<p dir="ltr">Few things in life are as important as our health. During and after the pandemic, more and more people have realized this, prioritizing their well-being above everything else. Our digital age offers us many different ways to take care of our physical and mental health. SaaS apps allow us to view our electronic health records, and make it easier for doctors to access important patient data.</p> <p dir="ltr">We at CHILLICODE build all kinds of apps for various industries, including healthcare. In this article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about SaaS in healthcare: how much it costs, what the benefits are, and how to launch a profitable SaaS product. We’ll share some valuable development insights and walk you through the process of creating your own healthcare SaaS solution. Let’s get into it!</p> <h2 dir="ltr">What is a healthcare SaaS app?</h2> <p dir="ltr">Let’s start with the basics: what even is SaaS? This acronym stands for “Software as a Service”. It’s a type of cloud-based digital product that you can access via a browser, without the need to install anything on your device. This means that SaaS services can be used on any platform, including mobile, desktop, and smart TV — any device with a browser. Thanks to that, launching a SaaS product gives you an opportunity to attract a much wider user base compared to native apps, which are limited by their platforms.</p> <pre class="language-contactus"><code>{{ "title": "Write ChilliCode", "description": "To help you acknowledge your business needs and decide whether IT services will work for you, I’ve sorted out a list of cases.", "buttonText": "Contact us" }}</code></pre> <p dir="ltr"><br><br>The goal of SaaS in healthcare is usually to simplify the interactions between doctors, administrative personnel, and patients. Healthcare SaaS companies focus on offering their clients as many useful features as possible. For example, allowing them to view the results of their medical tests and schedule their doctor appointments. SaaS platforms also help with simplifying medical billing, making the whole process transparent both for patients and medical staff.</p> <p dir="ltr">When it comes to SaaS in healthcare, one of the first notable examples was Salesforce Health Cloud, a comprehensive platform tailored to the needs of healthcare providers. It brought a lot of innovation to the table, enabling quick access to patients’ electronic health records and simplifying medical administration. Because all important patient data was made available in one place, it became easier to track patient treatment progress. Thanks to Salesforce Health Cloud, clinics and hospitals could increase the quality of their healthcare services and boost patient engagement. </p> <h2 dir="ltr">Advantages of SaaS for healthcare </h2> <p dir="ltr">Now that we’re familiar with the origins of SaaS in healthcare, let’s go over some of the key advantages offered by this format:</p> <div dir="ltr" align="left"> <table><colgroup><col width="255"><col width="460"></colgroup> <tbody> <tr> <td> <p dir="ltr">Makes your healthcare business competitive and cost-efficient.</p> </td> <td> <p dir="ltr">By offering convenient SaaS solutions, healthcare organizations can provide more value to customers without breaking the bank. With SaaS, the upfront cost of investment is significantly lower compared to physical infrastructure.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p dir="ltr">Provides easy access to electronic medical records.</p> </td> <td> <p dir="ltr">With SaaS, healthcare services become very accessible. The software allows both patients and doctors to view all relevant medical data right on their phones and computers.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p dir="ltr">Makes medical billing easy.</p> </td> <td> <p dir="ltr">SaaS makes it possible to completely automate medical billing, ensuring high security and scalability.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p dir="ltr">Allows to manage patient data more efficiently.</p> </td> <td> <p dir="ltr">Aside from simplifying access to patient data, SaaS apps offer healthcare organizations many useful tools for analytics and security. These include AI-based recommendations and insights, as well as indispensable features like automatic data backups.</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p dir="ltr">Simplifies interactions between patients and healthcare providers.</p> </td> <td> <p dir="ltr">SaaS platforms can improve communication between patients and healthcare providers. Many of these apps have built-in real-time messaging, allowing patients to talk to their personal doctors.</p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <p dir="ltr">It’s clear that SaaS is a very useful tool for anyone in the healthcare sector. It offers a high level of accessibility and allows healthcare providers to automate data management without requiring an enormous budget.<br><br>Next, let’s explore the most impressive examples of SaaS in healthcare. We’ll look at some of the best digital products in the healthcare industry to help you with launching your own project.</p> <h2 dir="ltr">Top examples of SaaS in healthcare</h2> <p dir="ltr">To understand what makes a healthcare SaaS platform successful, let’s go over some of the key players on the market:</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Epic EHR</h3> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://chillicode.dev/uploads/1_b4b060bff8.png" alt="1.png"></p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.epic.com/software/">Epic</a> is one of the most recognized names in the healthcare SaaS space. The American company offers a wide array of digital products for patients, doctors, and medical administrators. These include <a href="https://www.mychart.org/">MyChart</a>, an easy-to-use mobile platform for scheduling doctor appointments, reviewing medical test results, and more. The company has also created a digital solution for hospitals and medical institutions called <a href="https://cosmos.epic.com/about/">Epic Cosmos</a>. It provides a comprehensive toolkit for analyzing patient data and improving business performance. </p> <p dir="ltr">Overall, Epic remains a leading healthcare SaaS company thanks to the varied selection of digital products they offer. Their goal is clearly to anticipate and solve every possible need related to healthcare.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">CareCloud</h3> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://chillicode.dev/uploads/2_c7dcfdd38e.png" alt="2.png"></p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.carecloud.com/">CareCloud</a> is another prominent healthcare SaaS company: they offer digital products primarily designed for medical institutions. Their platform provides every essential feature for managing a healthcare business, which includes billing tools, analytics, and integration with third-party services.</p> <p dir="ltr">The CareCloud platform has a simple and intuitive user interface that helps achieve easy navigation, making the service very accessible. The company has also recently introduced <a href="https://www.carecloud.com/cirrusai/">Cirrus</a>, a new AI assistant designed for smart automation.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">AthenaHealth</h3> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://chillicode.dev/uploads/3_a5b8bb9025.png" alt="3.png"></p> <p dir="ltr">The third company on our list is AthenaHealth — one of the most successful healthcare SaaS providers. Their platform <a href="https://www.athenahealth.com/solutions/athenaone">AthenaOne</a> offers a suite of tools for medical organizations that help them boost their revenue and optimize their business workflows. The service provides numerous analytical instruments and also has a user-friendly app for patients.<br><br>AthenaHealth is mostly focused on helping medical companies become more successful through identifying their strong and weak points. The company values long-standing partnerships with their clients, offering them a dedicated customer support service.</p> <p dir="ltr">Next, we’ll discuss the 5 most relevant SaaS trends in the healthcare industry.</p> <h2 dir="ltr">Top-5 healthcare SaaS trends</h2> <h3 dir="ltr">Artificial intelligence</h3> <p dir="ltr">With the rise of complex machine learning models like ChatGPT, the future of artificial intelligence has never looked brighter. While AI can be applied to almost any professional field, it’s especially useful for the healthcare industry. Features based on artificial intelligence can be used in SaaS products to analyze large amounts of patient data and help medical staff automate routine processes like scheduling and billing. AI can be a very effective tool for healthcare providers, so it’s not surprising that it remains one of the leading healthcare trends going forward.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Telehealth features</h3> <p dir="ltr">Online communication with doctors and therapists has become very popular during the pandemic, and the healthcare industry has fully embraced this trend. While it can never replace in-person medical appointments, telehealth functionality is useful for getting valuable advice from trusted doctors. The quality of such services has increased in recent years, and platforms like <a href="http://www.betterhelp.com/">BetterHelp</a> are even using artificial intelligence algorithms to improve their therapist matching features. Telehealth remains one of the most lucrative niches of the healthcare industry going forwards, so it would be wise to take advantage of this trend.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Integration with wearable devices</h3> <p dir="ltr">Our lives are becoming increasingly more digital, and this has affected the healthcare industry as well. Modern wearable devices such as the Apple Watch provide an additional level of convenience to users. Thanks to their built-in sensors, most wearables today can be used to accurately measure health indicators like blood pressure, heart rate, and skin temperature. This makes wearable devices highly beneficial to healthcare providers. By integrating smart watches with SaaS platforms, medical institutions can gather accurate patient data in real time and increase the quality of their healthcare services. Wearable technology will only get better over time, so it makes sense to take advantage of this trend to create a vertical SaaS product for healthcare.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Cloud computing</h3> <p dir="ltr">Today, the healthcare cloud computing market is larger than ever, and it’s going to grow even more in the future. Most healthcare SaaS providers store everything in the cloud, including electronic health records — this allows them to easily manage patient data and streamline their workflows. Also, cloud computing allows healthcare organizations to create highly scalable SaaS products that can handle even the largest amounts of user traffic. Cloud services allow developers to build fast and responsive websites, and nowadays that’s a must-have for any profitable business. That’s why healthcare SaaS companies will use cloud computing even more frequently in the coming years.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Interactive features</h3> <p dir="ltr">The most forward-thinking healthcare SaaS companies build digital products with highly interactive features. For example, some SaaS healthcare providers allow patients to view their CAT scans in full 3D, making it possible to examine every little detail based on medical test results. This helps improve the user experience and gives patients an accessible way to study their electronic health records from the comfort of their own homes. Features like this will increase the overall value of your SaaS product for clients and greatly boost patient engagement.</p> <h2 dir="ltr">How to create a healthcare SaaS application</h2> <p dir="ltr">When approaching the development of SaaS for healthcare, it’s important to set clear goals and come up with an original vision for your product. If you already have a solid project idea in mind, the whole process will become much smoother and potentially less expensive.<br><br>We at CHILLICODE have a lot of experience in the healthcare industry, so we know what it takes to build a healthcare SaaS solution from scratch. And now we’ll share what we’ve learned with you!<br>We’ve broken the app creation process down into 7 easy-to-follow stages that represent the most important aspects of development. Here are the key steps you need to take in order to launch a profitable healthcare SaaS app:</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Perform market research</h3> <p dir="ltr">When you’re just starting the process of creating SaaS for healthcare, the first crucial step involves preparation. To come up with an idea for a compelling healthcare SaaS product, you’ll need to choose your audience as early as possible. Try to answer the following questions: who will your SaaS platform serve — patients or medical professionals (or both)? What pain points will your product be solving and how exactly will it help your users? What are the main goals of your vertical SaaS platform in relation to your healthcare business? Answering these questions as early as possible will help you lay the groundwork for your project’s success.</p> <figure class="image"><img src="https://chillicode.dev/uploads/4_47dc7adbe1.png" alt="4.png"> <figcaption> <figure class="image"> <figcaption><strong id="docs-internal-guid-1d918470-7fff-3316-f71b-f37426c49d06">SaaS platforms like DrChrono are designed to be used specifically by healthcare providers. By focusing on a specific audience niche, the service has become very popular in the healthcare industry.<br></strong></figcaption> </figure> </figcaption> </figure> <p dir="ltr"><br>When you’ve chosen the right audience for your prospective platform, it’s time to look at your direct and indirect competitors. Analyze the market: search for products that serve similar audiences and try to pinpoint their core strengths and weaknesses. Maybe one of your competitors has implemented some useful features into their platform, but their UI/UX design is cluttered and unintuitive. Or, vice versa: their service looks great and is easy to use, but doesn’t offer their customers any worthwhile functionality. It’s important to look at your competitors as objectively as possible — that way, you’ll be able to learn from their mistakes and use them to improve your own ideas.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Plan out the core features of your SaaS product</h3> <p dir="ltr">When you’ve completed your research, you can begin to plan out the specific features of your future SaaS platform. The data you’ve gathered during market analysis will help you come up with the right functionality for your development project. To do this, first determine the most basic features that are absolutely required for your product to work. After that’s done, move on to the less essential functionality.</p> <p dir="ltr">Let’s say that you want to launch a telehealth platform that matches patients with mental health counselors based on their specific needs and hosts private online sessions. In that case, your service should allow users to make video calls and manually search for therapists. It’d also need to include some kind of an artificial intelligence algorithm for matching clients with the right medical professionals. These three features are the most essential, and without them, this product simply wouldn’t be useful.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Find a competent team of developers</h3> <p dir="ltr">After you’ve planned out the key features of your SaaS product, you’ll need to find a professional development team with experience in the healthcare sector. There are thousands of developers to choose from, so this process can get a bit exhausting. Working with programmers on a freelance basis can also lead to some problems. For example, nothing’s stopping a freelancer to just disappear in the middle of development, leaving your project at the mercy of fate. As a result, not only will you risk missing your project deadline, but spend a lot more money on finding another developer.<br><br>This is why we recommend outsourcing healthcare SaaS application development to a skilled team. At CHILLICODE, we have a lot of experience in the healthcare industry, developing custom web and mobile products of any complexity. We’re accustomed to working with healthcare SaaS companies, providing high-quality development services tailored to their specific needs. Our experts stay up to date with the latest healthcare SaaS trends to create useful and engaging digital products for medical institutions.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Outline the technical requirements of your app</h3> <p dir="ltr">Choosing the right technology for your development project is crucial for ensuring its success. The tech stack will depend on the features included in your healthcare SaaS application. For example, if you’re creating a telehealth app, you should invest in reliable technology for video calls and real-time messaging. On the other hand, if you’re building a healthcare SaaS solution for booking doctor appointments, think about using tools for building responsive user interfaces. This will ensure that your users can easily interact with every feature — efficiently plan their appointments, browse through doctor profiles, and communicate with healthcare organizations.<br><br>In any case, we recommend discussing all the technical requirements for the project with your development team. Take advantage of their programming experience and ask them about the technical intricacies of building a healthcare SaaS solution. Professional developers will know what backend library to use, or which tools to rely on to create a smooth user experience for your platform.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Design the app</h3> <p dir="ltr">If you want to impress clients with your SaaS platform, it will need to have a memorable visual design. When creating user interfaces, we recommend to put ease of use above all else — by doing that, you’ll ensure that your app is as accessible as possible. Easy navigation will help your users quickly find the feature they’re looking for. This can be achieved in several ways. For example, you could use different colors to subtly highlight the most important elements of the interface, simplifying the user experience. By doing that, you’ll be able to increase patient engagement and leave a good impression on your clients.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Write code</h3> <p dir="ltr">Now we’ve come to the most crucial step of any development process: writing code. This process needs to be well-organized and, at the same time, should allow for some flexibility. There are cases when some app features need to be changed halfway into development, so the programmers on your team should be able to adapt to the evolving project requirements. </p> <p dir="ltr">At CHILLICODE, we write code in quick sprints, gradually implementing every new feature, one at a time. This allows us to focus on the most important elements of the project without getting bogged down in the details. We collect feedback from the client after every app iteration and make changes accordingly. Our approach to writing code helps us deliver every project on time, without compromising on the quality of the final product.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Release and support the app</h3> <p dir="ltr">After the active development phase of your new SaaS product is done, it’s time to prepare for release. Make sure to come up with an effective marketing strategy to attract users to your vertical SaaS platform. This can include web advertisements, content marketing, newsletters, and more. The more people hear about your platform prior to release, the more profitable your app will be.</p> <p dir="ltr">The most successful healthcare SaaS companies continue to update and maintain their apps after the initial launch. If you want to consistently attract new clients to your SaaS platform, you’ll need to introduce new useful features to impress them. Every product can be improved — we recommend gathering feedback from your users to determine what new features need to be added to your healthcare service. That way, you’ll be able to plan updates efficiently and keep your product relevant over the years.</p> <h2 dir="ltr">Steps for ensuring HIPAA compliance</h2> <p dir="ltr">Because most healthcare SaaS vendors store private patient data in the cloud, they take care to implement efficient security measures to protect that information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA for short, provides a set of guidelines for protecting the electronic health records of patients.</p> <p dir="ltr">All healthcare providers must follow the HIPAA guidelines to ensure that the patient data stays completely private. Not adhering to these rules can result in serious legal trouble for your healthcare organization. That’s why we have prepared a list of key steps you need to take to ensure HIPAA compliance and protect the electronic medical records of your patients. This topic is fairly extensive and complex, so we’ll be discussing only the 3 most essential steps that are closely related to healthcare software development.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Perform an initial risk assessment</h3> <p dir="ltr">Before actually implementing any security measures, we recommend performing an initial research to analyze potential risks to patient privacy. To do this, you’ll need to pinpoint every source of information that will contain patient data, including emails, cloud databases, and file storage systems. Have the security experts on your team examine every data source for potential vulnerabilities. Based on their findings, you’ll be able to come up with effective safety measures to implement in your healthcare software.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Create regulatory documents according to HIPAA guidelines</h3> <p dir="ltr">After you’ve analyzed potential privacy risks, it’s time to create regulatory documents for your healthcare business, including a privacy policy. These documents should meet every HIPAA requirement and outline all the measures that you’ll use to protect patient data — everything from security audits to file encryption. Make sure to regularly update these documents, as they need to include the most relevant information about the protective measures your healthcare business provides.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Implement reliable security measures and safeguards</h3> <p dir="ltr">This is, perhaps, the most important step towards ensuring HIPAA compliance. After you’ve identified potential risks and prepared regulatory documents, you’ll need to develop efficient security mechanisms for your SaaS healthcare software. This includes setting up two-factor authentication, creating a system for data encryption, and fortifying cloud storage security.</p> <pre class="language-subscription"><code>sub</code></pre> <p dir="ltr">This will require hiring competent healthcare software developers and security professionals who know how to build safe and reliable SaaS products. At CHILLICODE, our team includes knowledgeable backend development experts, so we’ll implement all the safety measures that your healthcare SaaS solution needs.</p> <h2 dir="ltr">In conclusion</h2> <p dir="ltr">It’s hard to overstate the importance of vertical SaaS products for the healthcare industry. They allow healthcare providers to increase patient engagement, simplify medical billing, and boost profits. SaaS healthcare software also improves the lives of patients, giving them easy access to their electronic medical records and allowing them to talk to their trusted doctors 24/7.</p> <p dir="ltr">If you want to create a brand new healthcare SaaS application, discuss your project concept with us at CHILLICODE — we’re always eager to hear your ideas. We’ll help you determine the right budget for your project and develop every feature of your SaaS app from scratch, all under your supervision.</p>
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