Beneficial Healthcare Software Testing Guide -Part 1

Today’s blog is all about understanding the importance of healthcare software testing. It is important to check the functionalities and rectify the vulnerabilities of responsible healthcare software before making it available for patients and the medical staff.

This is a two-part blog series that is useful for you to understand the relevance of healthcare testing. Here, you will learn the initial requirements of testing a healthcare domain software. And, in the next part, we will discuss the important tips & tricks of testing healthcare software.

Healthcare Software QA

Within the healthcare domain, quality is the major driving factor in offering medical services and proper patient care. The industry focuses on the quality and the speedy execution of medical services being offered to patients.

There is no doubt in the fact that the healthcare domain is progressing further with the much-needed digital revolution. It helps to improve the heightened level of communication between patients and medical representatives. Also, storing and collecting important medical records and data.

Thus, technical advancements in the healthcare sector give rise to Quality Assurance (QA) and testing. It is important to identify the level of innovation, seamless performance of software, and improving the overall healthcare software product.

For the above reason, we bring forth a short guide on healthcare testing talking about the soft spots, core aspects, and step-wise testing process.

Check the Vulnerabilities with Healthcare Software

Every type of healthcare software deals with the sensitive and valuable information of patients and hospitals. This is why there might be some challenges or vulnerabilities within the system that need to be rectified in advance and then start testing.

A. Fail to Comply with HIPAA Requirements

Make sure the fact that your healthcare software complies with the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). It protects your software against heavy penalties, data breaches, and cyberattacks

B. Not So Friendly UI/UX

Seamless usability of the software has of utmost importance on the part of users to get a smooth experience. It is essential to have your healthcare software deliver user-centric and easy workflow.

C. Medical System Incompatibility

One of the vulnerabilities you find with healthcare software is the failure to maintain interoperability between third-party apps. Your software needs to integrate well with Hospital Management System (HMS), Electronic Health Record (EHR), and Medical Practice Management Software (MPMS)

D. Poor Performance

Software performance is an integral factor to meet the prerequisites of the targetted users. Fail to comply with the same results in degraded customer satisfaction levels.

For all the above vulnerabilities and other loopholes in the healthcare software, count on the professional expertise of the quality assurance (QA) and testing team.

Types of Healthcare Software Testing

  1. Functional Testing: It includes the functional capabilities of healthcare software. It addresses testing the healthcare workflows across different departments to improve the information-sharing process.
  2. Conformance Testing: It is more like security testing and framework testing. This testing type checks the software meets the compliance requirements of HIPAA, FDA requirements, VA, or any other.
  3. Interoperability Testing: Measuring the interoperability of the software by using standard testing tools. It helps to determine the seamless integration of healthcare testing with other applications.
  4. Medical Imaging Testing: This test takes care of the security and accuracy of the medical imaging software. It includes specialized automation tools for testing like DVTK, MESA, and Mirth.
  5. Platform Testing: Rigorous testing of the software on different platforms and devices to ensure easy accessibility.
  6. Load Testing: Testing enterprise-level healthcare software against the load and performance. This test determines the capability of the software while handling a particular load of users at the same time.

How to Test a Healthcare Software

To track all the potential vulnerabilities, optimize functionalities, and improve the results, the QA team follows a strategic testing procedure.

Here’s the step-by-step process.

1. Testing Planning

This is the initial step of the testing process. At first, professional testing agents gather the requirements and define the scope of your project. Several things are first taken into consideration before creating a strategic plan.

  • Product specifications
  • Weaknesses
  • Objectives
  • Scheduled time
  • Cost estimation
  • Specialists
  • Software & Hardware
  • Delivery

Precise planning covering all the above inputs is a necessary element for the successful testing of medical software.

2. Requirements

At this stage, testing agents analyze all the requirements and potential risks that may arise in the future. The team checks for specifications, consistency, completeness, correctness, and testability.

3. Functional & Non-Functional

It is one of the crucial stages of the healthcare software process. It comprises of the following few important steps:

  • Looking and detecting the bugs, errors, and irregularities in the software.
  • Checking the aspects of performance, usability, reliability, and security.
  • Number of tests are conducted including smoke, regression, integration, usability, performance, security, and more.

4. Regression Testing

This stage involves detection of all the bugs, send the same to the development team, and fix them all. The purpose is to eliminate all the potential errors within the software and make sure it works well after making the respective changes. It also involves checking the speed, product stability, and impact of your software.

5. Reporting

Creating detailed reports after every single test. It is important to maintain the flow and record of software testing and final test results for future reference.

Summing Up

We hope that the above information is helpful in understanding the importance of software testing and types. As already mentioned, we will be covering the tips & tricks of a strategic and result-oriented testing process in the next part.

If you need any additional information related to software testing, then get in touch with TestingAgency. It is the best software testing company in India that offers a strategic series of testing services for diverse industries including healthcare.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How Long Does it Take to Test a Healthcare Software?

The time duration of testing a healthcare software depends on the product specifications, requirements, and overall objective to achieve. For different software varied timeliness is framed accordingly.

2. What are the Weaknesses of Healthcare Software?

Majorly, failure to comply with HIPAA requirements, not-so-friendly UI/UX, incompatibility, lack of interoperability, and several others are major weaknesses of healthcare software.

3. What is the Cost Involved in Testing Healthcare Software?

The cost estimation depends on the software requirements, resources needs, time involved, and major challenges. Here at TestingAgency, we offer a cost-effective software testing service that meets your diverse requirements.