Can Quality Assurance & Testing Transform Global Healthcare?

Mobility services have transformed the way healthcare professionals are conducting clinical practice. It has changed the way healthcare services are accessed and delivered to the stakeholders. Medical software applications (apps) are becoming indispensable and testing these applications for efficiency is becoming equally critical.

Healthcare sector comprises anything and everything right from diagnostic, preventive, remedial, and therapeutic services like doctors, nurses, hospitals and other private, public and voluntary organizations. Additionally, it involves allied services and segments such as medical equipment, pharmaceutical companies, Clinical Research Organization and even insurance carriers.

It has been observed that healthcare is amongst the sectors going through a serious churn and there are growing challenges related to effective implementation of IT solutions.

There is a need for CIOs within the healthcare space to balance privacy and security requirements of sensitive data related to patients as well as medicine related IP and regularly upgrade IT infrastructure and overall performance of the system. From a doctor’s office to a corporate hospital, there are numerous spaces and instances where technology plays a key role.

Healthcare IT environment is increasingly getting complex, and if not handled intelligently, it can impact the well-being of patients. Managing patient data, sorting reports, and managing situational information are some key challenges that the sector is facing.

Privacy and security of information are two critical aspects to consider in the healthcare sector. Though technology and automation is an enabler, it is important to know the kind of challenges that the healthcare sector faces while implementing these changes.

Healthcare is a sensitive domain with constant demand. Today, the healthcare domain has expanded beyond the mere requirements of healthcare facilities. Lifestyle healthcare is coming up as a big business and there is growing demand globally for it.

According to MarketsandMarkets, “The healthcare IT market is poised to reach USD 228.7 Billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 13.4% during the forecast period of 2015 to 2020. Market growth can be attributed to the growing need to adhere to regulatory guidelines, government initiatives for eHealth, high return on investment (ROI), and rising needs to curtail escalating healthcare costs.”

How can technology enable every aspect of Healthcare and bring efficiency in the processes? What are the challenges that need to be prioritized and handled?

• Managing high volumes of data influx

As mentioned earlier, there is a massive amount of data that is generated on an hourly basis in the healthcare domain in the form of reports, images, information about patients, and more. How can this data be managed better?

Healthcare sector has been going through this churn for a long time and it is affecting the speed and efficiency of its functions. With increasing load of patient data, there are legal requirements for maintaining strict confidentiality of the data. Healthcare IT personnel are coming up with effective management and storage solutions to keep a track of growing IT needs for the sector.

• Requirement of high bandwidth

Data usage for healthcare is growing at a massive pace for various reasons – Digital imaging technologies, e-reporting, healthcare applications, etc. are all stretching the data limits and there is a constant demand for more bandwidth.

This is overall straining the existing data infrastructure. Use of healthcare applications and increasing demand for telemedicine technologies are spiking data generation. At the same time, there is a need to securely store and manage this data.

• Federal Mandates

There are specific Federal rules and regulations that govern the healthcare sector. For instance, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, mandates medical providers to safeguard patient’s private medical information. It has strict procedures for taking a back-up of data during contingency situations.

This is a challenge for the sector and it can get penalized for not abiding by the federal rules and data breaches.

• Insufficient Data Storage

When humungous and heterogeneous data is generated, there is a need to store that data and retrieve it when required. This kind of data storage needs a lot of bandwidth. It has been estimated that data storage needs for healthcare double up every 18 months, particularly due to the various regulatory mandates.

As a result, futuristic medical organizations have started implementing strategic, multi-tiered storage plans that comprise on-site, off-site, and virtual storage. The objective is to leverage technology to transform repetitive and tedious processes and get ready for any unforeseen circumstances.

• Gap in communication amongst healthcare systems

Healthcare industry has been introduced to electronic systems only in the last few years. For instance, maintaining electronic medical records is becoming a norm today, where various data systems integrate to prepare these reports. While the industry is innovating to serve better and provide more facilities, there is a limited capability amongst systems to connect and integrate with each other.

This disrupts the entire attempt towards automation and judicious use of data. As a result, this affects the return on investment from the technology implemented.

• Rising cost of IT projects

IT is being implemented across functions and is driving the change and transformation. However, healthcare is increasingly realizing the costs associates with IT, growing energy needs, and mandate to successfully deal with the changing regulation and incorporating them in the IT processes.

The report by MarketsandMarkets further states that “Lack of in-house IT domain knowledge and reluctance among end users to adopt new methods are expected to restrain the overall market growth to a certain extent during the forecast period.”

Can a comprehensive testing plan transform the process and ease out things for healthcare IT? Various projects and IT innovations are making amends to enable the sector with effective testing of the implemented solutions.

Our take.

Cigniti Technologies has been extensively working within the healthcare segment and has developed proficiency in the sector with core domain expertise. During one of our healthcare related projects, Cigniti collaborated with a leading global specialty biopharmaceutical company originating from the United Kingdom with a large operational base in the United States.

The Client was looking for Functional testing of Sales Intelligence application and approached Cigniti to smoothen the testing process and improve the overall experience of the application.

Cigniti team had to deal with some fundamental challenges during the project. One of the key challenges was lack of documentation on transformation rules. Additionally, the team had to test all the individual functionalities of sales intelligence application and ensure correct presentation across various browsers.

The team implemented best practices and test methodologies to meet the functional test requirements of the client. They used traceability matrix to ensure complete test coverage.

This resulted in 100% coverage of functional testing, which was possible with requirement traceability matrix. Moreover, end-to-end testing visibility was achieved through metrics and CIO dashboards.

Cigniti’s Functional Testing Services ensure the verification and validation of applications for both independent software vendors and enterprises. Our services focus on testing the applications against defined specifications and meeting the end user expectations for functionality.

Connect with us and ensure that your applications and software meet the expectations of the users with desired outcome.