Digital technology has successfully reached practically every sphere of our life. There are thousands of mobile healthcare apps on the market because of the benefits of healthcare mobile app development - the applications assist with the monitoring of health and make medical practitioners' and physicians' jobs easier.
This article will peel back the curtain on how such applications are created and outline their benefits to the industry. We will discuss the benefits, types of healthcare apps as well as a step-by-step guide of the development process. In addition, we will throw some light on the average cost of app development.
Benefits of Healthcare App
Everyone benefits from healthcare application development. For the patient, this means receiving medical care; for the specialist, it means reducing the workload of regular procedures, allowing more time to be spent on the real diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. Furthermore, mobile access to information facilitates data collection, accelerates decision-making, and reduces the distance between patient and doctor. Related article: Benefits of Healthcare LMS: Everything You Need to Know.
Benefits of Healthcare App For Doctors
Remote assistance
Mobile healthcare applications enable doctors to monitor patients' health even when they are a long distance away. Furthermore, doctors can save time by contacting patients via phone conversations, video chats, or app chats rather than seeing them in person.
Effective workload distribution
Doctors may schedule visits at the most convenient times using mHealth applications. They can also manage significant tasks via mobile and online apps.
Brand awareness
A lack of loyalty and trust was as painful as a toothache. A healthcare app increases a clinic or doctor's brand exposure. Patients' trust and loyalty rise when they are treated in a clinic with a digital presence. As a result, individuals are more likely to return to the same clinic in the future.
Benefits of Healthcare App For Patients
Improved treatment process
Video calls may be scheduled via mHealth applications, allowing patients and physicians to communicate more comfortably. Doctors have all of the tools they need to thoroughly assess patients. They create prescription lists and manage medicine regimens using the app.
Cost-efficiency
On the surface, this is true since online appointments are less expensive than in-person visits.
Online payment
There is no need for cash with the healthcare app. Patients may use the app to arrange an appointment and make a payment. It's quick, easy, and accessible.
Remote assistance
The bulk of difficulties may be resolved through healthcare applications, eliminating the need for patients to leave their homes. They don't have to waste time traveling to the hospital or waiting in line.
Types of Healthcare Apps
The type of application affects the entire process of developing a healthcare mobile app. Specifically, the product's capabilities, integrations, and the level of data protection necessary. Mobile health apps are classified into two types based on their intended use: applications for consumers (the general public) and apps for health professionals and medical institutions. Let's take a look at some of the most popular mHealth applications.
Fitness apps
Many fitness facilities across the world have temporarily closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Home fitness applications' popularity has skyrocketed, according to experts. These applications are popular because they help users keep track of their health and fitness by delivering various training regimens at a low cost.
Features:
Workouts from celebrity trainers that are both quick and effective.
Setting and achieving objectives with personalized training programs
Exploring workout categories, body parts, length, and intensity
On-demand training/join a future class
Guidance
HealthKit + Apple Watch/Samsung Watch/others integration with real-time heart rate
Examples:8fit, FitOn, Fit Radio
Telepharmacy apps
It is critical to be healthy and take your prescriptions exactly when your body requires them, but sometimes you simply forget. It is used by physicians to determine personalized medicine dosages depending on the patient's present health, age, weight, and other personal information, eliminating time-consuming manual computations, spreadsheets, and sophisticated instruments.
Healthcare application development may assist users with managing their medications, tracking their condition, developing healthy habits, and sharing data with physicians and caregivers. Personalization and proactive, preventative treatments can be facilitated by advanced AI and machine learning.
Features:
Integration with electronic health records, which allows the doctor to keep track of the patient's condition, treatment history, drugs, and dose.
Setting reminders for patients to take prescriptions by the attending physician (names of drugs and dosage).
Dose adjustments are made based on clinically established pharmacokinetic models, patient characteristics, drug concentrations, and genotype.
Treatment outcome prediction
Charts with a status update.
Making reports and distributing them to the doctor
Mobile healthcare apps for patient-doctor communication
One of the most popular types of healthcare mobile app development. Such applications can assist users in finding a medical professional, scheduling an appointment, arranging a video chat, and paying for a consultation via an integrated payment channel. Such services can boost patients' engagement in the treatment process and strengthen their commitment to the healthcare provider, while also increasing clinician-patient transparency.
Features:
Built-in messaging system
EHR
Video/Audio Call
Conferencing
HIPAA Compliance
Search for drugs, prescriptions
Virtual waiting room, two-way video communication
1-to-1 chat
Health Report Sharing
Telemedicine
Examples:MirrorFly, Siilo, HealthTap, Ease, Visit
Diet and nutrition apps
Obesity-related diseases have been identified as one of the top three fatalities in the majority of countries in recent years. Overweight/obesity is a widespread concern that may be treatable/preventable with mHealth. There are a plethora of similar applications available on the market. Nutritional (diet) suggestions, a comprehensive library of recipes and food descriptions, a calorie counter, diary, and progress chart are all included in the basic diet software suite.
Features:
Mega-database of foods validated and updated regularly, including restaurants, supermarket shops, special diets, and ethnic foods
AR Tool for smarter, healthier grocery shopping (to identify the location of a shopper inside a store and guide through the shopping experience)
Nutrient tracking in over 370,000 recipes database
List of purchases
Customizable dashboard for what matters most to you
Plan a meal for a user and track their carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and total calorie consumption.
Built-in barcode scanner for nutritious information in food at retailers.
Adding food images to the app
Examples: MyFitnessPal, MyNetDiary
Disease control and monitoring applications
These types of apps are in high demand these days. To limit the number of people infected with Covid-19, disease tracking applications are employed. There are additional applications for people with memory impairments that can help users with epilepsy, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, allergies, and even depression monitor and anticipate their medication and food intake.
Features:
Enter seizure information manually so that the user may define the type of seizure, time of day, length, and other relevant information.
Smartphone video recording allows users to describe their seizures, triggers, and what happened afterwards to their doctor (or family).
Tools for self-management: Patients can take their blood pressure or heart rate at any time and preserve the results.
Reminders and notifications: To remind the patient to arrange an appointment, take his medicines, go for a stroll, or get a blood test.
Medication list and schedule: Chronic care coordination applications with a calendar are required for patients to keep track of their medicines and prevent missing or overdosing on them.
Reports on patient data summary: Health data reports are essential for the doctor to examine changes over time and make treatment program adjustments.
This is a telemedicine service that allows patients to schedule a video consultation with a doctor.
Real-time feedback and chat: If a patient becomes ill, he or she can quickly call a doctor using this tool.
Examples: Covid Symptom Study app, Carezone, Instant Heart Rate app, COVID Tracker
Lifestyle apps
Some may question if lifestyle apps are really relevant to healthcare app development. However, they are a true component of the healthcare sector, providing a combination of daily counsel and exercises, training, or courses to enhance the general state of mind and well-being. If we can order takeaway and taxis with the press of a button, why not meditation sessions? With rising stress and the need to multitask practically everywhere, lifestyle applications are in high demand.
Features:
Any device can gain access.
Push alerts and reminders (drink water, go to bed according to the schedule, stay active and do some exercises)
Sessions of meditation
Setting objectives
Progress monitoring
Daily guidance
Connection to wearable devices such as the Apple Watch, Samsung Watch, and Fitbit, as well as the option to use as a standalone app
Fitness instruction
Examples:Calm, Fabulous, Stoic
Apps for social networking and health forums
Community is also important, particularly in the middle of a pandemic. There are social networking sites for medical professionals to engage, study, and share their expertise in order to keep on top of the newest digital developments in healthcare.
Features:
Video Calls
Voice Calls
History log/calls
HIPAA Security
Voicemail
Notifications
Examples:Doximity, DailyRounds
Assistants for pregnant
It provides a complete resource for pregnant women. A pregnant newsfeed, fitness and nutrition suggestions, and a daily maternity calendar are among the features. The software also includes a birth plan checklist, contraction timer, and baby name generator. After the baby is born, the app will become a daily parenting guide.
Features:
Features for Fertility Tracking, Pregnancy, and Labor
Calendar and Ovulation Calculator
Articles and tips about preparation for pregnancy and conceiving
Calculate Your Baby's Due Date
Bumpie Picture Diary is a simple pregnancy photo tool that allows you to take weekly belly shots and transform them into a time-lapse bumper film to share or keep in your pregnancy diary.
Timer for Contraction
Baby Registry Checklist Baby Kick Counter
Pregnancy Calendar with hundreds of BabyCenter articles
Baby Names Finder, a site to look for names based on meaning, origin, theme, and more.
Examples: Pregnancy Tracker , Flo
10-Steps Guide of Healthcare App Development
Let’s discuss a series of time-tested steps to develop a healthcare app.
Understand the Requirements
To begin, while selecting healthcare mobile app development services, you must clearly identify the problem that must be solved or the gap that must be filled. There are several options for healthcare application development, and you must be clear about what you want. Your target audience, competition, costs, and so on are all aspects to consider while developing a healthcare application. Healthcare applications for patients, for example, must suit the unique needs of the organization's patients and should be chosen accordingly.
Know the Users
Are you interested in developing mobile healthcare apps for patients or medical professionals? Custom healthcare software development is more likely to succeed if it is created with the user in mind. Once this difference is made, it is time to successfully connect with the end-user in order to understand their requirements and goals through the health care application.
Identify the Need to be Addressed
Are you interested in developing mobile healthcare apps for patients or medical professionals? Custom healthcare software development is more likely to succeed if it is created with the user in mind. Once this difference is made, it is time to successfully connect with the end-user in order to understand their requirements and goals through the health care application.
Decide the Third-Party Applications to be Integrated
Whether you want to combine EHR systems or different features, it is important to understand the various integrations necessary from the start. Only when all linkages have been explored may mobile health application development begin. To handle this component, the medical software programmer should be well briefed on the app's needs from the company and the patient. Medical app development is typically more effective when approached holistically. Healthcare cloud computing may be a fantastic tool for developing unique mHealth apps.
Develop the Framework
This is the key element that keeps your healthcare product software development going. When beginning the construction of a healthcare app, it is critical to strike a balance between innovation and standard structures. The healthcare software product development team must strike a balance between a user-friendly design and the few steps required to complete a task. The key to effective mHealth app development is a responsive and intuitive design.
Code the Design
This is the stage at which the designs are eventually coded. The developers divided the work wisely and established a reasonable timeframe. The technology stack has been selected, and work has begun in earnest.
Testing
Every type of software, whether a mobile application or something installed on on-premises PCs, must go through comprehensive testing. The program is tested using well-defined parameters to determine its speed, security, usability, and functionality, among other things.
In addition, testers check that the application conforms with HIPAA requirements, failing to which might result in substantial legal implications. Errors or bugs detected during this phase are clearly recorded for mobile health app developers to work on.
Debugging
Debugging follows the testing process of designing a health app, as the title suggests. Bugs and glitches that hinder the app's smooth operation are fixed, and the changes are properly recorded. Following that, the application is re-tested for issues and debugged if any occur.
Implementation
After all issues have been resolved, the application is ready to be launched or implemented in specific healthcare facilities. It is natural for users (staff/patients) to become accustomed to it after deployment.
Support
It is the healthcare mobile app development company's responsibility to provide ongoing assistance for their platform's users. This involves dealing with difficulties that may arise at any moment during operations and delivering timely updates.
How much does it cost to develop a healthcare mobile app?
The more complicated the concept, the more expensive the creation of a healthcare application. Many hours of development and testing are required for custom UI components, the amount of screens and application states, buttons, fields, business logic, and the server infrastructure.
The cost of developing a healthcare mobile app is often determined by:
Pre-development (analyzing the competition, market stage, defining features for execution, etc) (analyzing the competition, market stage, identifying features for implementation, etc.)
The number of platforms you want to target (iOS, watchOS, iPadOS, Android, Wear OS, or both)
Use of specialized technology and breakthroughs such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and so on.
The complexity of app design, modifications, branding, animations, and so on. The software development vendor with whom you choose to collaborate.
The app's screens, activities, and data. This is one of the most costly components. Each screen must be considered:
Choose the best combination of components and buttons.
Think about the company's logic.
Consider the user's convenience.
Hundreds of hours of work by several professionals - from the project manager to the tester - are behind this.
According to a study of 2,400 mobile healthcare providers conducted by Research2Guidance, the average cost of healthcare application development is around $425,000. Only 47% of the money goes straight to development. The remainder is spent on marketing, licensing, and administration. Thus, around 36% of all suppliers spent less than $25,000 building their mobile applications, while just 12% spent more than $500,000. Moreover, the likelihood of success relates with the amount of the budget: the higher the budget, the greater the possibility of success.
How to Choose the Right Technology Partner to Develop a Healthcare App?
The top development companies should be able to advise you from the conception of your app to its launch and beyond, while providing feedback based on their past experience with similar apps. Because of their combined expertise that extends well beyond a given product, the top firms already know what works well.
Whereas some healthcare organizations are frequently afraid to collaborate with healthcare app development partners for fear of these agencies not knowing a certain product well enough, the reality is quite the contrary. You only know about the app you're attempting to develop, yet a healthcare organization has seen the creation of hundreds of identical applications. Related article: How to Find App Developer for Your Business Requirements?
Final Thoughts
There are huge financial opportunities for healthcare app development, and individual healthcare providers or organizations are investing in this industry to improve service quality, boost operational efficiency, and promote patients' self-management habits.
Always look for relevant industry experience while evaluating possible technical partners. Request their portfolio. Inquire about their strategy, as well as their price, knowledge, privacy, and data security. Meet the team members who will be working on your project to evaluate their experience, skills, and professionalism. PioGroup is ready to assist you in healthcare mobile app development, from business analysis to product deployment.
There are a lot of aspects to consider when launching mobile apps in the medical industry, and we hope that this article will assist you in making the right decisions.
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Anastasiia Dyshkant
Content Marketing Manager
