The Journal of mHealth Vol 1 Issue 3 (June 2014) | Page 49

US and UK Working to Strengthen Use of Health IT for Better Patient Care
solve the task. These experts are inherently motivated to solve the challenges
for, either monetary or non-monetary
rewards. Medical app development companies could avail crowdtesting services
ranging from fully managed testing services offering to a self-service concept,
where the company only seeks access to
the testing platform and the expert community when needed.
In addition, the company could save on
associated overheads, such as hardware
and software costs because the community already owns various combinations
of different device types, operating system and language versions – a situation
that's almost impossible to simulate in an

internal lab. Crowdtesting opens a large
pool of software testers and domain
experts to medical app companies, so
selection of target groups could be
achieved at different levels of granularity.
As the crowdtesting process is fast and
flexible by design, it could easily be
integrated into existing software release
cycles and delivery models, so that the
shortcomings could be identified and
corrected immediately before the software is released. Crowdtesting also permits testing at different stages of software development - from the prototype
evaluation to a final check at the end
of the beta stage. The ability to leverage real medical app users and devices

helps achieve a substantial cost reduction
during development and maintenance
phases of the medical app lifecycle. Furthermore, human factors enumerated by
FDA could be progressively validated
through the various stages of software
development through post-deployment
and maintenance. As a result, the software quality increases exponentially
while simultaneously relieving the app
development company of important
domain considerations beyond their area
of expertise and freeing up their internal
resources to focus on core operations.
Dieter Speidel is the Founder & CEO of
PASS Group, a leading Swiss provider of
software and system testing services. n

US and UK Working to
Strengthen Use of Health IT for
Better Patient Care
As the use of health information technology grows in both the
United States and the United Kingdom, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.K. Secretary of State for Health Jeremy
Hunt have recently signed a bi-lateral agreement for the use
and sharing of health IT information and tools. The agreement
strengthens efforts to cultivate and increase the use of health IT
tools and information designed to help improve the quality and
efficiency of the delivery of health care in both countries. The
two Secretaries signed the agreement at the Annual Meeting of
the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
“While we have very different health care delivery systems and
payment models, we both face similar challenges posed by aging
populations, increased levels of co-morbid chronic disease, and
escalating complexity of care delivery and costs,” Secretary
Sebelius said. “By working together, we can more effectively
take on these challenges, improve the health IT economy, and
the health of the American and British populations.”
The agreement signals a formal commitment by both countries
to collaborate to advance the applications of data and technology to improve health.
“This is a ground-breaking agreement that will help both of
our countries use information and technology more effectively
to improve care, safety and give