Understanding the Key Differences Between Chatbots and Conversational AI

Telehealth, simply put, is some type of delivery. It helps to provide health care services when patients and health professionals are separated by distance via remote technologies. Telehealth uses technologies for the exchange of information for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries for the patients. Live video conferencing, mobile health apps and remote patient monitoring (RPM) are examples of technologies used in telehealth.

It’s Healthtech time

Telehealth is improving the healthcare industry in many ways, the first of which is increasing its accessibility. Telehealth allows specialists to visit patients virtually from any place in the world by improving access as well as making a wider range of healthcare services available via telemedicine.

Today’s Telehealth environment consists of a global ecosystem of myriad digital solutions.  There are two alarming end-users trends that you should pay attention to when considering Telehealth design and solutions.

1. What doctors struggle the most with
2. What people looking for when they choose the healthcare providers

Providing virtualized healthcare to any place in the world is one of the best-known applications of telehealth. But the medical industry is using it in several other ways, including:

• Urgent help in distance. It can be a headache or sore throat. There are many medical complaints that aren’t life-threatening, but they need some professional attention. Virtual care services allow skilled health personnel to treat minor complaints, including providing appropriate prescriptions.
• Stay in contact. Qualified medical personnel can use 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, telehealth platforms can automate much of the communication process, including sending reminders to the patients.
• Updating online prescription. Telehealth provides the possibility to update online prescriptions even If you’ve been unable to get to your own doctor to refill a current prescription.
• Monitoring of patients with chronic conditions. For these patients, it is one of the best benefits of telehealth. Virtual care helps those who have mobility issues, mental illness, and other conditions that may prevent them from going to in person medical appointments.
• Facilitating care to rural areas. Telehealth is a great way to provide patients in places that are outside the current health delivery system with access to quality care. In the event of a medical emergency, telemedicine makes it possible to coordinate with specialists in other regions without wasting time to provide patients with effective treatment.
• Increased patient satisfaction. In addition to referrals, many patients assess and choose healthcare providers through online reviews. As such, you must have positive reviews that will attract new patients. Telemedicine helps improve patient satisfaction scores by providing convenience of care and reducing wait time. The providers have the opportunity to offer remote services to the patients and make it convenient for them to receive medical attention. Also, this process reduces in-hospital visits.
  

All right, let’s move on to the design

Telehealth platforms require a unique approach to service design. As you can imagine, it isn’t the same way, say, for a food delivery service.

Telehealth is not about technology, it’s about people

That’s a good reminder that you need to create space for telehealth that provides human connections and assistance. The healthcare industry is unique and complex, and it can be challenging to set up. Establishing fundamental principles to guide telehealth design will help us keep sight of the user experience and user journey throughout different healthcare systems.

In this article, we’ll highlight the important and unique challenges in the design faced by digital health companies and startups.

1. Research. To begin, you need a shared understanding of how you usually provide face to face care. You will need a solid understanding of the patient’s journey through your service.
2. Construction. Based on our research findings, you need to discuss them with your client. There is the moment when you draft innovative solutions and delve into user journeys. We identify the most promising ideas based on jointly developed options. Service design can be quite abstract. The main idea is to find key service touchpoints.
3. Strategize and develop Next, it is necessary to work with your clients to co-create a product roadmap and business strategy. Together with medical professionals, you develop an extensive plan of the envisioned telehealth design, listing interactions between users, new processes, and workflows. Also, don’t forget to define the physical and digital things that will be used. By the end of this step, you’ve created visual content and material to start the development process.
4. Taking it live. From our experience, we recommend turning digital and physical artifacts into minimum viable products (MVP).  MVP is essential to clinical trials. There is a product that has basic features and can be used to get feedback from the users.

After the main last modifications, it’s time for launch! At this stage, it’s important to provide testing to ensure that the envisioned workflow and interactions are happening as intended.

That’s it

To sum up, telemedicine is full of benefits for patients and healthcare providers. When people have had a taste of telehealth, they’re willing to continue using this convenient care option.

Telehealth’s future looks very bright, doesn’t it?

Also, it’s obvious to see continued strong growth and upgrade around devices, communication channels, telemedicine services, and telehealth platforms. Look for them to become increasingly user-friendly and convenient. As this happens, we can expect to see a resulting increase in users. After all, good design is the right way to improve engagement.

Designers will need to imagine themselves in both the patients’ and providers’ roles during the preparation for the start to create the design for telehealth. Every detail of a visit, from the method of scheduling appointments to the distribution of follow-up procedures, should be carefully planned to ensure the best outcomes and clear understanding.

We can expect to see digital pharmacies, virtual appointments, online triage tools, and remote monitoring gain in popularity. It may well become the new normal in healthcare.

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The medical field has been developing for ages, but over the past twenty years, we’ve seen the flourishing of healthtech. And it’s not surprising: this technology is a game-changer for patient care, workflow, and life-saving. 

The healthcare industry includes producing portable devices to monitor vital signs and online medical consultations provided by modern digital health solutions. And, similarly, every private clinic should have a top-notch website where patients can book an appointment with a doctor. 

What are the roles of a medical site?

1. A communication tool with patients. A site can be easily googled. Also, it contains information about available services and specialists. Thus, it makes it much easier for clients to reach out to you.
2. A communicational channel. Internet marketing is one of the most effective tools for attracting customers, but you need a web resource to use it. Thanks to a site, you will be able to find customers among users of search engines and social networks.
3. An image-maker of your organization. You need to give a good impression to make others want to collaborate. 
4. A source of getting feedback and statistical data. Thanks to analytics systems, you can track changes in behavioral factors, perform A/B tests, and monitor the effectiveness of various traffic channels.

So, a medical website must be very comprehensive, secure, and accessible at all hours. To achieve this, it’s important to involve specialists responsible for different aspects of the work at each stage of the healthcare website development. 

Key Considerations When Hiring

Before you hire a health tech development company, it’s essential to ensure their team has the necessary hard and soft skills. The task of the dev team will be to make the site appealing to users and customize traffic channels. In turn, the site owner should provide the essential information and approve tasks in time to avoid excess of the final healthcare website development cost and pauses in the work process.

What should you bear in mind while searching web development companies for healthcare?

• Relevant experience. The more projects related to medicine they have, the better. 
• Technical knowledge. Find out if the developers know the required programming languages. 
• Communication skills. Website development is a team effort not just for the performers but also for the customers, so soft skills are vital here.
• Ability to comply with regulatory requirements. The company must know about HIPAA compliance and other legal provisions. 

Experience in HeathTech

The company you want to hire must understand your business. That’s why your healthtech development company must be experienced with medical data and technology. Look for the company that has previously worked on similar projects. They could have a background in developing electronic health record systems, medical visualization software, remote care platforms, or other products related to healthtech website development. Companies with extensive experience in this field are well prepared to meet the specific demands of healthcare software development.

Technical Expertise 

The company’s tech team should have certain skills required for medical website development. First of all, they need to ensure the security of the medical website. Secondly, it must be able to scale. This will allow you to upgrade a site following current changes like adding new services, functions, categories, or sections. It will also increase functionality and optimize it based on customer requests and company interests.

Another important aspect is defining the right tech stack. The developers must be able to choose a health tech website development programming language that meets business needs. The most popular ones are HTML/CSS, PHP, Python, JavaScript, Java, Ruby, and Swift. The final choice of one or another development tool must be made according to the goal of creating responsive web design and providing a brilliant user experience. The company should also have a skilled designer who can transfer your brand identity into the website’s UX/UI design. 

Regulatory Compliance 

A team working on a health tech site must guarantee its security as patients leave their personal data there – this can be ensured by its knowledge of how to create a secure website for healthcare providers. Specifically, such websites must meet HIPAA regulations and other confidentiality rules in health care, such as GDPR and PCI-DSS. Make sure the company is aware of these norms and can perform HIPAA-compliant website development. 

Communication and Collaboration

Healthcare website development requires ongoing communication between the client and the contractor. For example, in the beginning, you and the tech team will negotiate on choosing the right CMS for the website. Consider hiring only those who are accessible, transparent, and timely. If there are no meetings or any other forms of communication, move on to the next candidates.

Partner’s Reliability

Make sure the chosen company is trustworthy. It must be present on social media and have its website with a portfolio. Seek for clients' feedback on special resources, forums, and social networks. This way, you’ll quickly see what prior customers have said about a company's service delivery. And, if some field-specific media have published case studies about the company’s work, it’s a very good sign. 

Compliance with Your Request for Proposal 

Once you decide on a candidate, it’s time to write a project proposal. Health tech website development proposals include stating the project’s objective, target audience, budget, and other features specific to your project. This way, the potential company will understand your business needs better and be able to provide an individual proposal. 

Impression After Personal Interviewing

A key to successful collaboration lies in communication. Interviewing health tech web developers will allow you to test their understanding of your specific demands and the concept of the website. 

Crucial moments to clarify during interviews: 

1. Ask for details about their experience. Get candidates to talk about a project related to health tech they have participated in. Go into detail to assess their role and expertise.
2. Ask about the development process. Give them thorough questions to test their technical knowledge and figure out the workflow. You can also provide them with a test task to evaluate their skills firsthand.  
3. Uncover their management style. Ask if the team has worked on any cross-functional projects. Look for leadership qualities like guiding, empowering others to succeed, and handling conflicts constructively.
4. Find out the team membership. Alongside those who are usually present in the technical team, such as engineers, QA testers, and tech leads, there should also be a UX designer. 
5. Ask who will own the code. It’s much better for you if the web development companies for healthcare offer a total handover. Yet, the agreement may include a clause that allows the contractor to keep the code. The worst thing that can happen might be that the company charges you more money because of the constant glitches they fix. 
6. Question what happens if the team fails to meet the deadline. Find out how the company can repay for the lost time.

Portfolio 

Ask companies included in a shortlist to demonstrate their previous projects. A voluminous portfolio is usually a sign of a company that has extensive experience. This way, you’ll wind out what they’re capable of. The portfolio will show you if the team can manage challenging projects and meet high regulatory standards. Also, it will show how good and user-friendly their software is. And, naturally, pay strong attention to websites related to the medical field.

Conclusion

Ideally, a website solves several problems of a healthcare business at once. First, it is one of the most effective tools for attracting new clients. It also acts as a channel of communication with existing patients, forms the image of your organization, and allows you to get feedback and collect your customers’ data. All this is possible if the site is developed by the pros. That’s why you should be very picky when you want to hire a health tech development company. Follow the recommendations listed above to find the perfect fit. 

Interesting fact: there are approximately 8,462 project management methodologies to choose from. Every project manager understands that selecting the right methodology is crucial to getting the job right.

So, how to understand which one is right for your project?

There are many various ways to deliver projects. Generally speaking, these ways are our project management models – applying different principles, themes, frameworks, processes and standards to help provide structure to the way we deliver projects.

Agile is one of the more recognizable project management methodologies. This methodology is best suited for projects that are iterative and incremental. It’s a type of process where demands and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customers.

Agile is a methodology that has methodologies within itself, such as Scrum and Kanban. Scrum methodology is one of the most popular and simple frameworks to put the principles of Agile into practice.

Let’s talk about the Scrum and how it works

Scrum is a subset of Agile. It is a framework for agile development that helps teams work together with the customers. Much like a sports team training for the big game, Scrum encourages teams to learn through experiences, self-organize while working on a problem, and reflect on their wins and losses to continuously improve. Its goal is to develop, deliver, and sustain complex products through collaboration, accountability, and iterative progress. According to this, it is not surprising that Scrum is the most widely-used one among the teams.

Scrum team roles

• Product owner: The product owner represents stakeholders, which are typically customers.
• Development team: Group of professionals that consists of three to nine individuals who have the business, design, analytical and development skills to carry out the actual work, solve problems and produce deliverable products.
• Project manager: Manager who ensures the understanding and execution of Scrum is followed. 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.

Phases of Scrum Model

Now, let’s take a look at the main steps of the development process that Scrum consists of.

Step 1. Product Backlog Creation

A product backlog is a list that contains features to be implemented during the development process. It’s ordered by priority and every item is called a User story. A user story is an informal, general explanation of a software feature written from the perspective of the end user or customer. It helps development teams capture simplified, high-level descriptions of a user’s requirements written from that end user’s perspective. The examples below show how these stories can look like:

• As an internet banking customer, I want to see a rolling balance for my everyday accounts, so that I can keep track of my spending after each transaction is applied

• As a manager, I want to be able to understand my colleagues’ progress, so I can better report our success and failures.
• As a customer, I want to receive an SMS when the item arrives, so that I can go pick it up right away.
• As Max, I want to organize my work, so I can feel more in control.

This structure is not required, but it is helpful for defining done.“Why can’t we just write features or tasks instead?”

Step 2. Sprint Planning and Sprint Backlog Creation

The sprint duration is very important so that the user stories are as small as possible. The typical average sprint duration lasts about 2 weeks. If the sprint duration is small, then the advantage is that more customer feedback can be received and most of the errors and bugs can be addressed earlier. If the sprint duration is long, then it allows the developer to work thoroughly.

The next stage is to do the sprint backlog creation. It consists of user stories that will be completed during the current sprint. The scrum team must select the important user stories and make them into smaller tasks. They need to plan on how to get the task completed. The Scrum team should be capable of finishing all these stories on time. Also, one important thing is to prioritize the necessary tasks.

For example, the goal for Sprint: “A website visitor can order a product”. We discuss with the team and product owner how to implement this. Roughly, customers have to go through three steps to order something: 1) select a product, 2) enter address and billing information, 3) perform the payment. We discover several exception paths. After the discussion about what technology we will use for this goal and how the team will implement this functionality, we start creating the Sprint Backlog.

Below are some of the items that can end up on the Sprint Backlog:

• When an order is placed, send an email to the sales department;
• Allow customers to pay for their order by credit card;
• Encrypt user information in order (e.g. email, address);

Step 3: Working On Sprint and Scrum Meetings

The actual user stories are moved as small tasks in the sprint backlog, where the actual work starts. This is where the implementation of a software application, such as website development, begins.

To begin with, a task board is made with a lot of cards is used. The cards specify the details about the tasks such as assignee, work details, due date or the time duration, etc. The cards can be arranged according to their importance. When work on a task has been started, the corresponding sticker is moved from the “To do” field to the “In progress” one. When work is completed, the sticker can be moved to the “Testing” field, and after the task is successfully tested, the sticker goes to the “Done” field.

For this activity, we use specialized software JIRA and Trello for this task.

In this step the scrum meetings are important as it is done to track the progress status and who is doing what status. The burndown chart is the output of this meeting, as it provides the details about how many tasks are completed and if there are any issues or problems in completing the tasks in the “Work In Progress” columns.

It is also important to notice one more Scrum feature is Daily Scrum meetings. These meetings’ main purpose is to get full information about the current project status and make sure that all team members are on the same stage. During Scrum meetings, every single team member should tell what he has done for the day, which tasks will be the next, and what problems team members faced during the work.

Day by day Scrum meetings help increase the flexibility of the development process. They also allow understanding of what changes should be made.

Step 4. Testing, Product Increment and Sprint Review

The result of every sprint in Scrum is a potentially shippable product increment that can be presented to the customer. After each iteration, the development team creates a new version of a software product and adds new features with increased value. In the end part of every sprint, there is Sprint Review where the overall results can be demonstrated and analyzed. According to this info, the stakeholders can make a decision about further project changes and plan the next sprint.

Step 5. Retrospective and Next Sprint Planning

Retrospective’s main goal is to consider the results and the ways how to improve the development process on the next step. The team should talk about the lessons learned and the pitfalls that were during the development part. An important feature is to improve the work of the Scrum team as a whole. The team should conclude what went well during the working process and what can be done better during future iteration. When the ways of improvement are defined, the team can start and concentrate on the next sprint planning.

Project Closure

The project closure phase represents the final phase of the project management. Around this time, the final product is ready for delivery. Here, the main focus of the project manager and the team should be on product release and product delivery. In this stage, all the activities related to the project are wrapped up.

Once the product is handed to the customers, the documentation is finalized and the project is closed.

Conclusion

The main differential features of Scrum are flexibility and constant progress. It’s provided mostly by regular communication and close cooperation between the stakeholders at each step.

When the sprint is done, the customer can assess the working product functionality at the current iteration and make decisions about how the project should evolve during the next sprints.

Use Case: Web Development

Problem Statement: Important changes need to be implemented on an existing company website.

Scrum team roles:

1. Product Owner: Team Lead
2. Development Team: Developers
3. Scrum Master: Project Manager

Basic Flow of Events:

1. The website needs to be updated.

Using Scrum:

1. Product Owner creates a backlog, i.e. the prioritized changes to make.
2. The development team and the QA team is created.
3. Sprint of 7 days is decided.
4. Project manager is assigned to set up the meetings and help with issues.
5. Tasks are assigned to the team
6. A daily 15-minute Scrum is set up for holding team meetings
7. The website is updated each day with the work done
8. QA notifies issues on the same day
9. Each week, the Sprint Review meeting is held with the CEO for an update on progress

Scrum is best suited for projects that consist of teams of less than seven people who need a flexible approach to deliver a product or service.