Buying vs Outsourcing vs Building a Solution
BUY
If you don’t already have a secure way to collect app developer information, you could buy or subscribe to a custom form and signing service to intake and store the registration data centrally and securely.
Buying a self-service solution could cost:
$1,000
OUTSOURCE
If you outsource the app registration capability or decide to subscribe to access an endpoint directory, your cost could be:
BUILD
Buying a third-party registration system
Outsourcing the registration service
Building your own registration system:
Time cost to register apps
Member and tech support calls cost
Total Cost (buy registration system):
Total Cost (outsource registration capability):
Total Cost (**build registration system):
*Build cost amortized over 5-years
If you have a development team to build your own registration system, the cost will vary depending on team size and how long it takes to build.
How many of each position will you require:
UX/UI Designers
1
Architects
1
QAs
1
Project/Scrum Managers
1
Developers
1
Product Owners/Managers
1
Business Analysts
1
Total months to build:
1
Time required to register apps
The actual steps each organization takes to perform developer and app registrations vary, but the minimum steps are listed here to give an idea of its time value.
Steps to Register
Time needed to review and approve developer and the app
Time (hours)
1
Time to manually create an OIDC client with credentials
1
Time to send the credentials securely to the right developer
1
Time to manually update a webpage with approved apps
1
The cost to register apps
Here we apply some basic values to help quantify how the time value translates to a cost to register developers and their applications.
Number of app submissions per month:
1
Number of people involved in app reviews:
1
Avg. cost per FTE per hour (incl. benefits):
$ 20
How about member or customer service calls?
Here we apply some basic values to help quantify how the time value translates to a cost to register developers and their applications.
- What apps are available that one can use to get access to his/her patient data?
- Which apps should I use that are appropriate for me?
- Which apps are safe to use and will protect my sensitive health data?
- Which apps do you or doctors recommend I use?
These types of questions can easily be answered on a webpage or somewhere that is publicly and easily accessible by all members.
What does it cost to take member service calls? Configure the sliders to find out.
Number of members:
100,000 Members
Percentage of members to contact member services asking about apps:
% 1 Per month
Total number of member service calls:
Avg. duration of each member service call:
1 min
Avg. cost per customer service call:
$ 0.5
How about technical support calls?
We’d like to believe all SMART on FHIR apps are plug and play, but that’s just not true in most cases. There’s often issues with authorization or with how the app reads or writes data to and from a FHIR server even if everyone is using the same version of FHIR and implementation guides.
To estimate how much technical support calls cost without an optimized workflow and detailed documentation for app developers to test and configure their apps, we’ve used some basic factors to help quantify the cost.
What does it cost to take technical support calls? Configure the siders to find out.
Percentage of app submissions that need tech support to get them working:
% 0
*assuming you already have a sandbox environment with test patients for app developers to test with
Avg. duration for each tech support call:
0.5 hrs
Avg. number of calls necessary to finish troubleshooting:
1 calls
Number of tech support personnel on each call: