Medical advancements and breakthrough therapies are constantly emerging, offering new hope and improving countless lives afflicted with debilitating diseases. With each discovery, biopharma companies create a better understanding of how patients are different — even those diagnosed with the same disease — so that a more personalized approach to the disease is developed. However, the journey from laboratory research to discovery to the development of therapy safely administered in clinical settings is complex. Each step towards bringing these advanced medical treatments to market underscores the paramount importance of ensuring their efficacy and safety.

The development and release of these therapies require seamless integration of various scientific stakeholders in different complementing areas of science focus, navigating regulatory demands, tracking treatment plans, and key patient outcomes in the course of clinical implementation. Such rigor requires reliable software systems of record that are sensitive to the core process that can manage large data and allow monitoring risks with ease. In this context, automated software testing emerges not just as a technological tool but as a linchpin in the seamless delivery of innovative medical therapies.

A new population-based study of 22 million people shows that autoimmune disorders now affect about one in ten individuals.” – University of Oxford

Software Quality in Rapidly Evolving Treatment Programs

There are varied process workflows unique to a therapy, changing from one country to another, and its affiliate-based execution across multiple digital channels often requires maintaining varying software system configurations and introducing functionality and performance-enhancing upgrades to support the process. These changes increase the risk of introducing new software defects that can have severe consequences, jeopardizing patient safety, data security, and access to safe, effective medicinal therapy for everyone who needs it.

• Automated software testing uses testing tools and frameworks that streamline software quality assurance processes to accelerate the time-to-market of reliable and defect-free software systems.

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms can enhance test automation, enabling the tools to learn and adapt to changing application behaviors. Complementing test automation with continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines allows for seamless and automated testing throughout the software development lifecycle.

• Tools and technologies supporting automated software testing include Selenium, which is a widely-used open-source tool for automating web browsers, and Appium, which is a popular open-source tool for automating mobile applications. Other popular tools and frameworks include JUnit and TestNG for Java, Cucumber for behavior-driven development testing, and Robot Framework for keyword-driven testing. These tools and technologies allow for more reliable and comprehensive testing of software applications.

Impacts of Automated Software Testing

The changing needs of patients present unique challenges in terms of ensuring the safety and efficacy of evolving treatments. Automated software testing plays a crucial role in this process by allowing for the rapid detection of software defects during the continuous efforts to develop and enhance operational support systems used by medical stakeholders. Streamlining the testing approach with test automation contributes to the overall quality and success of software applications.

• Achieve Efficiency, by reducing the effort required to test software applications with simple, repetitive to more complex scenarios in a reliable manner. A manual testing process that may take several days can be completed faster in minutes and repeatedly in a day to support frequent releases of software for its end users.  

• Enhance Performance, by allowing for the identification of bottlenecks early in the development cycle. Automated load testing can simulate a large number of users accessing an application at the same time, helping to identify and address performance issues before they impact end users.  

• Reduce Production Cost, by reducing the likelihood of costly defects making it to the final product in use. Automated regression testing can quickly identify if a change in code has caused any unintended side effects, and with more comprehensive test coverage, allowing for timely resolution of defects before they impact end users.  

Challenge

Powered by roughly 50,000 employees across the globe, a research-based biopharmaceutical company treats over 50 million people annually across 175+ countries with its efforts to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions for complex health issues. They build on the understanding across six therapeutic areas: oncology, immunology, neuroscience, eyecare, virology, and aesthetics. Their partnership network of 250+ biotech, science, and government organizations enables them to support 530+ patient support programs globally.

Their new treatment programs are growing along with their affiliate-based execution in more than six countries, requiring the company to continuously enhance its Salesforce Health Cloud in support of electronic health records, administrative systems, resource planning, and integration of its data and other systems within their existing architecture. Patient engagement features continue to evolve to elevate the patient experience, sustain their adherence to the program, and achieve recovery.

The speed of continuous change is critical and quality needs to match the speed of delivery.

Solution

Pointwest implemented test automation to enable the company to test early, test often, and effectively the development being done to Salesforce Health Cloud. Tricentis Tosca was utilized for test management to help the quality assurance team design, create, locate, and manage test assets and test execution. More than 300+ user stories and 1,500+ test cases have been developed and used for the initial phase of the implementation. 

Benefits Achieved

By enabling fast detection of issues during the continuous development lifecycle, automated testing allows for the rapid resolution of software defects. Healthcare organizations can streamline their operations, improve access to healthcare services, enhance patient engagement, and deliver advanced medical therapies more efficiently and safely. 

1. Support for Dynamic Software Configurations

The ability to quickly adapt and reconfigure the system for a different treatment program, in another country for new and existing affiliates executing the therapy, is critical. Test automation facilitated this dynamic reconfiguration, enabling the execution of regression testing quickly, and as frequently as needed, to match the cadence of the development while ensuring nothing is broken in the change process. The test execution results and defects that surfaced are evaluated quickly to establish the level of quality acceptance before releasing it to the end-users. 

2. Deliver Better Patient Experience

Integrating mobile, web, and other forms of custom-made digital experience to increase the convenience level and simplify patient enrollment, access to appointment booking, care service, and outcomes tracking can now be deployed faster. This allows for a more agile feedback loop of improvements to support adherence to the therapy and overall recovery. 

3. Harmonization of Different Scientific Stakeholders

Therapeutic innovation from bench to bedside requires a coordinated endeavor bringing together researchers, clinicians, regulatory authorities, and healthcare professionals. For personalized treatment regimens, where the customization of therapies is based on individual patient profiles, this necessitates a high degree of precision and reliability in software systems to enhance collaboration among interrelated scientific areas and stakeholders. Automated software testing serves as a unifying force in this context, providing a common platform for validating the integrity and efficacy of the software systems that support their medical activities enterprise-wide. 

4. Development of Next-Gen Therapies

As therapies and technology continue to evolve, the firm now has a baseline automation test suite that will ensure the reliability of data processing in the software systems as therapies are applied to patients. 

Future Directions in Automated Software Testing for Healthcare and Life Science

As the healthcare industry continues to evolve with advanced technologies that are now available, the role of automated software testing will only become more critical. 

Advanced AI and Machine Learning Algorithm technologies can predict potential issues before they arise,  further streamlining the development process of medical therapies. Virtual and Augmented Reality can expand medical training and treatment. Enhanced security measures will evolve in safeguarding digital health information and patient data. Automated software testing will need to adapt to these new platforms ensuring these immersive experiences are flawlessly executed and secure. 

The integration of automated software testing is crucial in driving growth in advanced medical therapies and improving patient care.   

For over two decades, Pointwest has been partnering with some of the world’s largest and most recognized companies to bridge today’s challenges with future possibilities through tailored solutions that accelerate digital transformation with precision and speed. Explore how Pointwest can empower your business. Connect with us today at [email protected] to unlock new possibilities.