare software but also a healthcare software development partner.

And oftentimes, the lack of proper healthcare software development services from the self-claimed top healthcare software development companies, leaves providers always on the search of vendors with healthcare software development expertise.

But how do you find such partners in a pool of custom healthcare software solutions providers?

Well, let’s find out the secrets to choosing the right healthcare software development company for your custom healthcare software solutions and why it is important!

Assessing Your Specific Requirements

First things first, let’s begin with self-assessment. Have a complete understanding of your healthcare practice and what are its unique needs that can be solved with technology. Being a healthcare practitioner in the 21st century, it is natural that you would be using a system for your healthcare practice. Assess the current pain points that disrupt your care delivery process, administrative workflow and the scalability of your practice.

Here, you’ll probably be confused about how the software is going to work and address these requirements?

Well, this can be achieved by specific features and functionalities that your custom healthcare software provides. A clear and concise dialogue with the healthcare software development partner can go a long way. For instance, the partner should understand your practice’s process and curate solutions that address the needs and develop features of the custom healthcare solutions that close the gap and enhance your care delivery.

However, one crucial consideration that can set you apart from the rest and can probably save you the additional customization cost of custom healthcare software development is the scalability and flexibility features. As your patient population grows, your practice is also bound to grow, and for that, the software should be capable enough to offer scalability and flexibility for your practice.

Industry Expertise & Regulatory Compliance

When you start searching for IT professionals with healthcare software development expertise, the right one will help your practice grow and make the processes easier for you to deliver care. The best way to filter some of the unnecessary providers is to look for players with a proven track record and extensive healthcare software development experience.

But why is this important?

It is important because the healthcare software development process is complicated, and regulatory compliance that the software needs to satisfy adds another layer of complexity. By choosing a healthcare software development company with experience in custom healthcare technology solutions, you already get their expertise in understanding the industry-specific challenges, clinical workflows, and regulations like HIPAA, HITRUST, GDPR, HL7, etc.

This way, you can ensure that your custom healthcare software is compliant with the regulations and that most of the roadblocks in healthcare software development are avoided. Along with that, you can also ensure that the custom healthcare software caters to your unique needs and requirements.

Expertise & Experience in Healthcare Domain

As explained earlier, the expertise and experience of the healthcare software development company you are choosing plays a crucial role in your software and digital healthcare program’s success. To help you sort players in this domain, here are some tips that might come in handy:

• Assess their healthcare software development experience on the basis of their work with different healthcare organizations, which includes hospitals, clinics, telemedicine providers, and remote patient monitoring device manufacturers.

• During the conversations with these healthcare technology solutions providers, verify their experience by how well they are able to understand clinical care delivery.

• Verify the regulations they adhere to and the healthcare software development process to achieve it.

• Last but not least, understand how well they understand the industry-specific challenges and how they overcome those to match your unique needs and requirements.

Technology Stack & Development Methodology

The success of building custom healthcare software for your practice heavily depends on the technology stack you are using to develop it. The technology stack your healthcare software development partner uses must align with the organization’s needs and requirements.

Along with that, different vendors use different development methodologies for project management and communication. Evaluate their methodologies and how it will help you in development. Some of the best practices used in the healthcare software development process are Agile and Waterfall, having a knowledge about them can help you in which methodology suits you best.

Before entering the development stage, consider important factors like scalability, interoperability and integration capabilities of the software. This is important because it helps your custom healthcare software solution to seamlessly integrate with other healthcare systems and existing systems and technologies.

Scalability & Future-Proofing

With rapid advancements in technology happening every now and then, future proofing your software with the evolving technologies can save you a lot of time and cost of custom healthcare software development.

For this reason, choosing a healthcare software development company that offers ongoing support and maintenance service can be extremely beneficial. Since they developed the software, they can easily accommodate its growth and future needs as your practice grows.

Some of the major considerations here are the development approach the partner is adopting so that the software can adapt to the evolving technologies. Apart from that, as your practice grows, the volume of data flowing in and out of your ecosystem also increases. And many healthcare providers are facing the problem of accommodating the growing volumes of data. To avoid this, making your software future proof and easy to scale is important.

Client References & Case Studies

While choosing the right partner for developing your custom healthcare software solution, request the client’s case studies on their projects to validate their capabilities. Along with that, you have the freedom to ask them for client references, compare their services in real-time, and evaluate client satisfaction levels firsthand.

Also, pay attention to their testimonials and assess their reputation online along with their credibility as a healthcare software development company and partner.

Contractual & Financial Considerations

In the end, it is all about the finances and numbers. Before starting the healthcare software development process, the vendor will propose a contract. Here, you need to thoroughly review the proposed contract and not just directly go for the proposed cost of custom healthcare software development.

This is important because you don’t want to overpay for something that does not satisfy your needs. While reviewing the contract thoroughly check the terms of service, pricing structure, payment schedules and the intellectual property rights of the software developed. Ensure there is transparency in every aspect of costing, delivery timelines and potential additional expenses throughout the project lifecycle as it can make a huge difference in your budget and other aspects of practice.

Seek clarification on support and maintenance services for everything after the deployment of the software. Some of these services include software updates, bug fixation, 24/7 technical support, etc. This will not only imbibe transparency in the contract and other aspects of healthcare software development.

Frequently Asked Questions