Importance of Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) and Automated Testing for Complex IT Health Solutions

The healthcare sector projection is to expand to $10.059 trillion by the end of 2022. Therefore, the IT system of an organization in the healthcare industry shoulders the hefty responsibility of providing the infrastructure to support a complex—and expensive—system that improves and saves lives. Independent verification and validation (IV&V) usage, ensures that what IT teams produce, do the job —meeting internal requirements, as well as those of users. For any healthcare organization, the stakeholders can easily number into the thousands. And the stakes are high due to the potential fallout of failure. But armed with IV&V, you can limit risk while ensuring the quality and feasibility of a wide range of IT projects. For healthcare-related software products, an organization may perform reviews of the source code. It can examine the associated product documentation, and analyze associated algorithms for static verification. It also performs dynamic verification by different testing methods. For example, integration testing to ensure that all software units (modules) are meshed as one, tested, and properly work together. Functional testing ensures that functionality meets user requirements. In addition, system testing is carried out over the entire software and hardware system to make sure that it is working as per the user requirements and acceptance.

Independent Verification and Validation Reduces Risk and Associated Rework Cost

IV&V consists of an organized, systematic series of audits and assessments. They produce insights as to the effectiveness of an IT department’s endeavors. In this way, IV&V helps to significantly reduce or eliminate the risk of systems not performing as expected. It also avoids incurring the considerable rework cost associated with going back and fixing a problematic system after deployment, as well as mitigating any performance risks on adjacent systems, resources, or users.

For example, if a healthcare organization’s web application contains a vulnerability that leaves it open to data exfiltration, IV&V can uncover this issue. Therefore, enabling the IT team to mitigate it before the exposure of a sensitive data.

 

It Reduces the Cost of IT Health Solutions

Using software automated testing tools, such as Selenium, LambdaTest, or Katalon Studio, IV&V usage during the development lifecycle is for catching errors so the DevOps team can address them early on. Instead of undergoing a series of expensive, time-consuming iterations, an organization can use IV&V to pinpoint issues so they can fix them. This results in more stable releases that satisfy both user and regulatory requirements.

With the incorporation of open-source testing tools within the IV&V system, the cost of addressing problems is significantly reduced. For example, with Selenium, which is an open source test automation tool. The IV&V team can leverage the software free of charge to test virtually any web application function. The platform does whatever a human would do while using the app online. Because Selenium is automated, a complex series of actions can be tested and re-tested under any conditions the team desires.

Because of the automation of these kinds of solutions, the organization doesn’t have to invest in paying people to click, select, and type hundreds or thousands of times, again and again. This cuts your costs while boosting the performance of your solutions.

 

Use IV&V to Meet the Highest Quality Standards

With a comprehensive IV&V process, you can meet and exceed both internal and external quality standards. For example, with our IV&V services, you can achieve ISO 9001:2015 certification. This enables you to both improve your processes and use the certification to earn the confidence of other providers and customers.

The Role of Flexibility in this Solution

Because no two health organizations are alike, flexibility ensures that each solution is custom-designed to the needs of individual clients. At the start of any program and throughout the entire software development lifecycle, it is important for an organization to constantly work with its customer to develop and document test procedures. The flexibility to update these procedures is important. Because the results of the testing may dictate needed changes along the way. The end result of the IV&V testing is to meet all requirements. Also to ensure that the product is structurally sound and built to the required specifications. This is achieved through well-documented test plans and well-executed testing.

Regardless of your challenge, we provide low-risk solutions that meet or exceed your objectives. Connect with i-Link Solutions today to learn more.

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