Automating QA for Complex Healthcare Solutions for Accuracy, Reliability, and Scale
Few industries place as much demand on precision as healthcare. A miscalculation in a claim, a missing data field, or a failed integration can have serious consequences for patients, providers, and payers. That is why quality assurance (QA) in healthcare software is not just the best practice; it is a necessity. To meet this challenge, our team established a thorough QA automation framework that combines UI and API testing with advanced support for ETL processes and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) transactions.
This article explores how we built and optimized this process, the tools and integrations that support it, and the value it has delivered to our healthcare client.
Tackling the Complexity of Healthcare Data
The solution focuses on validating large volumes of sensitive healthcare data as it moves through multiple transformations before reaching end-users. ETL processes extract encrypted provider, patient, and service data, apply business rules, and load it into connected systems. Since each stage depends on the one before it, orchestration and reliability are critical.
Our test automation simplifies this by analyzing ETL outputs to create parameterized data, e.g., tax IDs, for automated scenarios. To cover a wide range of cases, the framework also uses historical datasets to check hierarchies, payment differences, and edge conditions. Pre-generated test files are stored for reuse, which makes regression testing faster and more consistent.
Building the Automation Framework
The framework was designed with two key goals in mind: comprehensive functional coverage and sustainable maintainability. To achieve this, we utilize a carefully selected set of tools and technologies:
- UI Automation: Selenide for web-based testing and Selenide Appium for mobile workflows.
- API Automation: Rest-Assured for REST endpoints and GraphQL client utilities for dynamic queries and mutations. With GraphQL Java Codegen, we generate models directly from schemas, reducing manual coding effort.
- Test Orchestration: TestNG manages test suites and enforces dependencies across staged tests, which is critical when workflows are sequential.
- Build and Dependency Management: Maven ensures a standardized, scalable project structure.
- Code Efficiency: Lombok reduces boilerplate code, keeping the framework lean and readable.
This technical foundation gives us the flexibility to validate user interactions, back-end transactions, and third-party integrations within a single, unified framework.
Service and Data Integrations
Modern healthcare platforms are rarely isolated systems. They interact with numerous external services that must also be validated. Our automation framework includes integrations for:
- AWS-JAVA-SDK for direct service calls within cloud environments.
- Twilio and MailGun to validate large-scale messaging workflows.
- Stripe for automated payment processing scenarios.
- PDF Box to ensure accuracy in PDF-based reports and billing statements.
- MongoDB queries embedded within test logic for validating database integrity.
These integrations allow the QA process to extend beyond traditional UI and API checks, validating the entire ecosystem that supports healthcare operations.
Collaboration and Traceability
QA in healthcare requires not only technical expertise but also close collaboration between teams. To support this, the framework ties into established documentation and defect-tracking systems:
- TestRail captures manual and automated test cases, ensuring visibility across distributed teams.
- Confluence serves as the repository for complex case documentation, supporting cooperation across QA, Payment Operations, and Product teams.
- Atlassian integration links test results directly to reported defects, maintaining traceability from discovery to resolution.
This structured approach guarantees that all stakeholders, both technical and non-technical, can monitor progress and contribute effectively.
Delivering Value to the Client
Healthcare software demands a QA strategy that can keep pace with its complexity. By focusing on orchestration, integration, and collaboration, we created a solution that delivers quality and accelerates development.
Our healthcare client set out to simplify health record management, improve billing, and build a payment system with less friction. The automation framework was key to making this possible. We helped reduce the number of payment links for medical services and added real-time payment options for providers. The resulting platform supports everyone involved: from members buying insurance, employers managing benefits, to providers delivering care.
