Custom Home Healthcare Software
Features, Success Factors, Costs
In healthcare IT since 2005, ScienceSoft builds secure and scalable home health solutions that help home care organizations optimize care delivery, improve patient outcomes and achieve high employee satisfaction.
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Home Healthcare Software in Brief
Home health software can mean a range of specialized IT solutions that are purpose-built to help home healthcare providers optimize staff workflow management and boost service efficiency. Base-level home health software usually offers features typical of most EHRs. More advanced solutions may provide remote patient monitoring, telemedicine, and data analytics functionality.
Custom home health software brings value to medical and non-medical home care organizations by reflecting unique day-to-day operations, engaging patients' families in health management, and automating care with connected devices, GPS tracking, e-signing, and more.
Sample Architecture of Home Healthcare Software
- To let patients log their symptoms, track healthcare progress and schedule, request a visit, get an online consultation with a nurse or a physician, access self-help materials, and more.
- To let patients or their legal guardians add, save, update personal details, billing details, view insurance plans coverage, make payments, etc.
- To let patients or their legal guardians stay up to date with the treatment plans and health outcomes, access the prescribed medications, contact the health provider, check visit history, etc.
Medical staff app
- To access and modify visits schedule, communicate with the other team members, swap shifts, etc.
- To view and update patient records; to track patients’ vitals, timely spot disease progression and adjust the treatment; to prescribe medication, etc.
- To add visit summaries, accept patient e-signatures, communicate with the patients or their guardians remotely via text messages or video calls.
Administrative staff interface
- To view appointment history, coordinate and track home care delivery, track paid and outstanding invoices, ensure timely adjustments in resource management, etc.
Admin web panel
- To onboard new medical staff and add new patients to the system, grant relevant access rights to medical staff, patients, and their legal guardians.
Cloud server
- To store, process, and analyze patient-related data (e.g. vitals, medical history, treatment plan), medical staff data (e.g., employees’ experience, availability, track record), visit details, billing data, and more.
- To send alerts and notifications in case of abnormalities in a patient’s state and to provide AI-driven recommendations on home care delivery improvement.
Smart wearables and sensors for remote patient monitoring
- To monitor patient vitals (e.g., body temperature, pulse, blood pressure), movement (e.g., in case of falling), or location and transmit the data to the cloud server for further analysis.
Key Features to Look for in Home Healthcare Software
With seasoned healthcare IT consultants and software engineers on board, ScienceSoft creates home health solutions with functionality tailored to the needs of each specific health facility. Below, we outline the most demanded home health software features in 2023:
Home visits scheduling and optimization
- Automation of staff scheduling based on custom rules (e.g., employee qualification, availability).
- Employee self-scheduling, shift bidding, shift swapping.
- Scheduling patient consultations with medical specialists from outside the organization (e.g., a physical therapist, a cardiologist), if needed.
- AI-based recommendations on scheduling optimization.
- Notifications to employees about schedule changes.
Patient care planning and delivery
- Care plan creation.
- Placement of patient care orders (e.g., wound dressing, transportation).
- AI-based recommendations on home care planning and delivery optimization.
Patient records management
- New patient chart creation.
- Patient medical record creation, viewing, and editing (logging progress notes, medication prescriptions, etc.).
- Logging the services delivered and visit summaries.
Electronic visit verification
- In-app clocking in and out for employees to record home care visit duration and their actual working hours.
- GPS tracking of the medical staff location for visit verification.
- E-signature for patients to confirm the receipt of care services.
- Alerts in case of a missed visit or late clock-in.
Knowledge management and staff cooperation
- A knowledge base for medical staff to easily find relevant information on care delivery protocols, policies, etc.
- Customizable checklists and templates to track all the required care delivery activities for different patient groups, conditions, service types, etc.
- Pre-visit questionnaires for medical staff to get the necessary information on a patient’s health state.
- 1:1 and group chats with the home care team members for quick coordination, shift swapping, etc.
- Conducting scheduled and ad-hoc video appointments between patients or their guardians and medical staff (e.g., for regular chronic disease management).
- In-app text messaging (e.g., to quickly consult on medication side effects).
- Sharing images and videos (e.g., for a patient to send a photo of their skin condition, or for a physician to share video instructions for an exercise).
- Monitoring patient vitals (e.g., pulse, temperature, blood pressure).
- Environment monitoring (temperature, humidity, dust, CO2).
- Patient location and movement tracking.
- Medication intake control.
- Alerts to the home health provider or assigned medical staff in case of abnormal patient health or environment parameters.
- Operational analytics (e.g., average visit duration and effectiveness, schedules optimization, etc.).
- Patient health data analytics (e.g., analyzing organization-wide patient outcomes, vitals).
- Billing analytics (e.g., duration of a billing process, payer share distribution).
- Financial analytics (e.g., financial risk management, fraud detection).
Patient billing and claim management
- Insurance verification for home health organization’s patients.
- Insurance claim status verification.
- Generation of explanations of benefits (EOB) for the patients.
- Patient billing.
Data security
- Role-based access management for all parties involved in home care (admins, physicians, caregivers, patients, legal guardians, etc.).
- End-to-end PHI encryption, secure data storage and transmission between a home care provider and a patient/guardian.
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA).
- Compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, HITECH, MACRA regulations, CEHRT and FDA requirements, SAFER guidelines, and other applicable regulations.
Key Integrations for Home Healthcare Software
Depending on the specifics your home health services and your patients’ needs, ScienceSoft’s healthcare IT team can integrate your solution with:
- Health information exchange (HIE) software – to receive patient information from other healthcare providers (e.g., diagnostic laboratories) in a secure and compliant way.
- Diagnostic devices – to take tests and perform procedures (ultrasound scanning, blood sugar tests, etc.) right at a patient’s home and get feedback from a physician once the results are ready.
- EHR/EMR system – to have quick and secure access to patient records and related information right from the home health solution (e.g., if a home healthcare provider already has an EHR in place or works in close collaboration with hospital systems that share access to their EHRs).
- Smart patient monitoring devices – to track and analyze patients’ vitals, adjust medication and treatment plans, ensure timely acute conditions management, etc.
How Remote Patient Monitoring Works in Real Life
In this video, we showcase a custom remote patient monitoring solution designed and implemented by ScienceSoft. With continuous monitoring of medical and environmental parameters and voice assistance functionality, the solution helps to improve health, wellbeing, and safety of elderly patients.
How to Develop Home Health Software
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1. Analyzing the needs of a target medical or non-medical home care organization(s). 2. Defining the home health software concept and functionality scope (e.g., electronic visit verification, telehealth). 3. Outlining architecture, tech stack, and integrations with EHR, HIE, diagnostic and monitoring medical devices. 4. Creating a regulatory compliance strategy (with HIPAA, GDPR, SAMHSA, etc.) and ONC certification strategy (US-only). |
5. Designing UX and UI of the home health software considering the needs of medical and non-medical staff, patients, and caregivers. 6. Iterative development and testing of the software. 7. Conducting pre-launch activities, e.g., HIPAA/GDPR audit. 8. Training the users and launching the home health software. 9. Supporting, maintaining, and introducing new functionality to the home health software. |
What Determines Home Healthcare Software Success
With 18 years in healthcare IT, ScienceSoft has identified four core factors that help drive maximum value from home health software:
Focus on regulatory compliance
To make sure that the sensitive data is stored and processed in highly secure IT environments; to achieve compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, HITECH, MACRA regulations, CEHRT and FDA requirements, SAFER guidelines, and other applicable regulations.
Offline capabilities
To facilitate the app’s work in remote conditions, allowing for temporary local data storage. For example, a caregiver can fill out a visit summary on their phone from the patient’s site where immediate access to the Internet is limited. Once the caregiver is back in the covered zone, the appointment summary is automatically sent to the cloud server.
User-friendly UX and UI
To make app interface intuitive for patients, guardians, and medical staff, so that users regardless of their tech proficiency and health condition can easily navigate the application.
Interoperability and customization
To create a tailored solution that fully aligns with an organization’s workflows and seamlessly integrates with other software systems already in place.
Home Healthcare Software Costs
The total costs of custom home health software development can vary from $200K to $1M+ and depend on the medical software scope and other factors.
$200K–$300K
For a simple custom solution with a patient database, medical staff database, visit scheduling.
$600K–$800K
For a solution that includes EHR features and enables patient management, medical staff management, visit scheduling, visit verification.
$800K–$1M+
For a complex solution that allows for remote patient monitoring and advanced home healthcare data analytics.
Among the key cost factors that determine home health software costs are:
- The scope and the complexity of home health software functionality, including AI-based features (NLP for patient voice interpreting and symptoms logging, AI-driven recommendations on adjusting a treatment plan or prescribing additional examinations).
- The requirements for software availability, performance, scalability, security, and compliance.
- The data volume to be collected, stored, and processed by the system.
- The number and complexity of integrations.
- The sourcing model, team composition and its members’ seniority level, tech stack, and more.
Key outcomes home healthcare software can bring
When to Opt for a Custom Home Healthcare Solution
ScienceSoft recommends custom home health software development when you are looking for:
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Fully tailored functionality that follows your organization’s specifics (e.g. automated staff scheduling, custom reports generation). |
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Patient interface adapted to your patients’ specific needs (e.g., voice control for patients with vision impairments or motor dysfunction). |
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Smooth and cost-effective integration with your existing or to-be-adopted software systems (e.g., medical device software and SaMD, HIE, EHR). |
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A highly scalable and flexible solution that is easy to upgrade and tweak in line with your organization’s growth plans. |
Home Healthcare Software Consulting and Development by ScienceSoft
A mature IT company with 100+ successful projects for the healthcare industry, ScienceSoft can design, develop, and continuously support a highly efficient home health solution or assist at any stage of its implementation.
Home healthcare software consulting
Lay a solid foundation for your home health software. We will assess the feasibility and potential ROI of your IT initiative, help you choose the most optimal architecture and tech stack, prepare a detailed project roadmap, and deliver a PoC.
Home healthcare software development
ScienceSoft’s healthcare IT team is ready to cover every stage of your home health software development project, from architecture design to QA and secure deployment. Once the solution is launched, we can conduct user training and provide long-term software support and evolution.
About ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft is a global software development and IT consulting company with 18 years of experience in healthcare IT services. Holding ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and ISO 13485 certifications, we design and deliver robust and highly secure healthcare software according to the requirements of the FDA and the Council of the European Union.