Systems | Development | Analytics | API | Testing

Gaps in patient healthcare, ranging from access and affordability, to those specific to race, gender, age and beyond, are widening across the US and leading to a variety of detrimental results for people, the healthcare system, and the economy itself. Such ongoing disparities are slowing the country’s ability to achieve population health and accounting for billions of dollars in unnecessary health care spending annually.

The healthcare industry is beginning to digitally transform with its adoption of continuously advancing technologies. Healthcare organizations are moving toward a more connected and collaborative healthcare ecosystem for improving the way they provide care. Any data-driven organization knows the importance of high-quality data pipelines in data science. The large amounts of heterogeneous healthcare data, call for healthcare organizations to adopt data-driven approaches to automate medical workflows.

Growing concerns surrounding medical device security are increasing across the globe. In the U.S., new legislation is being introduced due to the increasing number of connected devices and a cyberattack’s ability to disrupt patient care. On June 8, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed bill, H.R. 7667, which in addition to several other items, is meant to address the cybersecurity of medical devices.

Digital therapeutics (DTx) companies provide software-backed therapeutic interventions to help prevent, manage, or treat a medical disorder or disease. For example, health tech unicorn Hinge Health partners advanced wearable sensors, mobile applications, and a clinical care team to enable digital physical therapy for elective musculoskeletal (MSK) surgeries, driving lower costs and a reduction in medical claims.

As the rapid digitization of healthcare grows, telehealth apps face a unique challenge in delivering continuous care on familiar devices. The demand for telehealth apps only compounds the need for healthcare software testing to ensure a great user experience while scaling quickly and efficiently. Partnering with a crowdsourced testing vendor opens up immediate access to coverage for devices and locations, accelerated testing velocity, zero operational overhead, and increased ROI.

New breakthroughs in drug development are leading to groundbreaking results that could change lives in 2022 and beyond. However, at the dawn of a new decade, there are major challenges facing the industry that could prevent this innovation revolution. With the rising costs and increasing complexities involved in bringing products to market, life sciences organizations are re-examining their business operations and technology adoption.

Inspired by an article from Jim Dempsey, lecturer at the UC Berkeley Law School and a senior policy advisor at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, I decided to write about the recent legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives to address cybersecurity for medical devices and how it relates to open source software security, secure code standards, and static analysis.

July 20, 2022 — Testlio, the originator of networked testing, has released a comprehensive report that identifies trends and benchmarks in medical and health app software testing. The report examines the release frequency, app store ratings, and testing device coverage practices of health, fitness, and medical apps.

Across nearly every industry, the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a period of immediate digital disruption. With lives at risk, the healthcare industry quickly innovated to provide fitness, wellness, and medical care on familiar devices. Now, two years after the pandemic’s start, medical apps face compounding pressures to match the speed and quality of consumer demands.