The most important step in creating medical software is choosing the right development company. The success of your project depends on the vendor’s expertise. A good medical app development company   will help you to research your market and develop an application that will answer the audience’s needs and wants in a way that’s accessible, secure (with it being a digital health app), and highly performative.

Here are the steps that will help you evaluate if the digital health vendor you’re considering is good.

#1 Identify Your Own Needs

The first step in creating a medical application is determining its purpose and target audience. Because there are many variants and goals for building a medical app, the whole concept will depend on that. The platform can be dedicated to these target audiences (TAs):

• Patients
• Doctors
• Medical administrators
• Consumers (as in casual fitness apps, meditation apps, etc.)

In process of development educational software for medical professionals Diversido team worked on delivering information from grounded sources, user friendly and easy to use interface, engaging, interactive and animated content thus the intent of health application will be clear for both individuals and hospitals. In apps for multiple audiences, the functional parts for each of them will differ. In apps for hospitals, patients would be able to see their receipts from doctors and recommendations, and doctors can, for instance, monitor patients’ health through self-reporting tools, data from wearables, etc. Medical administration will be able to invoice insurance companies.

When you analyze your TA, research solutions offered by competitors. They might give you ideas on how to differentiate from them.

#2 Pay Attention to the Portfolio of the Vendors on Your List

Another rule is related to the services digital health software companies offer.

Different suppliers have different views on how the product should look. They have different ways of designing things, and different approaches to software development. Create a list of features you would like to see in your medical application.

Here are a few examples.

Check if the company you’re considering built something with the features you’ve planned out before.

#3 Look for Cybersecurity Expertise

Security in healthcare is of imminent importance. Every good medical software developer should care about the next things:

• Data encryption
• Risk analysis
• Vulnerability scanning

It is recommended to cooperate with vendors who have good cybersecurity and information architecture expertise to avoid any fraud and data leaks within your app. It’s best to check the solutions from the vendor’s previous collaborations: how secure are they? If you’re not sure how to assess them, involve cybersecurity experts. That’s an additional expense, but it is worth it.

#4 Ensure that the Chosen Team’s Product Has ISO Certificate and Is FHIR-Compliant

When you choose a health development software supplier, pay special attention to whether their products have ISO certification. There are quite a lot of ISO standards — check them out here — but when the company has ISO certification, that means it passed multiple audits and bears a mark of high quality.

There is also FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) that sets the data standard for healthcare platforms, providers, apps, and other online resources. That’s a format that ensures interoperability — smooth data exchange, synchronicity, etc. — between different healthcare provider-facing solutions.

#5 Spend Some Time Looking Through the Client Reviews

A crucial step — it was mentioned briefly before, so let’s dive deeper. Here are some recommendations you can apply when reading through the client reviews.

Don’t Use the Reviews Posted on the Software Developer Site

Every company wants to be the best — sadly, not many vendors would agree to post negative or average-rating reviews on their website (despite the fact it might give them the competitive advantage due to instantaneous build-up of trust.)

Look For Some Independent Sources

Look for true reviews in App Store/Google Play for the apps they’ve built, on review websites, in social media.

Read Clients’ Testimonials

What can be more truthful than feedback from real clients? Don’t hesitate to contact them via email or LinkedIn or whatever channel you like more. It’s a normal thing to do — and in the digital healthcare field, it might help you dodge the bullet or find a really good vendor you could have skipped.

Summary

Make a very responsible choice, because the fate of your project will depend on it. Increase your chances of finding a good Medical Software Supplier by drawing up a clear plan of action, asking a lot of questions, and keeping an open mind while searching for a suitable candidate.

Another thing: there is often a choice between a generic software development company and a niche vendor for healthcare. Experts are always the best choice. Even if the company develops fancy apps, they might not know all the specifics of software engineering for healthcare: security compliance (HIPAA and other patient-protecting regulations), accepted data standards and interoperability concerns, the importance of accessibility, and so on. It’s also better if the vendor has resources to run tests among your target audience — and if that’s people who are working in medical organizations, the vendor must know how to communicate with them and, therefore, must know the inner workings of the industry.

When you find one, don’t forget to investigate them. Follow your vision, be patient and your project will succeed.