Table of Contents
What are the Benefits of SaaS in the Healthcare Industry?
Checklist for HIPAA Compliance
How to Develop a Healthcare SaaS Application?
Top HealthCare SaaS Trends That Are Making a Difference in the Medical Industry
Software as a Service (SaaS) technologies and products have left no stone unturned in bringing a paradigm shift in the healthcare industry. Moreover, with the emergence of new chronic diseases and deadly viruses, technological advancements in the healthcare sector have become a necessity. Healthcare SaaS is the right technology as it has the capability of enhancing the quality of care, saving more people, and improving the overall status of the health of society.
There are certain SaaS trends that are driving changes in the healthcare industry. Before getting into their depth, it is important to understand the basics of healthcare SaaS. The technology is helping the healthcare sector to implement the newest advancements at a cost-effective rate so that hospitals can render the best service and treatment to the patients. In addition, healthcare SaaS makes services better, and cheaper and boosts the ROI (Return on Investment) of the hospitals as well.
Therefore, in this blog, we will have an in-depth understanding of the basics of healthcare SaaS. Along with that, we would take a closer look at the top healthcare SaaS trends that are revolutionizing the industry and the benefits of the SaaS technology.
What is Healthcare SaaS?
In simple words, Healthcare SaaS allows hospitals and medical institutions to deploy cloud-based and affordable EHRs (Electronic Health Records). Along with the EHRs, these cloud-based apps include EMRs (Electronic Medical Records), PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System), telehealth, etc. There is some non-clinical information such as billing, supply chain, etc. that is included in the overall healthcare SaaS system.
Due to its affordability and better technology, it is easier for hospitals to deploy the changes through healthcare SaaS throughout their hospitals.
Also Read: Mobile Technology and the Digitization of Healthcare
What are the Benefits of SaaS in the Healthcare Industry?
Along with being affordable in deploying the latest technologies, healthcare SaaS has another plethora of benefits for both hospitals and patients. Let us explore the advantages one by one:
1. Better Information Security
Data security is one of the major concerns of the hospitals as patient data is very confidential and a breach of it can be disastrous. Therefore, it is necessary to implement the healthcare SaaS platform through the hospital system as it is highly reliable and safeguards the data in any given situation.
Along with a comprehensive healthcare SaaS platform, it is necessary to choose the right SaaS development partner as a talented software service provider who will keep the system running by reducing security vulnerabilities. As mentioned earlier, the SaaS platform will render data security without much affecting the budget of the hospital.
2. Streamlined Understanding Between Medical Professionals
To save the life of a patient, the most important thing is time. Moreover, if the medical professionals show better understanding during that crucial period, it would be beneficial for the patient. Using the healthcare SaaS technology becomes critical here as it allows the medical professionals to work in tandem and get in touch with each other quickly. Imagine a situation where the collaboration of different medical experts is needed for a patient. Healthcare SaaS will provide a platform for them and allow them to treat the patient in a better way.
The healthcare SaaS technology can prove to be a boon for developing countries that lack medical services. It can assist in making the overall healthcare cooperation quicker and more streamlined.
3. More Transparency in Information
Transparency is one of the more crucial factors that help in achieving better medical care. Transparency in medical information will allow the doctors to understand the patient’s history and render them better care.
Healthcare SaaS technology has EMRs that will help doctors to analyze the situation of the patient easily and find the answer to critical medical information. With considerable improvement in information transparency, the team of doctors can be on the same page during the treatment process.
Checklist for HIPAA Compliance
Maintaining the standards of the IT system and EPHI (Electronic Protected Health Information) protection as they are necessary according to the HIPAA security rule. For a better understanding of our readers, we have included a list of mandatory security rules that are necessary. This checklist will help the healthcare SaaS system to achieve physical, administrative, and technical safeguards.
- Data Integrity Control
- Access management and control
- Managing the patient complaints related to security violations
- Better data encryption
- User authentication and data integrity control
- Controls for conducting audits
- Strict security policies for incident response, detection, and future occurrence
- Security awareness training of the staff
How to Develop a Healthcare SaaS Application?
Developing a healthcare SaaS application is a pretty critical process as it helps hospitals to provide better services to the patients. Below are the top important factors to keep in mind while developing a healthcare SaaS app.
1. Developing Specific Wireframes
It is necessary to create specific documentation and wireframes for the healthcare SaaS app as it will help in developing a product that the patients will love. Having the functional specification documentation will help the doctors to understand exactly ways how to solve the patients’ pain points during the research stage.
In addition, a comprehensive wireframe will help in creating a free-flowing layout for the UI/UX elements. Also, the specific documentation will assist in making quick changes in the wireframe without much manipulation.
2. Conducting In-depth Market Research
It is necessary to understand the latest trends and essential requirements of the patients before developing healthcare SaaS software. The market research process must include both competitor research and customer research.
Having a piece of proper information about the market will help the organization build and validate its business hypothesis. Moreover, it is also crucial to avoid and jump to conclusions only by seeing just one side of the coin in the market. Before making more advancements in the healthcare SaaS product, have answers to these questions:
- What is the market size?
- What are the solutions that the existing SaaS platforms are lacking?
- What is the USP of your product and is it enough?
- What is the user behavior pattern?
3. Always Develop an MVP
Having an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is essential to get your idea validated in the market. Moreover, having an experienced software development service provider is also necessary for this situation as it will help in understanding the user buying pattern better. An MVP will help the organization to have the right track during the development of the healthcare SaaS platform by directly receiving feedback from the targeted audience.
Here are the critical characteristics to keep in mind while developing an MVP:
- It must provide value to attract more customers
- The MVP must clearly demonstrate the benefits of the overall product
- Have a formidable feedback loop to collect important information
Top HealthCare SaaS Trends That Are Making a Difference in the Medical Industry
Now let us have a look at the important healthcare SaaS trends that are bringing a paradigm shift in the medical industry and taking it forward.
1. Using Multiple Cloud Systems
There has been a multifold increase in healthcare organizations using cloud-based apps. With multiple cloud service providers, it would be easier to analyze, store and process patient data for future purposes. For example, Google Health with the help of APIs has helped healthcare organizations to use Big Data and provide superlative services to patients.
Also, the multi-cloud approach will help in using cutting-edge data security capabilities as well. Moreover, it will assist in identity management, data encryption, information loss prevention, and more.
2. Detailed Attention to Security
Healthcare SaaS platforms have made a major shift in uplifting the levels of information security. Also, with the use of cloud services. Moreover, with the increased usage of multiple cloud systems, the threats to important patient data have reduced drastically. Therefore, detailed attention to security will remain an important healthcare SaaS trend in times to come.
3. Smart Artificial Intelligence Solutions
We are already well-versed with the various and profound advantages of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Now, amalgamating SaaS with AI will allow the medical organization to leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) and deliver better healthcare solutions.
4. Increased Use of Micro SaaS
Although the healthcare SaaS platform is competent enough to provide revolutionized services to the entire health market, there are still some gaps left. These gaps can be filled with Micro SaaS as this trend can work as an add-on service. For instance, if the hospital finds out some gap in the services of their existing SaaS product, instead of using an entirely new one, they can cover the lacks by using Micro SaaS.
5. Rise of Data-as-a-Service
Software as a Service (SaaS) has a pretty close relation with Data as a Service (DaaS). One of the major benefits of DaaS is that it is easier to host, source, integrate, and standardize the data as per organizational requirements. Synchronized data is very much essential for the medical organization as it has everything related to the treatment details, the patient’s previous records, and more.
6. New Functionalities with API Connections
APIs make the process of adding new functionalities to the system pretty streamlined. Therefore, the rising demand for healthcare products, including APIs will help medical organizations to evolve with the changing industry demands and standards. Moreover, the strategic use of APIs will assist in migrating data between the clouds and streamlining it for future reference.
7. Revolutionary Vertical SaaS
Vertical SaaS is one of the most exciting healthcare SaaS trends that are taking large steps in 2022 and will continue to do so. It will help the healthcare mobile app service providers to build a client-specific supply chain application. Some of the major examples of Vertical SaaS are retail analysis, logistic analysis, healthcare business intelligence analysis, and more.
8. Giant Strides of Edge Computing
One of the major advantages of Edge Computing is that it places the essential data closer to the point of use. Moreover, it benefits the medical industry a great deal as it uses fog computing for its overall implementation.
Edge Computing is set to become one of the must-have data generation machines that will help in healthcare Big Data. It helps in superior data transmission, reduces the cost, and limits the over-dependence on the bandwidth.
9. Increase of the Subscription Models
There are a high number of SaaS vendors that work on the Pay-per-use models. This healthcare SaaS trend will help hospitals to use temporary services without paying much. The Pay-per-use model is highly beneficial for the healthcare startups that experience difficulties in cash inflows.
10. Migration in Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Healthcare organizations that are looking to develop customized healthcare apps must look for Platform as a Service (PaaS). It also ensures a secured web-based solution to offer flexibility and scalability to the application.
Final Thoughts
For hospitals, it is necessary to understand the changing trends of the healthcare SaaS. The updated knowledge will help the healthcare professionals to render the best services to the patients and also keep innovating the processes as per changing demands.
At Third Rock Techkno, we deliver top-rated healthcare SaaS product development services as our skilled professionals have in-depth knowledge about the market. We understand the queries of the clients and offer them customized services according to their target audience. Moreover, if you feel overwhelmed with the trends and changing healthcare business situations, get in touch with us and have a look at our previous portfolio.