A strong and competent healthcare industry is a must-have in every community. Access to quality healthcare is a basic necessity to life. Without it, lots of people will lose their lives. That is why lots of effort is made to improve the healthcare industry. In this age of technological advancement and digital transformation, we can still see areas of healthcare lagging behind. Healthcare apps are addressing many of the needs but there are still challenges. Not for lack of effort, but because of factors like confidentiality. The need to keep patients’ records and data secret is a major reason why healthcare lags behind.

Rapid Application Development in Healthcare

Even with this in mind, the healthcare system still has to implement new technology to fix some major issues in its domain, and also to keep up with the rapidly changing world. The healthcare information system is one of the major issues that need the help of IT. All the people present in this system need to cooperate to achieve a common goal which is provided quality healthcare.

If the medical field is facing such challenges now, it means that the traditional method of programming has failed. We can see a clear example with the Affordable Care Act and healthcare.gov projects introduced by former President Barack Obama in the US. The main goal of the project was to provide quality health insurance to all citizens. This project ended up failing miserably because of the shortcomings of the traditional method of programming, the performance of the website was very poor and tests were not performed, the site did not meet up with expectations, the developers were not willing to work together, and changes could not be made fast enough to fix the problems.

The RAD model is ideal to use when building an app that requires lots of iteration and testing. A discussion is held where every person involved in the development of the app is enlightened on the problem(s) that it will be solving. When that is done, working prototypes of the app are created and made available for end-users to use and provide feedback. This feedback is used to modify the app until the best version is created which is then presented to the customers. Fast changes and updates can easily be made to the app when needed.

How RAD can be implemented in healthcare

The flow of information is important for the smooth functioning of large hospitals. All medical personnel together with the patients have to work together for the common goal. The patient’s medical record has to be kept in the system that is accessible to all medical personnel involved in his/her treatment. This is to ensure that the patient receives the appropriate medications and procedures.

Also, a family doctor working on his/her own needs an application or database where information about all the patients is managed. This is very vital because data on the patients are required to provide quality treatment.

Rapid application development for healthcare best practices

High priority should be given to the patient

The patient is the main focus of the healthcare system. Therefore, platforms like Electronic Health Records (EHR) and patient portals are put in place to prioritize the needs of the patient. With this, patients’ data is accessible for all authorized personnel involved in their treatment. Also, patient data is very confidential and should be kept in mind when creating healthcare apps.

Consistency is vital

Interruptions in healthcare services are forbidden. Hospitals or other healthcare bodies cannot have apps that are buggy or error-prone. Many people may lose their lives due to small mistakes. That is why healthcare apps need to be rigorously tested before putting to use. And changes or updates should be able to be quickly implemented.

Continuously validate your development

All the members in the medical system- physicians, administrators, nurses, patients, other medical personnel have unique needs and different computing environments. when the app is built, you need to make adjustments that cover the needs of all the parties involved.

Building your healthcare apps with RAD

Business users and citizen developers can build health apps for hospitals or individual use with RAD platforms. They are able to implement features that will take care of their needs. The Codejig App Builder is one of the best rapid application development platforms where you can build a simple or complex app without much programming knowledge.