How quickly to get the product conducive to results?

It is essential to develop and support digital health tools. They help to improve patient care and the better utilization of health resources.  According to this, the best solution is creating a minimal viable product (MVP), which refers to a gradually building, testing process and regularly receiving stakeholder input to improve the platform’s technical ability and user-friendliness.

Firstly, healthcare requires detailed and qualitative management of a patient’s condition, and it can only be determined through a gradual building process that improves their care and its delivery.

Secondly, the MVP has to use an agile methodology because the team of the developers and clinicians have to be regularly communicating with each other to understand the pain points, incorporate all the clinical data and develop a prototype at every strategic stage.  

So, healthcare technical projects have to have some prototype that’s been tried and tested before the release of an actual and working application that the general public can use.

The difference between an MVP and a fully featured product

MVP gives enough understanding of the product potential at an early stage and at a lower cost compared to a fully-featured product.

The MVP contains the minimum valuable features. However, once the MVP is validated, more features can be added and included in the final version of the app. Usually, these features are prepared in the roadmap. Now let’s delve deeper into the benefits of going into the market with the MVP.

Here are the benefits of a healthcare MVP

Fast to go fast

Time to market is a critical factor in staying ahead of the competition. MVP is the fast solution to go to the market, so you can take it to market much faster than a “finished” product.

Save money

You can save money and create a basic functional one with your innovative features. For startups, these initial savings can be especially helpful.

Testing with real users to reduce the risk

MVP gives the opportunity to test out a new product with real users. It is a great idea to identify what is and isn’t working, give feedback from the users and add only those features your users have expressly requested. In this case, you can see how the market responds to your concept.

Flexibility in the product development process

Flexibility is one of the most important advantages of MVP. It helps to be prepared to adapt to the results according to the users’ comments and make changes accordingly.

Better chance of funding from investors

For getting more funding for full product development, the best solution is to use MVP to show investors that your product has real value to users. Even, you can use only the concept of MVP that presents to investors the potential of the product and get the funding before entry to the market.

Types of Healthcare MVP

The healthcare industry and the digital health ecosystem in the majority consist of healthcare apps. Let’s run through the different kinds of healthcare apps currently in popular demand.

General health and fitness apps

Nowadays, health and fitness apps are extremely popular among users. There are so many options for the apps that it can be like a workout with virtual trainers, health tracker, weight management, etc.

Remote monitoring apps

Remote monitoring apps are helpful for the healthcare industry to track the patient’s health. Especially, it would be convenient for patients that have to monitor their health constantly. So it is easier with these apps.

Clinical reference apps

This type of app provides everything that medical personnel would need to know from reference guides. There is a complete digital solution to make quick diagnoses and enable better patient outcomes.

Productivity apps

Qualified medical personnel can use Productivity apps for messages, phone, and video calls to follow up the patients after they are discharged from the hospital. This way improves worker productivity from not having to take time off and travel to appointments and ensures each patient understands the importance and carries out recovery and treatment plans. Also, it can automate much of the communication process, including sending reminders to the patients.

Chronic care tracking and management apps

For patients with chronic conditions, it is very important to monitor their health. The app helps those who have mobility issues, mental illness, and other conditions that may prevent them from going to in person medical appointments.

Medication reminder apps

Healthcare apps can automate much of the communication process, including sending reminders to the patients to have their medicines and pills.

Healthcare MVP Development Process

Let’s look at the process of developing a healthcare minimum viable product:

Market research

Before you jump head-first into a process of developing a healthcare MVP, you need to be clear on its purpose and audience. According to this, you should think about your business idea in detail. Who are your target audience? Describe your ideal client. Who are your competitors? Is there already a product like yours, and if yes, how are you going to make your product different?

Think why people should use this product

It is essential to determine why people want to use your product. It must solve the problem faced by users. It isn’t a secret that the healthcare industry is such a competitive domain, and your idea and concept must be significant in the MVP roadmap. Every component must complement each other, so the business model, product design, and service offerings must align together.

The features in the application

The next step is to identify the priority features in the MVP. If it is for the patients, it must have features that cater to their healthcare. If it is for the doctors, the features must focus on patient management.

Budgeting

It is possible to develop the product with a minimal budget in order to save money that you can spend after clearly understanding users’ needs.

Resourcing

So where are the resources coming from? Do you have an in-house team or need to outsource? Startups and small businesses may need to outsource or hire professional MVP developers on a contractual basis.

Select a development team and start to Build MVP

Probably, the most convenient way is outsourcing. Also, you can hire professional MVP developers on a contractual basis. So once the team is all assembled, you have decided on the design and features, get ready to build your MVP. The success of any product entirely depends on how good its design is. Focus on the UI/UX design and wireframing and the priority features before releasing the MVP.

Updates that are based on users’ feedback

Once the MVP is released, it is time for getting user feedback and making updates based on their comments and analytical insights.

Main MVP development stages

There are different stages of product development:

Prototype

Every development project begins from prototyping, especially MVP. The prototype is a general picture of a working product that shows MVP’s look and feel. It helps to test the new product because of the overall UX design. In this stage, you have time and opportunities to make the changes to critical design issues before the stage of development.

MVP

Approximately, MVP can be developed within 3-4 months, but it depends on your business idea. With skilled developers, you take product to life, so some amount of time and resources are required.

Commercial Product

Based on the feedback, you will know which features have been well-received and which you need to remove or update. So you are approaching to release a successful product.

MVP Development Team

The MVP development team consists of:

• Project Manager –  The manager’s responsibilities include coaching and motivating the team, removing impediments during the development, and ensuring that the team has the best possible conditions to meet its goals and produce deliverable products. The project manager can also suggest the features that can be afforded in the MVP and what the product version must contain in the future.

• Business Analyst – BA will watch the user interaction and improve the current process and make profitable decisions through insights and data analysis. Based on this information, Business Analyst suggests the features that must be added upon or improved in the product.

• UI/UX Designers – They are responsible for designing the product. The design is such an important thing that gives users their first impression of your business.

• App Developers – Skilled developers that know how to implement the features as innovative and attractive as possible.

• QA Engineers – Quality assurance engineers test your product and bug fixes. They assess the product and remove the kinks to ensure the functionality of the product, and quality is maintained.

Conclusion

From our experience, we recommend turning digital and physical artifacts into minimum viable products MVP.  MVP is essential to the healthcare industry. Once the MVP is out, you can analyze the results to choose a more effective approach to product development.

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