Is Your Telehealth Application Good Enough for Patients/Doctors to Trust You?

We are in an era of digital healthcare and have witnessed various adaptations of different technologies to help the healthcare sector and provide better aid to patients.

Telehealth solutions have been around you for quite some time. However, with the pandemic in the year 2020, there has been a considerable increase in the usage of telehealth solutions. As per the reports, the global telehealth market size was valued at USD 62.4 billion in 2021 and is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.5% from 2022 to 2028.

Facing situations where doctors were failing to treat their patients, telehealth solutions proved to be a blessing for many. However, these platforms require the support of technology that can fulfill the expectations of both the doctors and their patients.

Therefore, if you want your telehealth application to succeed, you must up your technology game and keep it safe and flawless to deliver a delightful user experience.?

Telehealth application testing can help your application with smooth connectivity between the patient and doctor, updating and tracking of health data, easy management and storage through cloud services, saving applications from cyber security breaches, and the list goes on.

What are telehealth applications, and how does it help doctors and their patients?

Telehealth or mobile health (mHealth) applications are designed to provide patients and healthcare professionals with the ability to connect with each other over digital media. These applications allow patients to book appointments online and connect with their doctors virtually.

A telehealth application can have several features like video conferencing, health tracking and remote patient monitoring (RPM), and various mobile applications that can help patients to book appointments, update their health records and analyze symptoms.

However, when it comes to dealing with a patient’s health, there is no room for defects or flaws. Thus, it is the responsibility of service providers to provide patients with one of the best telehealth services and a robust application. In addition, these telehealth applications must be strategically designed, developed and tested to avoid any form of roadblocks in the process.

After all, advanced technology is introduced to make healthcare facilities easy and smooth!

Importance of QA testing for telehealth applications:

As you read increasingly about telehealth services and their advantages, you will unfold many stories about how so many telehealth apps have failed in aspects like usability, accessibility etc.

A telehealth or mHealth application is developed and designed in a manner to support the healthcare industry with advanced technology disrupting the traditional healthcare system. ?Most of these applications include technologies like IoT or AI/ML and must have all the necessary features to help both doctors and their patients. Thus, it becomes crucial to test these applications’ functionality before launching them onto the market.

To make your telehealth applications failure-proof, you need to invest in the best quality assurance services. ?Experienced QA testers with deep knowledge in healthcare industry, will ensure the effectiveness of your telehealth application.

?QA testers will enhance your telehealth application in the following ways:

·??????Understand the application requirements from all perspectives and design the right strategies to prevent any flaws in the application functionality and performance.

·??????Follow health regulatory compliance without affecting the business goals.

·??????Guide you on what works better for the application users.

·??????Laying a larger focus on the quality and maintenance of high performance and functionality of the application.

Best practices to follow while failure proofing your telehealth application:

By now, you must have understood and analyzed the importance of QA for your telehealth application. However, this is not enough to deliver a successful and failure-proof application to your users. Therefore, you must understand the ‘how to’ of telehealth application testing.

The following is the list of best practices to follow while opting for QA testing services for your application:?

1.??????Deliver the exact business goals?

2.??????Make software testing quality-centric?

3.??????Prioritize user experience (UX)?

4.??????Automate the test process

5.??????Ensure compliance of your apps

6.??????Ensure real environment testing

7.??????Focus on robust security solutions

1.??????Deliver the exact business goals: As the application owner, it is your responsibility to define and deliver the exact business goals to all the teams responsible for the application development and testing. The QA testing service providers must consider the business requirements and strategize the application testing process in line with the same. This way, the teams will be able to set priorities and deliver expected solutions.

2.??????Make software testing quality-centric: Being a telehealth application owner, you would never want to affect a patient’s health. However, defective performance of your application will not just affect your users emotionally but will directly affect their health too. Therefore, choose experienced QA professionals to deliver high quality and efficient applications with a quality-centric testing process!

3.??????Prioritize user experience (UX)- A telehealth application is used by healthcare professionals as well as their patients. To deliver what best suits both parties, it becomes imperative for business owners to develop an application from the user’s perspective and prioritize user experience (UX) while testing the same. Prioritizing UX means performing tests based on the application’s usability, functionality, accessibility, performance, speed and overall UX. Thus, making your telehealth application user-friendly.

4.??????Automate the test process: QA testing of an application must be carried out continuously from the start of the software development lifecycle till the end of the same. Consequently, the entire process could be long and require more time to market the application. However, test automation is one of the best ways to reduce test lifecycle duration. ?QA professionals must plan the test cases in advance and determine what tests should be automated and performed manually. Test automation is a great way to save time and cost and provide better ROI for the business, leading to minimal human errors!

5.??????Ensure compliance of your apps: Every healthcare software or app must be compliant with the latest regulations and healthcare compliance standards. Experienced quality assurance experts would test your application for compliance to ensure that you face no hindrances while launching your application onto the market.

6.??????Ensure real environment testing: A telehealth application can be accessed on multiple gadgets. Therefore, to analyze the performance of your application, you must perform the testing process in a real environment using real devices, with real people. This way, you will be able to better determine the performance gaps in your application when used on multiple devices.

7.??????Focus on robust security solutions: With the well-being of patients, it is equally important to ensure the well-being of your application and its sensitive data. ?A telehealth application must be secure enough from all malicious activities to safeguard your user’s privacy and sensitive information. No unwanted user should be able to affect your application’s security and performance. Thus, as the application owner, it is your responsibility to prioritize security testing for your mHealth application.

In summation:

There are multiple telehealth applications in the market, but not all provide top-class solutions as per customer expectations. Therefore, QA testing a telehealth application must be an essential step while developing the application. Your application’s efficient functionality and accessibility result from strategically testing the application for software quality.?

To achieve your goals and be a top player in the market, you must invest in experienced and skilled QA testing service providers.?