Scaling QA for healthcare data products used across the NHS

Fortrus develops digital technology that helps healthcare organisations manage and access large volumes of patient information.

Its UNITY platform brings together patient records and documents, giving healthcare professionals rapid access to the information they need. The platform has been deployed across NHS Trusts in the UK, with different configurations tailored to individual environments.

Keeping pace with a complex healthcare platform

When Fortrus developed UNITY, it was tackling some of the challenges healthcare organisations face when managing large volumes of patient data, from fragmented data streams and slow retrieval to growing workflow demands.

Its flagship UNITY Connected Record (UCR) and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) applications are highly configurable. Different versions of the system were being deployed across NHS Trusts, each with its own infrastructure and requirements.

At the same time, Fortrus was growing its development team and managing an increasingly demanding roadmap. New features and versions were being developed while existing deployments continued to need maintenance and support.

Fortrus needed QA capacity that could scale with that work, alongside the technical expertise to test a complex healthcare platform across different configurations and environments.

Following a previous experience with crowd testing, Fortrus partnered with us to provide an ongoing dedicated team of test analysts.

QA that flexes around each deployment

Our test team became part of Fortrus's ongoing development process, adapting testing around different releases, configurations and NHS environments.

For major releases, we used a scripted functional testing approach across UCR and EMR, covering features including patient reports, growth charts, eForms and the management of confidential documents. For ongoing development, our testers worked directly within Fortrus's Jira environment, turning developer tasks into structured, testable features and providing regular QA support as the products evolved.

We also carried out compatibility testing across targeted desktop browsers and tablet devices, giving Fortrus coverage across the different ways its applications were being accessed.

Performance needed a different approach. Rather than testing solely within a representative environment, we set up and ran load and performance tests on-premise within individual NHS Trusts.

Testing against each Trust's own server setup gave Fortrus evidence of how UNITY would perform in the environment where it would actually be used, including under peak demand.

Giving Fortrus confidence as UNITY grows

Our ongoing QA support gave Fortrus additional capacity to test new features and releases while continuing to support products already in use across NHS Trusts.

Integrating our testers into the development process meant testing could keep pace with a changing roadmap, while structured test scripts and test case management gave Fortrus a documented and repeatable approach to quality.

On-site performance testing also gave Fortrus and its NHS customers evidence that the platform could meet performance demands within their own infrastructure, rather than relying solely on results from a separate test environment.

The relationship helped Fortrus reduce rework, improve the efficiency of releases and give its customers greater confidence as UNITY was rolled out across healthcare environments.