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Starting SaaS Business in Healthcare
Key Aspects
Since 2005, ScienceSoft has been a reliable healthcare software consulting and development partner for startups and established software development companies.
Healthcare SaaS Market Overview
The healthcare cloud computing market was valued at $39.4 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $89.4 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 17.8%. The main growth driver for the healthcare Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions market is the ambition of organizations to increase care quality via adopting advanced technology fast without major investments.
How to Start a Healthcare SaaS Business: Action Points
- Analyze the market, competitors, and potential software users.
- Detail software requirements and roadmap the features.
- Design SaaS architecture.
- Plan investments and payback.
- Define a cloud platform, customization, and integration SaaS capabilities.
- Create a PoC.
- Plan the development and testing process.
- Plan customer acquisition, product promotion.
- Launch MVP and improve the app based on customers’ feedback.
Healthcare SaaS Business Models
Development and promotion of a Software-as-a-Service solution for the industry depend on your business type and the target audience for your product.
SaaS in Healthcare Software Specifics for Different Company Types
A pure SaaS solution provider
Purpose: to launch a brand-new healthcare software product.
Focus on:
- Architecture supporting the use of advanced technologies relevant to healthcare (e.g., IoT, AR, VR).
- Creating competitive subscription plans that will help gain new users fast (e.g., free trial, discounts based on the number of users per healthcare organization).
A provider of an on-premises healthcare software product/products partially moving to the SaaS model
Purpose: to test the demand for healthcare SaaS applications.
Focus on:
- Splitting functionality and designing subscription plans that help gain new users.
- Migrating the key functionality of on-premises software products to the cloud, leaving advanced features for on-premises software only.
A provider of an on-premises healthcare software product/products fully migrating to the SaaS model
Purpose: to migrate an on-premises healthcare product/ products to the cloud and sell them on a subscription basis.
Focus on:
- Redesigning software to ensure medical staff or patients can conveniently use it on various devices (tablets, PCs, laptops).
- Promoting the redesigned SaaS solutions to existing and potential clients.
Healthcare SaaS Software Specifics for Different Target Customers
Small, often newly established, healthcare organizations
- Customers are looking for a ready-to-use solution that doesn’t need much customization.
- A rather small number of integrations may be needed.
Focus on:
- Intuitive UI and attractive design.
- Creating thorough self-learning materials for app users (healthcare professionals or patients).
Mature healthcare organizations
- Customers are looking for software that matches well with their existing software.
- A large number of users and user roles in an organization.
Focus on:
- API integrations.
- Rich customization capabilities.
Key Functional Aspects of Healthcare SaaS
Healthcare SaaS management
- SaaS subscription and license management (subscription renewal, license changing, etc.).
- Real-time SaaS usage tracking and reports to optimize features for healthcare professionals and patients.
- Feature management (e.g., A/B feature version testing, selected feature activation).
Healthcare SaaS billing and payment management
- Agile billing system that can adjust to pricing model changes.
- Payment gateway to accept payments through different channels (a card, bank transfers, Apple Pay / Google Pay, etc.).
- Automatic software sales tax handling and invoicing.
- Payment failure handling.
User experience
- UX optimized for clinical processes.
- Intuitive user interface.
- Automated data synchronization between a healthcare SaaS app and other apps used by a customer (e.g., EHR, CRM, HIE) due to API-based integration capabilities of a SaaS app.
- User experience surveys to improve the product.
Support and training for medical staff and patients
- In-app help desk.
- Video tutorials.
- A knowledge base and webinars for Healthcare SaaS users (e.g., physicians, nurses, patients).
Compliance and data security
- Data encryption for PHI and financial data.
- Password-protected login.
- Role-based access.
- HIPAA, FDA, and ONC compliance.
- Automated assessment of security risks.
- DDoS protection.
Healthcare SaaS Features to Outcompete Rivals
Features based on advanced technologies
- Natural language processing capabilities (e.g., voice recognition for health data entry, handwritten text recognition for prescriptions processing).
- SaaS connectivity with smart medical devices or biosensors to collect patient health data, enable remote care or continuous automated vitals’ monitoring.
- Artificial Intelligence to automate identification of potential HIPAA compliance risks and PHI security threats in software.
Built-in data analytics capabilities
to help increase patient care workflows’ effectiveness (e.g., hospitalization, pre-surgery and post-surgery care, complications prevention management, patient discharge).
Operating Costs Structure for a Healthcare SaaS Product
While planning your healthcare SaaS, it is necessary to calculate investments and estimate monthly app operation expenses, which include:
- Cloud services usage.
- SaaS application and cloud infrastructure maintenance.
- Help desk for healthcare professionals and patients (24/7, 12/5, etc.).
- Regular security checks (with a focus on HIPAA compliance).
- Infrastructure for new features roll-out and healthcare SaaS application evolution.
Lower Investments, Faster Payback for Healthcare SaaS
Develop less OOTB functionality
and leave space for customizations on a healthcare provider’s side: it reduces time-to-market but keeps the product flexible for customers.
Utilize ready-made cloud services
(for example, services provided by AWS and Azure), e.g., for embedding AI-based patient chatbots or integrating connected medical devices, instead of developing such functionality from scratch.
Opt for agile development
to get MVP and start selling your software faster.
Healthcare SaaS Consulting and Development Services to Succeed in the Market
With 19 years in healthcare IT, ScienceSoft wields the first-hand software consulting and development experience in this industry and is ready to help you launch your SaaS project. You set goals, we drive the project to fulfill them in spite of time and budget constraints, as well as changing requirements.
Healthcare SaaS consulting
Our healthcare IT consultants will:
- Analyze the feasibility of your medical SaaS product concept.
- Elaborate on OOTB healthcare SaaS features.
- Design a scalable multi-tenancy architecture for a healthcare SaaS application.
- Decide on a customization and integration approach.
- Choose an optimal tech stack.
- Determine implementation investments and calculate the anticipated ROI.
Healthcare SaaS development
As a technology partner, we will help you:
- Productize the clinical SaaS idea and prioritize software features.
- Create a PoC.
- Design UX and UI with a focus on medical staff’s and patients’ convenience.
- Develop your healthcare SaaS in agile iterations.
- Test healthcare SaaS product quality.
- Design and implement integrations (with EHR/EMR, HIS, imaging software, marketing software, etc.).
- Provide hospital SaaS application and infrastructure support (if required).
What makes ScienceSoft different
We achieve project success no matter what
ScienceSoft does not pass mere project administration off as project management, which, unfortunately, often happens on the market. We practice real project management, achieving project success for our clients no matter what.
About ScienceSoft
Since 1989, ScienceSoft has been providing IT consulting and software development services to customers worldwide. Being ISO 13485-certified, our team is ready to help you plan, launch, and evolve your SaaS application according to the requirements of the FDA and the Council of the European Union.