HealthCare Domain Testing | What, Importance & How to do?

Testing is the most crucial part of software development and delivery. If software deals with human life, we should be very careful while testing, and all possible scenarios need to be tested. 

Healthcare application is known as a life-critical system. A life-critical system is a system whose malfunction or failure can result in death or serious injury to people. This is why the Healthcare domain testing is considered critical. The Healthcare domain application ranges from patient registration, electronic health records, admission, bed allocation, discharge, billing, etc. Most of the time, the healthcare applications are shipped as a suite of applications.

What is HealthCare Domain Testing?

Healthcare domain testing is a process of testing healthcare applications such as regulatory compliance, functionality, and other standards as per the local laws. The application may be related to hospital, monitoring, pharmacy, insurance, or simply billing.

What is the Importance of Healthcare Testing?

Unlike other software, the healthcare domain software is considered a life-critical system. The tester is directly or indirectly dealing with many aspects of patient safety. Healthcare domain testing requires strong domain knowledge and workflow understanding. Such a software is used by healthcare professionals, and mostly they are nontechnical users. So you need to keep them in mind while testing these applications. Let us understand the importance of healthcare domain testing.

Safety

As mentioned earlier, when it comes to healthcare, safety comes first as the malfunction can cause severe impact on humans. The healthcare system often causes a chain effect, in turn, it can harm many individuals. For example, If the monitoring system shows incorrect data for heartbeat, doctors think there is a problem with the patient, and they prescribe the medicine for that; the medicine is given to the patient, though there were no health issues, this can create an adverse effect on him/her. This way, the healthcare application can have an impact on clinical decisions, dosage, drug formation, or providing any aid to patients.

Compliance

The healthcare system stores sensitive data, the data might be personal. So many ruling bodies have put in regulatory compliance and laws. In the absence of these laws, there are high chances of misusing this data, in turn, the patient may suffer mentally or physically. Healthcare testing involves testing the compliance and other standards that are met.

System Integration and Interoperability

The healthcare system can contain many applications, such as EHR, Billing, Bed allocation, admission, etc. The system needs to interact with many interconnected applications to provide a digital experience to the patient. For example, the admission system needs to communicate with the bed allocation system prior to confirming the admission, so integration testing is important in the healthcare domain.

User experience

As mentioned earlier, the healthcare domain users are mostly nontechnical users, they will have very little or no background in computers. It is important to verify the user experience for the healthcare system. The poor user experience may cause a delay in treatment, and in turn, it can impact the patient. 

Performance

The healthcare application should be up and running under any circumstances, as, otherwise, it can cause a hazardous impact. Performance testing under different conditions is important. Generally, performance testing is carried out at the normal and peak loads but the healthcare system requires a deep level of performance testing such as power failure, low network bandwidth, offline, peak load, unexpected load, and many abnormal conditions that need to be considered.

Testing Types for Healthcare Application

There are different types of testing that need to be carried out for the healthcare application. Unlike other applications, we cannot sign off the testing just by testing the functionality. Some of the important testing types are listed below:

Functionality Testing

Functionality Testing is one of the major areas for any type of software application. In this, the functionality of the software will be verified against the expected output. The functional testing mostly covers the end-to-end flows considering the end user. The healthcare system users are healthcare professionals, pharmacists, or patients.

Data and accuracy

The accuracy matters most in software testing, though functionality testing covers major aspects of the application – data accuracy matters most. The healthcare system needs to be validated against the data and its accuracy. Even a fraction matters here.

Security Testing

The healthcare system contains highly sensitive data, which should be encrypted and stored. Under any circumstances, data leakage may cause huge loss to the hospital, application providers, sometimes even the patient. So security testing is considered as most critical.

Compliance Testing

Every local body has its own standards, rules, and compliance. The tester must understand the local laws and compliance. The healthcare system needs to be tested against the compliance requirements. If the organization fails to adhere to the compliance it may need to face a lawsuit. In turn, it can cause huge reputational loss.

Device Integration Testing

Often healthcare systems are integrated with specific devices to measure the patient’s conditions. Unlike other industries, you cannot test using simulators and emulators. The Device integration testing requires the laboratory set up and needs to be tested in the actual devices. 

Healthcare Domain Test Case Examples

• The healthcare system should be able to store and retrieve the data as and when required. 
• It should adhere to the local policy of the local governing body, all regulatory compliance should met
• It should provide admission capability only when at least one bed is available
• The doctor’s appointment should be based on the doctor’s availability and patient limits
• The data must be accessible only to authorized users
• The billing system should process the bills according to insurance and non-insurance members
• If any part of the data is fetched from external service providers, it should be quick and should be properly authenticated.

Health Care Application Testing Workflow

Most of the hospitals have adopted digital systems for their business process needs. This helps to smooth out the operation and lowers the cost. The workflow in the healthcare domain is complicated as it includes many integrations with the third-party system. When it comes to billing applications it has various modules to ensure the user experience is smooth. Let’s understand how to test them.

Generally, the healthcare application will have the following modules.

• Member system: Keeps track of the policyholder information, benefits, and plans.
• Provider system: Keeps track of the information related to the provider
• Broker system: The broker information is stored here. It helps to calculate the commission based on the type.
• Claims system: Claim submission, validation, and approval will be done here.
• Finance system: The payment system keeps a record of payments and provides different payment methods for all users, such as patients, brokers, and hospitals. 

Testing of Member System

Basic functionality	Enroll and terminate the membersAdd or remove dependentsView member details correct and validate member details
Other functional flows	Generate the premium receiptView past paymentsForward premium paymentsRe-enroll the members
Integration Testing	Provide the service integration to downstream systems such as claims, finance, and broken systems.Any member record changes should reflect all the respective systems

Testing of Provider System

Basic functionality	Add, Edit, and delete the provider’s dataManage the provider’s types, add them, and delete them as and when required
Other functional flows	Authentication for providers to view the provider detailsShow the members attached to the providersShow the information about the brokers and commission payment
Integration Testing	Integration to the claim system, finance system, and broker system should work as expectedAny modification should reflect all the other dependent systems

Testing of Broker System

Basic functionality	Add, edit, and delete the broker informationCalculate the broker commission based on the premium payment
Other functional flows	Allow brokers to Save and retrieve their recordsView the associated member to specific brokers
Integration Testing	The broker system record should be updated to all inter-dependent systems such as the financial system, provider portal, and member system

Testing of Claims System

Basic functionality	View the claim statusAdd and edit claims for members and dependantsProcess the claimsValidate that the entered data is correct
Other functional flows	It should provide the option to upload the documents in different formats.Send the communication/notification to the membersUpdate the claim status based on the finance broker system inputShould not accept the claims, if a member exceeded the limit, invalid member, etc.
Integration Testing	Validate the feed to downstream systems such as the provider and finance portal

Testing of Finance System

Basic functionality	Process the payment initiated by the other systems.Fetch the status of paymentsValidate the account number, and payment details for members, brokers, and providers.
Other functional flows	Should provide the option to re-initiate the payment in case payment failedSend the notification in case of payment failure
Integration Testing	Provide the two-way integration to the downstream system, claim system, provider system, and broker system

Testing for regulatory compliance

Security	The authentication should be implemented as per standards.Only authorized users should be able to view respective detailsData should be stored in an encrypted formatData should be stored as per local laws
Information availability	The least privilege principles should be implemented to access the information
Data movement	The data transfer should be encrypted
Audit Trail	All records and transactions should be maintained for audit logs

Benefits of healthcare domain testing

Healthcare domain testing is a must, and it has a lot of benefits. Below are some of the benefits of healthcare domain testing:

• The healthcare domain testing ensures the safety of patients
• It ensures the quality of the software
• It helps to enhance the user experience
• It ensures the software is aligned with regulatory compliance
• This helps in auditing and meeting the financial requirements
• It helps to reduce the hazardous impact on patients

Challenges of healthcare domain testing

There are many challenges involved in healthcare domain testing as it is a life-critical system. Some of the common challenges are listed below.

• The complexity of the healthcare application
• Interdependent systems
• Management of highly sensitive data
• Need of compliance with various regulations and local laws
• diversity of stakeholders

Best practices for healthcare domain testing

Healthcare domain testing is complicated and requires a lot of effort. Following the best practices helps to make it simpler and more accurate

• Understand the functionality of the system before writing the test cases
• Understand the interdependent services and their architecture
• Never go with an assumption
• Always make the test delivery plan well ahead of release
• Have a thorough test strategy, and test plans to meet all the testing requirements
• Non-functional requirements (NFR) testing should not be an afterthought
• Give importance to accuracy
• Each tester should get a realistic end date for testing
• Have adequate evidence after the completion of every testing activity
• Wherever possible integrate the automation tools to make the process faster

Automate your tests for healthcare domain apps made for web, mobile and desktop, easily, with Testsigma

Useful Tips for Healthcare Testing

• Data accuracy should be tested
• Interdependent systems should be thoroughly tested
• Provided information on the system should always be up to date
• Date and time stamps are crucial
• The device integration should be tested in the lab
• If there are any issues, whether it is highly critical or less critical, raise your voice

Healthcare Domain Testing with Testsigma

Testsigma is SaaS SaaS-based AI application. It helps to automate the testing flows. Testsigma is no code testing tool, which means that without writing a single line of code you should be able to automate the manual test cases.

The Healthcare application involves complex workflows hence manual testing is time-consuming. At times setting up data itself may take a few days. To reduce the complexity and improve the delivery speed it is important to adopt test automation. Tools like Testsigma provide support for different types of testing. 

Functionality Testing

Using Testsigma anyone can write the automation script as it is a no-code automation tool. Functionality testing is one of the major areas where Testsigma fits rightly into the healthcare domain testing. 

Cross Browser Testing

The modern Healthcare applications are web-based and work on browsers. Your application may support multiple browsers. Setting up the browser and testing locally may not always be feasible. Testsigma supports browser compatibility testing as it can readily integrate with most of the cloud device labs; with this, you can validate the browser compatibility.

Responsiveness Testing

The modern user interface should adapt to the screen size automatically. Whether it is mobile, tablet, or laptop, users should be able to perform the actions smoothly. Testsigma supports Responsive testing with various native devices.

API Testing

The Healthcare system depends on a lot of internal services, these services need to be tested for accuracy and data. With Testsigma you can perform API Testing just with a few clicks. This also helps in integration testing.

Conclusion

Healthcare domain testing is critical, it must ensure quality and safety. Unlike other domains, the healthcare domain testing requires a lot of effort, and it is more complicated. Considering the complexity and criticality, you need to have the right testing strategy for healthcare applications. Automation helps to reduce the complexity and speed of delivery. Tools like Testsigma provide the advantage of automating complex scenarios without writing the code. Along with functional testing, it is also important to test the interdependent APIs and modules.

Automate your tests for healthcare domain apps made for web, mobile and desktop, easily, with Testsigma

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the Top QA companies in the Healthcare Domain?

There are many QA outsourcing companies. Some of the top companies are Infosys, Accenture, HCL, Abstracta, Cigniti, etc.

What are some Top healthcare companies providing healthcare applications?

Some of the top healthcare application provider organizations are GE Healthcare, Philips, Oracle Cerner, Epic, Siemens, United Health, and AthenaHealth.