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Healthcare AI Discovery Sprint — 4 Weeks, $45K Fixed Price

Most healthcare AI projects fail before the first line of production code is written. The team commits to a build before they know what they’re building, picks a model architecture before they understand the data, signs a BAA after the engineering decisions are already locked, and discovers FDA SaMD implications midway through the work. Six months in, the budget is gone, the timeline has slipped twice, and the original use case has shifted three times. None of that is an engineering failure. It is a discovery failure.

The Discovery Sprint is the fix: a fixed-price, fixed-scope, time-boxed engagement that closes every major architectural and compliance decision before a single dollar is committed to the build. Four weeks. $45,000. End-to-end architecture, compliance map, eval harness skeleton, and a fixed-price quote for the production build that follows.

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What a Healthcare AI Discovery Sprint Actually Is

The Discovery Sprint is not a workshop. It is not a slide deck. It is not a generic AI strategy engagement. It is a working engineering engagement led by senior healthcare AI architects who have shipped production AI inside Epic, Cerner, Athena, and other major EHRs. Four weeks of focused work, mostly remote with one or two on-site days when the engagement warrants it, producing concrete artifacts the buyer can use to make a real go/no-go decision on the larger build.

The scope is deliberately narrow: one use case at a time. A hospital that wants ambient documentation, sepsis prediction, and AI medical coding does not run one Discovery for all three — that diffuses focus and produces shallow output on each. Each Discovery scopes a single use case in real engineering detail.

The buyer profile is broad: hospitals, ambulatory practices, specialty groups, CROs, pharma sponsors, medical device companies, and digital health startups all use Discovery Sprints. The deliverables are tuned per buyer profile but the structure is consistent.

The Four-Week Schedule, Week by Week

The Discovery Sprint follows a four-week structure designed to surface and close every consequential decision in the right order.

Week 1 — Use Case Scoping and Data Reality Check

Days 1–5 are focused on understanding the actual problem to be solved, not the proposed solution. The team interviews clinical users, reviews the existing workflow, maps the data sources, identifies any pre-existing pilots or attempted solutions, and produces a problem statement that includes acceptance criteria.

Specific work in Week 1: clinical user interviews (3–5 sessions), EHR data inventory (FHIR R4 endpoints, HL7 v2 feeds, custom data warehouses), competitive pattern review (what vendor products already address this and where their gaps are), and a draft problem statement signed off by the clinical sponsor.

The output of Week 1 is a one-page problem definition document that is the input for everything that follows.

Week 2 — Architecture, Model, and Compliance

Days 6–10 are where most of the engineering thinking happens. The team designs the technical architecture, selects the BAA-eligible model path, identifies FDA SaMD risk if applicable, maps the HIPAA Security Rule controls relevant to this use case, and identifies SOC 2 and HITRUST implications when commercial buyers are downstream.

Specific work in Week 2: architecture diagram (data layer, redaction layer, model layer, inference layer, audit layer, workflow integration layer), model provider selection with BAA chain documentation, FDA SaMD risk assessment using the published guidance, draft compliance roadmap, and an initial cost model for production inference at expected volume.

Week 3 — Eval Harness Skeleton and Integration Pattern

Days 11–15 turn the architecture into something concrete and testable. The team builds the eval harness skeleton — the test cases, metrics, and methodology that will be used to validate the model output during MVP and Pilot-Ready phases. The team also specifies the EHR integration pattern in detail (SMART on FHIR launch, FHIR Bulk Data, HL7 v2 ADT routing, or specialty-EHR-specific APIs as appropriate).

The eval harness skeleton is one of the most underrated outputs of a Discovery Sprint. A working harness on Day 15 means the MVP build (if it goes ahead) is testable from Day 1 instead of Day 90. For more on eval harness design, see the eval harness build add-on.

Week 4 — Synthesis, Pricing, and Decision Package

Days 16–20 turn everything into a decision package the buyer can take to a board, an investor, or an executive sponsor.

Specific work in Week 4: complete architecture document, written compliance roadmap, eval harness specification, fixed-price quote for the MVP Sprint or Pilot-Ready Sprint that follows, identified add-ons (FDA SaMD pathway, BAA Network Setup, eval harness build), and a go/no-go recommendation with explicit risks called out.

The Discovery Sprint ends with a 90-minute working session with the buyer’s leadership where the team walks through the package, answers questions, and the buyer decides whether to commit to the build.

The Five Outputs Every Discovery Delivers

Regardless of buyer profile or use case, every Discovery Sprint produces five artifacts:

1. Problem definition with acceptance criteria. One page, signed off by the clinical sponsor. Defines what success looks like, what the AI feature must do to be considered shipped, and what is explicitly out of scope.

2. Architecture document. Full data flow diagram. Model provider selection with BAA chain. Integration pattern with the target EHR. Audit logging design. Failure modes and fallback patterns. Suitable for hospital security review and IT architecture review.

3. Compliance roadmap. HIPAA Security Rule controls mapped to the architecture. SOC 2 and HITRUST implications when downstream. FDA SaMD risk assessment with recommended pathway. State-level compliance considerations (42 CFR Part 2 for behavioral health, state telemedicine rules, etc.) when applicable. See the HIPAA AI compliance checklist and BAA with AI providers page for the compliance frame.

4. Eval harness skeleton. Working test framework with initial test cases. Metrics defined. Acceptance thresholds drafted. Ready for execution against the model output once MVP begins.

5. Fixed-price quote for the next phase. Specific dollar amount for the MVP Sprint or Pilot-Ready Sprint that follows. Add-ons identified with prices. Timeline. Assumptions explicit. The quote is good for 90 days.

Who Should Be in the Room From Your Side

Discovery Sprints work when the right people show up from the buyer side. The typical participant profile:

Executive sponsor. CIO, CMIO, CTO, or VP-level operations leader. Decision authority for the build budget. Attends the kick-off and the closing session at minimum.

Clinical sponsor. The physician, nurse, or clinical leader whose workflow is affected. Owns the problem definition and acceptance criteria sign-off. Attends user interviews and the closing session.

Technical lead. EHR analyst, integration engineer, or technical owner. Attends Week 2 architecture sessions. Owns the technical handoff for the build phase.

Compliance and security lead. Privacy officer or security architect when hospital deployment is the target. Attends Week 2 compliance sessions. Owns BAA execution and security review for the build.

Optional: product or program manager. For commercial buyers (digital health startups, healthcare AI vendors) the product leader replaces the clinical sponsor role.

The Discovery Sprint runs efficiently with 3–6 people from the buyer side. More than 8 becomes harder to schedule. We have not seen a successful Discovery run with fewer than 3.

When Discovery Is the Right Engagement (and When to Skip)

Discovery Sprint is the right call when:

The team has a use case but no validated architecture

BAA-eligible model selection has not been decided

FDA SaMD risk has not been formally assessed

The EHR integration pattern is not yet specified

The team is asking for a fixed-price quote on the larger build before committing

Production reality

How Discovery De-Risks the Larger Engagement

The $45K Discovery is meaningful money. The math of why it nearly always pays for itself:

A failed MVP Sprint without Discovery: $95K spent, 8 weeks burned, output that does not match the actual need, team has to start over. Total cost of failure: $95K plus 8–12 weeks of opportunity cost.

A successful MVP Sprint after Discovery: $95K spent on the build the Discovery validated, output matches acceptance criteria, ready for Pilot-Ready phase. Total cost: $140K all-in, on time, on spec.

The Discovery’s $45K buys two things: confidence that the larger build is the right build, and a fixed-price quote so the larger build does not slip into time-and-materials cost overrun. Both are uncommon in healthcare AI engagements not structured this way.

After Discovery, the typical path is the MVP Sprint at $95K over 8 weeks followed by the Pilot-Ready Sprint at $145K over 12 weeks. Total productized pathway is $285K over 24 weeks from contract to clinical pilot readiness.

Engagement Logistics

Pricing. $45,000 fixed. No time-and-materials overage. 50% on contract signature, 50% at Week 2 milestone.

Timeline. 4 weeks calendar from kick-off. Most teams kick off 2–4 weeks after contract signature based on BAA and MSA execution timing.

Contracting. MSA plus SOW. BAA executed before any access to PHI-bearing systems or actual patient data. Synthetic data fine for early-week architecture work.

Delivery format. Hybrid: mostly remote work, with optional on-site days (1–2 typical) for clinical user interviews and the closing session. Final deliverables are written documents with diagrams.

Refund and reversal. If the Discovery surfaces that the use case is not viable (clinical workflow doesn’t support it, the data does not exist in usable form, the compliance posture is fundamentally blocked), the team produces the analysis explaining why and the buyer can choose not to proceed. The Discovery fee is not refunded; the analysis itself is the deliverable.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions About the Healthcare AI Discovery Sprint

Fixed. The Discovery scope is bounded by the contract — one use case, four weeks, the five outputs above. If the buyer wants to expand scope mid-engagement, that becomes a separate engagement or rolls into the MVP scope that follows. No time-and-materials overage on the Discovery itself.

In some cases yes. If a recent Discovery output (within 12 months) validates the architecture, or if the team has shipped a substantially similar production use case before, skipping Discovery is reasonable. We will tell you honestly during the sales conversation whether your situation qualifies.

The fixed-price quote at the end of Discovery is for the work scope that is actually feasible within the productized Sprint pathway. If the analysis surfaces that the project is meaningfully larger (which is rare but happens), the quote reflects that scope honestly — usually as a Pilot-Ready Sprint plus dedicated engineers for the additional capacity. Better to know at Week 4 than at Week 24.

We sign the BAA before any access to PHI-bearing systems. Discovery weeks 1–2 typically work on synthetic or de-identified data, with the BAA execution happening in parallel. By Week 3 the BAA is in place.

Yes for most engagements. On-site days add value for clinical user interviews and the closing leadership session, but are not strictly required. Remote-only engagements run successfully and cost the same.

The structure is the same — four weeks, five outputs, week-by-week schedule. The content differs. The oncology AI Discovery emphasizes the clinical workflow, the NCCN guideline integration, and the FDA SaMD risk. The BAA architecture Discovery emphasizes the subprocessor chain, the configuration verification, and the compliance documentation. Same engagement, tuned scope.

Discovery is time-boxed to 4 weeks deliberately — extending it past 4 weeks rarely produces better output and often produces analysis paralysis. If the team needs more time on a specific component (eval harness build, FDA SaMD pathway work, BAA Network Setup), those are separately scoped add-ons that begin after Discovery closes. See eval harness build add-on, FDA SaMD pathway add-on, and BAA Network Setup add-on.