Building an MVP for a Healthcare Product: Strategies & Tips

MVP has been at the forefront of launching a startup for a while now. However, it is not equally embraced among industries. For instance, e-commerce and entertainment are the frontrunners. However, MVP for healthcare has been facing resistance to adoption for several reasons.   

• Firstly, the healthcare industry is under stringent regulatory oversight. There are FDA, EMA, and HIPAA among other regulatory bodies that impose certain considerations on digital products. 
• Secondly, healthcare technology directly impacts patient (user) health outcomes. Therefore, applications and any other software require rigorous testing often including clinical ones. 
• Thirdly and fourthly, there are also legacy systems and a huge array of stakeholders. 

The point though is that, despite obstacles, the healthcare industry is joining the technological and business trends for the benefit of all involved people and organizations. This is why MVP for healthcare is something that should be more widely adopted and there is strong evidence to believe in improved outcomes for businesses and users alike. The delay in the adoption of MVP for healthcare is mainly due to the need to develop specific strategies on how to adjust to the abovementioned healthcare-specific demands. 

So, in this blog post, we’ll share key strategies and tips for developing an MVP for healthcare.

Healthcare Tech Products – The Data

First of all, let’s look at healthcare tech at large. Globally, healthcare industries all over the world have been under the microscope and under immense pressure due to COVID-19. So, in the first half of 2021, there was a global online survey on funding in this industry. It indicates that the key healthcare technology areas that have been receiving funding are:

• Telemedicine;
• Wellness;
• mHealth apps;
• Analytics;
• Clinical decision support.

The faster and more flexibly the industry can respond, the more productive the industry becomes. The problem is that the latest 2024 research by CB Insights showed a decline in digital funding for healthcare startups; but for those who manage to strike a deal – there is a strong increase in deal size. So, even though fewer deals are stricken, those that are can expect 40% higher funding. To be more specific, the average investment size is $16.7 million. This is precisely why MVP for healthcare is of ultimate help. No other solution but MVP has a higher chance of securing investors, especially with Proof of Concept when it comes to technology development.

With MVP for healthcare, it is easier to source investors for a number of MVP development advantages, which are:

• 3-6 months time-to-market;
• Low-risk and affordable development;
• Quality user feedback and reliable market data;
• Powerful value creation and greater app usability.

Healthcare Tech Globally by Countries

Let’s now consider different countries. The data below shows the healthcare app usage among smartphone owners. The data originates from the Global Consumer Survey conducted from June 2021 to June 2022. The demographics were respondents between ages 18 and 64 who owned a smartphone and the research question was as follows:

“Have you spent money on health apps (e.g. medication reminders, symptom checkers, nutrition apps) in the past 12 months?”

So, in India, 7 out of 10 people who own a smartphone pay for a healthcare app. In the USA, it is almost half of people with a smartphone pay for a healthcare app. And if India can achieve 70% adoption, so does the USA, Australia, Europe, and others have this potential. This is where MVP for healthcare comes in. 

Strategy 1 – Focus on Core Functionality to Solve a Concrete User Problem

The main advantage of MVP is a focused lean methodology. Healthcare technology usually has a hard time narrowing down the functionality. After all, there are many stakeholders, regulations, and possibilities. However, following an MVP concept and solving one particular user problem can have a massive impact. 

Unfortunately, the drop in funding can correlate with the use of outdated methodologies. Healthcare apps often follow more complex fully-fledged solutions. They include a lot of functionality and take between 1 to 2 years to develop. Their testing is complex and trial results are hard to untangle. And what would the pivoting look like with that much “baggage”? It is easier to scrape it all and start all over in case the first release is a fail. 

This is why outdated methodologies although seeming right and rigorous provide poor results. Ultimately, the app fails because it is too complex and it is hard to even determine where to begin improving things. When you do improve one thing, other functionality suffers. A healthcare technology needs a more flexible, fast, and focused approach.  

This is what modern lean healthcare app development provides.  MVP for healthcare gives you tooling to keep it at 3 to 6 months, focused, and result-oriented. In addition, with select functionality, it is easier to pivot to achieve significant and measurable results. 

Tip 1 Narrow down functionality

Even though MVP for healthcare does include ‘extra’ functionality to comply with regulations, it is still crucial to narrow it down to core features that meet the needs of the early adopters. Not only does it allow for better and faster results, but also it eases the process of testing in a controlled/clinical environment and ensures ‘clean’ untainted data. 

What if you are a non-profit healthcare startup?

If you are a non-profit healthcare startup, you and the patients you care about can still benefit from the MVP concept. MVP focuses on results whatever you define for your business, profit, or non-profit. The core item in MVP for healthcare is adoption by early users. After that, you can refine your product and make it usable for wider target audiences. Whatever your mission is, you can surely make a greater impact following lean MVP methodologies than investing in a fully-fledged product. With fast iterative development fueled by user feedback, you can build a truly life-changing product.

Strategy 2 – Start with Proof of Concept or MVP Prototype

In any industry, having a prototype of your idea is crucial not only in healthcare but in virtually any industry. To demonstrate why it is so crucial, let’s remember the case of Skyscanner: three co-founders, all with software engineering backgrounds. For them, talking in abstractions is second nature. Yet, when the time came to brainstorm ideas to start a business, they got excited about only 1 idea out of 9 proposed, and, that one idea had a prototype. It is much easier to get excited about the idea when you can see, click, and perform actions with the product. 

Why is this strategy even more so crucial when talking about MVP for healthcare? As you’ve seen the statistics: it is harder to get funding, but if you go, you generally get 40% than when the COVID rush started. It shows that investors are ready to invest big in ideas. But those ideas need to be well-researched, compliant, and grounded in analytics and data.  In healthcare, quality beats quantity. You don’t need a stack of different features. You need a few select that can show consistent results and be rooted in research and trials. 

Tip 2 Create a clickable prototype

Create a clickable prototype to demonstrate the workings of your idea. Use the MVP concept to develop a business strategy with a solid value proposition and tangible metrics to convince and make an impression on investors. Check out “Top 10 Startup Business Models & Revenue Models to Consider” to ensure value creation for your healthcare startup. 

Tip 3 How to apply MVP to a particular healthcare product

Here are some suggestions on how the MVP concepts can be applied to a healthcare product: 

• Nutrition apps – You might want to focus on personalized nutritional advice via a questionnaire and the possibility of a personalized consultation through a Wizard of Oz MVP 
• App working with different trackers (step counters, heartbeat watchers, etc) – Here you are likely to need a custom MVP app, preferably native, with a focus on storing data, issuing  (mindful) alerts about abnormalities, and generating a report for a clinician to analyze.
• Clinical knowledge management apps – Here you also will need a custom MVP app. The key user is a clinician who requires specific reliable medical data and the key app value is the speed and ease of pulling the data.
• Scheduling apps for medical institutions and telemedicine. The simpler and the more intuitive the scheduling process is, the more booked your hospital or clinic is. Plus, tailoring the reminders for visits can significantly reduce no-shows.
• Apps for managing chronic conditions. Here you can go for MLP – Minimum Lovable Product – which is all about forming a community around your product and creating a product that users love. In addition, numerous studies show that having a nurturing community for people with chronic illness can have immensely positive health outcomes. With that many people loving your app, you can create a platform for change extending beyond. 
• Fitness apps, supplement intake reminders, mood/well-being logs, meditation, medication reminders and more – often you’ll need to create an MVP for those, but a clickable prototype can ensure you have a great user experience and acquire investors.

Strategy 3 – Strive to build MVP in the shortest time possible with the fewest features possible

The key role of any MVP is to solve user problems. The faster you can get to test this, the better your final version will be. Often, this stage results in release to early adopters. MVP for healthcare is first released to a select controlled group. Surely, you will need to ensure rigorous testing even before that happens. This is why it is essential to make sure your product has the most important functionality only. Healthcare apps will need higher testing coverage because you cannot sacrifice quality.  This way your product starts helping people early, gets straightforward data, and is easy to improve and refine. 

Tip 4 Kano Prioritization Model

One of the frequently used feature scoring techniques for MVP for healthcare is the Kano prioritization model. Its definition is shown below. Basically, you write down all the features you would like to have in your perfect product vision and then evaluate customer impact versus implementation cost.

Then you divide the features into 5 categories as shown in the picture below. This way, you include features you added into the Basic, Excitement, and Performance categories. Consequently, you exclude features that have fallen under the Indifferent and Dissatisfaction categories. 

Let’s look at the example of MVP for healthcare – a Glucose Monitoring App. 

Of course, many more features can be included in a glucose monitoring app, but we’ll look at those. Two features are basic and must be implemented: the data transmission from the wearable and its storage according to HIPPA Compliance. Then you have a performance feature which is UI/UX – it will delight users and it is not so costly to implement. On top of those, you want at least one feature to wow the users. In this case, it is in-app health coaching that falls under the Excitement category. Two other features can be easily discarded: app themes and complex visualizations. 

Strategy 4 – Iterate, work with the users

 At this stage, you have numerous ways to go. 

• Some startups engage in clinical studies. For instance, here is a clinical study by Headspace app done on patients with diabetes. 
• You can simply track analytics on what users use more in your app, check for ‘heat maps’ of your UI and UX, and conduct interviews with early adopters. 
• Next, you can simply release usability surveys and NPS (net promoter score) to evaluate the quality of user experience. 
• If you are a for-profit organization, you can launch pre-sales or opt-ins to measure the demand. 

FAQ: Building an MVP for a Healthcare Product