Why Is Performance Testing Absolutely A Mandate For Healthcare Applications?

By Author: Michael Wade
Total Articles: 67
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Furthermore, the role of healthcare applications in facilitating a seamless management of modern healthcare system and requirement has benefited all stakeholders. It could be the administration, medical practitioners, caregivers, management, pharmacies, insurance companies, and the most important of all – the end customers. The increased reliance of modern healthcare industry on digitally enabled healthcare platforms has a flip side to it as well. Particularly, how it will impact the functioning of the entire healthcare architecture in case a software glitch takes place. As healthcare applications directly impact the life of a person, its smooth functioning should be a foregone conclusion. To ensure the same, Application Performance Testing comes into the picture whereby performance of a healthcare application is tested during the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). In this type of testing, Performance Testing Experts check the performance, responsiveness and stability of an application when it encounters increased workload. Besides, in conformity to Agile and DevOps principles, Performance Engineering is made part of the ...
... development process whereby probability of glitches to remain or being generated in the system is addressed.

With mobile based applications covering virtually every aspect of our lives, how could the important domain of healthcare be left behind? Thus, a plethora of healthcare applications that encompasses functions such as hospital admission, booking and paying for consultation, buying medicines, checking vital health parameters, billing, and liaising with insurance companies has found its value among governments, companies and the general populace. Besides, various applications embedded within diagnostic tools and critical health saving devices have revolutionised medical science as never before.

The criticality of applications in various arms of the healthcare domain requires them to be glitch free so that they can work with absolute precision. This is where testing comes into play for it can prevent a glitch prone application from hitting the market and endangering the lives of patients. However, testing of healthcare applications entails challenges of its own.

How difficult is it to test Healthcare Applications?
• Adherence to industry standards such as ISO, FDA, HIPAA, HL7 and CMMI is required.
• Performance Testing Experts should be reasonably acquainted with various aspects of medical science and their clinical manifestations.
• Considerations of safety should be kept paramount, as such applications can have a critical impact on the very lives of patients.
• The expertise of testing team results in high cost.

Before starting Performance Testing it is imperative that the Performance Testing Experts carry out risk analysis to ascertain the conditions or situations where applications or certain aspects of them could go wrong. Risk analysis for healthcare applications is more important, applications with defects can impact a brand’s reputation and even critically affect the lives of patients.

Application Performance Testing includes within its fold load testing as well, wherein responses from the system are measured against increased input load. Load testing exposes the vulnerabilities of the application, which can then be factored in during the developmental process. Performance Testing checks if the application can be scaled up when needed and if its performance irrespective of the load factor is robust from all angles.

Performance Engineering goes a step further than mere Application Performance Testing wherein adequate resources and features are incorporated within the application itself during the design and development processes.

Why Performance Testing / Performance Engineering is so important?
• Vulnerabilities in the system are identified by subjecting them to peak workload. These vulnerabilities when addressed render the system scalable, robust and work in a seamless way.
• When glitches are addressed during the design and development phases, the applications gain more stability and can speed up to the market.