Developing a Healthtech App: Notes on Process and the People You'll Need

Are you planning to develop healthcare software? Or maybe you have an idea for a healthcare app and don’t know what to do next? This is a guide for startups and entrepreneurs that want to be a part of the health tech movement.

Healthcare tech has to be customized from the very beginning. That’s why custom healthcare software development is the key to the successful launch of a product.

What is custom healthcare software development?

It’s all truly about flexibility and adapting to users' needs. No matter how cliche that sounds. If you build an app for Parkinson’s patients, you simply cannot sit on the sofa and think about how it is to be a Parkinson’s patient. You have to talk to patients, meet with them, and get some constant feedback from them and their doctors. That is custom software development of a healthcare app in a nutshell.

Custom healthcare software development is also about researching the new technologies and hardware, and finding a way to utilize them for the patient's sake. Hardware is a huge part of healthcare app development. (For example: in this blog post I wrote for my own company, you can learn about five new bluetooth devices that are now assisting patients and doctors in new ways.)

What is a perfect healthcare software development team?

The healthcare software developers within the team should be mid and senior developers that have experience and understand the importance of their role in building the product that may help save lives.

Healthcare software developers should:

• Have experience in software development. Mid and senior developers are must-haves.
• Be open to test not only their code but also the whole approach.
• Think forward and always try to predict a possible outcome and risk of the technical path that they are willing to choose.
• Be a part of the team of experts that know each other well, have worked on various projects together, and enjoy working with each other.
• Pay huge attention to code review, testing and QA. Healthcare software projects should include more time spending on QAs compared to regular software development processes.
• Be flexible and ready to know more about hardware and new devices that enter the IT world every single day.

Stages of software development

A typical software development process includes 4 main stages:

Ideation

Every software solution has to originate from the idea. Yet, the idea is just the beginning and it doesn’t guarantee a success.

Prototyping

This phase helps to verify the potential of an idea and visualize it. You establish your target groups and study their needs and expectations. Following the research results you build a prototype that helps to eliminate first mistakes and get feedback from first users.

Building the MVP for healthcare

MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is the first minimal version of the product that includes only the most important features. MVP reduces time to market and enables receiving quick feedback from users. Eventually, MVP helps to effectively evolve the project.

Software Development & Maintenance

When you launch a health app, your adventure has really just begun. Now it’s time for constant development, adding new features, receiving feedback, and reacting to any bugs.

Software development phases in health tech

A typical flow for healthcare software development looks pretty similar to the one presented above. However, when you work on a healthcare solution the prototyping phase is even more crucial and time-consuming.

It is the phase you have to turn users’ expectations into a prototype even if users don’t know how to name their needs. 😉 For healthcare, it is essential because you have to understand the condition of patients that you create a product for. Also, you need to establish a different approach for doctors, medical staff, or other healthcare representatives that may be a part of this project. It is rare that a healthcare solution has only one target group. Often you develop software for patients and doctors and every part of the product may be different for them. Features, UI and UX design should reflect the research of your target groups. Usually, the product will look completely different for doctors and patients.

How much does it cost to build a healthcare application?

When it comes to custom healthcare app development every part of the process has to be adjusted to the users and their needs. Therefore, the price of building an app cannot be established blindly. Customized development cannot be priced without receiving crucial information about the development process, such as: scale, target groups, expected skills and type of devices that are a part of the solution.