The healthcare software industry presents unique challenges and opportunities for startups. This article offers valuable advice from seasoned professionals who have successfully navigated this complex field. From designing user-friendly interfaces to ensuring compliance with regulations, these expert insights provide a roadmap for new entrants in the healthcare software market.
- Design for Cognitive Ease in Healthcare
- Target Specific Markets and Stakeholders
- Prioritize Compliance and User Experience
- Focus on Integration and Measurable Outcomes
- Build Trust Through Patient-Centric Solutions
- Validate Quickly with Clinical Feedback
- Align with Regulations and Clinical Workflows
- Solve Real Problems for Healthcare Professionals
- Emphasize Clinical Relevance and Compliance
- Engage Face-to-Face with Industry Decision-Makers
- Simplify Software for Better User Adoption
- Navigate Regulations While Solving Specific Needs
- Understand Clinical Workflows Before Building
- Ground Development in Scientific Credibility
Design for Cognitive Ease in Healthcare
When I helped roll out our first healthcare software integration with a clinic network, I assumed clean data and compliance were the finish line. They weren’t. The biggest pushback came from clinicians who felt the tool slowed them down—not because it was broken, but because it demanded too much brainpower during already overloaded shifts.
One doctor told me, “I’m not clicking five times just to confirm what I already know.”
That stuck with me.
We went back and redesigned around what I now call the “ER shift rule”: if your interface can’t be used by someone who’s hungry, interrupted, and two hours behind—it’s not ready for healthcare.
We reworked the interface to surface the most relevant changes between visits (e.g., pain levels, mobility gains) using subtle color coding. It shaved minutes off charting and, more importantly, gave clinicians faster confidence in their decisions.
My advice: build for cognitive ease, not just compliance. Time-to-clarity is your real metric. Healthcare professionals don’t need more tools—they need fewer distractions and faster insights. If they say, “This makes my day easier,” you’ve won.
Murray Seaton
Founder and CEO of Hypervibe / Health & Fitness Entrepreneur, Hypervibe (Vibration Plates)
Target Specific Markets and Stakeholders
Entering the healthcare software space is challenging, and based on what I’ve learned, there are a few key things startups absolutely need to nail down early on.
First, you have to be crystal clear about your target market, or markets. Healthcare isn’t just one big category, and even if you plan to serve multiple areas eventually, you need to understand each one deeply. Know exactly who you’re building for in each segment. Is it primary care doctors? Specialists like orthopedics or pain management clinics? Groups focused on value-based care? Each operates differently and requires distinct features and support from their software. Trying to apply a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works well. Be deliberate about which segments you target and tailor your solution and strategy accordingly for each one.
Next, really understand your sales channel. How are you actually going to get your product to your target market? Selling directly takes a lot of effort. Working with partners can get you more reach, but you give up some control. Think about who makes the buying decision. Is it the doctors, the clinic managers, or someone else? Things like specific billing codes, maybe for remote monitoring like RTM or APCM, often drive these decisions, so you need to know that landscape. If you don’t have a solid plan for how customers will find and buy from you, even the best software won’t get traction.
Finally, remember all the stakeholders involved. The person using your software daily might not be the one signing the check. You usually need doctors, office managers, IT folks, maybe even billing specialists and patients to be on board. Everyone has their own priorities—how well it works clinically, if it saves money, if it’s secure, how easy it is to use, or how it helps patients stay engaged. You need to understand what each group cares about and address their concerns to get your foot in the door and build a lasting relationship.
Getting these fundamentals right—knowing your market, your path to reach them, and everyone who has a say—is crucial for building a successful company in this space.
Reagan Smith
CEO, Actuvi
Prioritize Compliance and User Experience
Don’t underestimate compliance. First-time founders often focus on features and UX, but in healthcare, HIPAA (or your region’s equivalent) isn’t optional—it’s core to the product.
Start by mapping out what kind of data you’re handling (PHI, PII), where it’s stored, and who can access it. That helps define architecture choices, audit trails, and encryption standards early.
Also, get familiar with secure authentication flows. MFA, proper session handling, and audit logging aren’t just nice to have—they’re musts.
And talk to a healthcare compliance expert early, not after launch. Retrofitting compliance is 10 times more painful.
Stay close to end users (doctors, nurses, admins). Their feedback is gold, and often what’s “good UX” in healthcare looks different than in consumer apps.
Vipul Mehta
Co-Founder & CTO, WeblineGlobal
Focus on Integration and Measurable Outcomes
Based on my experience, my advice to startups entering the healthcare software industry for the first time is: start by deeply understanding the problem you’re solving, not just from a tech perspective, but from the standpoint of patients, doctors, and administrators. Healthcare is not like other industries. It’s heavily regulated, deeply personal, and often resistant to change. Success doesn’t just come from building a feature-rich platform; it comes from building trust, ensuring compliance, and proving value early.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is focusing too much on innovation and not enough on integration. Hospitals and clinics already use multiple systems, and if your software doesn’t fit into their existing workflows or EHRs, it becomes a burden rather than a solution. So, prioritize interoperability from the start, and be prepared to navigate complex procurement cycles.
Also, user experience matters more than ever in healthcare. The people using your platform may not be tech-savvy, so simplicity, clarity, and support are key. A beautifully intuitive interface combined with strong onboarding and training can be a huge differentiator.
Lastly, build for outcomes. Whether your tool helps reduce readmission rates, improve diagnostic speed, or streamline care coordination—focus on measurable results. The more you can prove ROI and clinical value, the easier it becomes to build credibility and scale.
In short: know the problem intimately, solve it simply, integrate smoothly, and always prioritize trust and outcomes.
Sangeeta Kumar
Vice President – Marketing, Healthcare DMS
Build Trust Through Patient-Centric Solutions
One of the most crucial lessons I’ve learned in healthcare software is that patient outcomes and provider trust must remain at the forefront—everything else flows from there. If you’re a startup entering the healthcare space for the first time, here are a few pieces of advice drawn from my experience co-founding both Atta Systems and Medicai:
1. Know Your Regulatory Landscape Early
Healthcare is governed by strict compliance requirements (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, and country-specific regulations). Rather than viewing regulations as barriers, treat them as design constraints from day one. Build your architecture, data management, and user workflows with compliance in mind. This mitigates legal and financial risks and instills confidence in hospitals, clinics, and other potential partners.
2. Validate Through Clinical Feedback
Before investing too heavily in your solution, seek validation from actual clinicians, nurses, and administrators. Their input helps shape a product that aligns with real-world workflows. At Medicai, we worked closely with radiologists and specialists to ensure our AI-driven platform addressed actual bottlenecks—like large imaging file transfers and timely collaboration—rather than just building what we “thought” they needed.
3. Focus on Data Integrity and Security
Data is the currency of healthcare, and how you handle it can make or break your reputation. Partner with reputable cloud providers, implement encryption standards, and maintain proper data lineage. If clinicians and patients don’t trust your platform to manage medical records or imaging data securely, any innovation you bring will be underutilized.
4. Start Small, Scale Smart
Healthcare systems can be massive, and each organization has its unique structure and bureaucracy. Piloting your solution with one department or a smaller clinic is often the fastest way to gain proof of concept and gather testimonials. Early wins can become case studies that make the sales process smoother when you scale to larger hospitals or multiple markets.
5. Engage the Full Spectrum of Stakeholders
Don’t overlook administrative decision-makers, compliance officers, or patient advocacy groups in your planning. Each has a say in whether your software gets adopted. A well-rounded rollout strategy that addresses diverse perspectives helps cement your credibility and speeds up adoption.
Andrei Blaj
Co-Founder, Medicai
Validate Quickly with Clinical Feedback
If you’re entering the healthcare software space for the first time, my biggest piece of advice is this: build slowly, validate quickly. It’s tempting to chase features or rapid scaling early on, but in healthcare, trust, compliance, and user experience matter more than speed.
Adonis Hakkim
CEO of Welzo, Welzo
Align with Regulations and Clinical Workflows
If you’re entering the healthcare software industry, understand this first: you’re not just building technology; you’re building trust in one of the most scrutinized, complex, and risk-sensitive industries on the planet.
Startups fail in this sector not because their code breaks, but because their strategy never earned credibility. My advice is simple: design for regulatory intelligence, clinical legitimacy, and system interoperability from day one. Treat regulation as architecture, not a barrier. Align with real clinical workflows before you write a single line of user experience (UX). And if your platform doesn’t integrate seamlessly into legacy systems, you’re already obsolete.
In healthcare, speed without precision is merely noise. If you want to stay in power, build with the discipline of a regulator, the awareness of a physician, and the mindset of a system architect. That is the entry ticket. Everything else is optional.
Maxim Sheaib
Executive Leader in Business Strategy, Policy Execution, and Geoeconomic Systems
Solve Real Problems for Healthcare Professionals
If you’re starting out in healthcare software, my biggest piece of advice is to focus on solving real problems. Healthcare professionals deal with a lot of administrative work, so anything that can make their lives easier will be valued.
Also, make sure you stay compliant—healthcare has strict rules, and getting those wrong can cause major issues. Listen to your users from the start and use their feedback to make your product better. And remember, building trust takes time in healthcare, but if you stick to delivering value, you’ll get there.
Nick Gabriele
Director, Noterro
Emphasize Clinical Relevance and Compliance
The best advice I have is to prioritize clinical relevance and effectiveness above all the flashy features. We’ve incorporated a variety of healthcare platforms into our operations, and the most effective ones always fill real, unaddressed pain points for providers and patients. For example, when we tested bariatric patient-tracking software in 2022, we realized that 83% of adoption success came from a particular feature: its ability to automate nutrient deficiency alerts post-op—a boring yet critical need. Only after months spent shadowing (not simply surveying) actual clinicians should they dare write a single line of code. In fact, one study published in JAMA Network Open showed that healthcare software designed with direct input from clinicians had 4.7x higher long-term retention than competitor tools.
Second, compliance is not a checkbox—it’s your building blocks. Early on in our e-commerce journey, we had a rude awakening that healthcare-adjacent tech (including for nutrition) gets unexpected regulatory scrutiny. A startup should have HIPAA/GDPR built-in from day one, as retrofitting adds a 3x cost. We now mandate our entire network of software partners undergo independent auditing, as this level of rigor has blocked about 100% of potential intrusions across two years. Lastly, focus on interoperability. The most powerful software we have actually binds EHRs, lab systems, and patient apps together.
Kevin Huffman
Doctor of Osteopathic Med| Bariatric Physician| CEO & Founder, Ambari Nutrition
Engage Face-to-Face with Industry Decision-Makers
Attend every possible in-person event you can. Healthcare is an old-school, slow-to-move industry. Decision-makers are baby boomers, have been in it for decades, and don’t respond to cold emails. Face-to-face engagement and in-person introductions are the best and fastest way to gain brand awareness, credibility, and interest. Small or large, attend the conference, buy a booth, schmooze over lunch, shake hands, and ask genuine questions. If your SaaS is solving a real problem, you will gain product momentum and land early adopters in your first year. Guaranteed.
Jenna Slater
Head of Sales, Anagram
Simplify Software for Better User Adoption
Software is often over-engineered and considered too difficult to use by end-users. The easier it is to use and onboard (consider hiring a change management expert), the better. In my experience working with and for several software companies, the simpler the software, the more success it has for users and as a business. Test, test, and test again.
Evan Tunis
President Fhi, Florida Healthcare Insurance
Navigate Regulations While Solving Specific Needs
Breaking into healthcare software requires solving real problems while navigating strict regulations and long sales cycles. Here’s how to succeed:
1. Solve Specific Pain Points
Target overlooked needs like medical record analysis for law firms or prior authorization tools for clinics. Start narrow, prove value, then expand. You don’t have to create a full-fledged healthcare SaaS. For instance, law firms and insurance companies working on personal injury cases need healthcare software that assists in their decision-making!
2. Build Compliance First
HIPAA is just the start. Plan for GDPR, SOC 2, or FDA requirements from day one. Use AWS/Azure for compliant infrastructure but own the security. Role-based security and audit needs to be baked into the architecture on day one instead of bolted on later.
3. Prepare for Slow Sales
Hospitals take 6-18 months to buy. Offer free pilots, build relationships with IT, clinicians, and executives, and ensure enough funding to survive long cycles.
4. Integrate with Major EHRs
Your software must work with Epic and Cerner. Support FHIR/HL7 standards and consider EHR marketplaces for visibility.
5. Reduce Risk at Every Step
Healthcare mistakes can be deadly. Test rigorously, add human oversight for AI tools, and start with non-clinical features to build trust.
6. Balance Vision with Patience
Combine mission-driven purpose with realistic timelines. Start small, show impact, then scale carefully in this risk-averse industry.
Success comes from respecting healthcare’s pace while delivering measurable improvements. Solve real problems, follow the rules, and prepare for a marathon, not a sprint.
Jaspal Bhamra
Chief Architect, ZenCentiv
Understand Clinical Workflows Before Building
Based on my experience, here is my advice to healthcare software startups:
First, prioritize regulatory compliance from day one—fixing these issues later is extremely costly.
Second, understand clinical workflows before building. Shadow healthcare professionals and design interfaces that work for busy medical staff.
Third, establish partnerships with healthcare institutions through small pilot programs that demonstrate clear value.
Lastly, prepare for long sales cycles—healthcare organizations move cautiously with new technology.
Insha Naim
Certified Physio Therapist & Managing Director at Mri Lucknow, MRI Lucknow
Ground Development in Scientific Credibility
If you’re stepping into healthcare software, think of it as deep tech from day one. You’re not just building a product; you’re building trust.
That starts with grounding your development in real science. If you’re not a researcher yourself, bring one on board early. Having a strong scientific advisory board shows that you’re serious and credible—and that really matters, both to your users and potential partners.
As a PhD and founder of a deep-tech nutrition platform, I’ve seen this firsthand. For us, scientific credibility didn’t just help build user trust—it opened doors. Accelerators, grant programs, and partners do pay attention when they see you’re serious about the science. It’s what helps you get the support to build something that lasts and makes an impact.
So my advice would be to stay close to research, understand regulations, and always design for how people actually live, so you can address what matters to them.
Maria Kardakova
Founder, Phd in Biosciences and Medicine, Uk, iCook
