A-z things about Healthcare mobile app development

Everything around us is mobile starting from ordering food to booking air tickets. It is only genuine that even healthcare to have its own application. When you are working with healthcare mobile app development, as it is a crucial task you will have to do a lot of research even before you can start planning the mobile app development for healthcare.

A healthcare app is everything that you would want your mother to do for you, an app that will take care of you. There are many types of healthcare mobile app development options, for different areas of specialization. At first, you will have to know about the whats and whys.

Recently one of our customers asked us to make a healthcare app he was a bit puzzled with what to include and what to leave behind. We at Vyrazu Labs on starting the development of the app after we did hand-in-hand research with him so that his confusions were over and the task could take off. Enough chit-chatting. Now, before we can go off to the main subject of healthcare mobile app development let us look at a few utilities of this kind of apps. 

The utility of a healthcare mobile app development  

If you go through a healthcare mobile app development at first you will have to know what are the utilities of this app. I presume that you already know what a healthcare app is, it is used for numerous tasks. Now a healthcare app can also be a gym app that helps you to maintain your weight and health at the same. On the other hand, a healthcare mobile app development is something which will be used for certain reasons that will help your customers to directly take care of their health if they get sick or need medical assistance they will be able to do it by using your app. 

When you develop a healthcare mobile app you can integrate anything that you want while I can give you some examples of its utility. A healthcare medical app provides your customers with daily nutrition charts and exercises to keep both the body and the mind healthy.

On the other hand it is responsible for other tasks like it makes the conversation between the doctor and the patients easy, for calling the doctor’s clinic or the doctor in times of emergencies, your customers can book an online appoint after checking the feedback, the reviews and ratings by looking into their qualification (hence there should be different profiles for doctors), and your customers can also get the directions to reach the doctor’s clinic using your app. 

The other utilities like providing lab reports and maintaining and analyzing (online) your customer’s reports so that they can use it anytime they want. You can also make your app compatible with syncing other apps this will help your customers to access the pharmacy app right from where they are. There are few healthcare apps which have gained a lot of fame, apps like 3D Human Anatomy Atlas, 1up Health, Asthma sense, ACT.md, Cancer.NET

What is the present condition of healthcare mobile app development?

In a survey conducted in the USA, the results have shown that almost a quarter of adults use one or sometimes more than one healthcare apps to take care of them and their family. It has also been noted that a third of physicians have recommended an app to their patients. It is quite evident that when a task can be done from home why to stand in long queues for doing the same. Most probably in the next few years, these statistics will go up and make space for easy healthcare. 

In 2019 an average of 47,878 iOS healthcare apps is present in the market, according to statista. This creative outburst of technology brought about growth in the healthcare industry. The hospitals and other fields where doctors dwell started to rely on healthcare mobile app development so that they can provide their patients with improved healthcare solutions for collecting and sharing medical details. 

However, all the apps do not gain the amount of fame they desire as they fail to interest their customers with an incompetent user interface and functionality and poor user experience. So, you must keep in mind certain points before you the healthcare mobile app development. So, your audience can not complain about the usage of the app.

1. There should be huge information on clinical data, lack of which might cause a problem
2. Using confusing designs might cause a negative effect on the users
3. If your app does not function as it should you will lose customers
4. Maintain a solid privacy regulation and security practice as that is the key to success
5. Clean user experience so that your customers can get their problems resolved in one click.

The types of healthcare mobile app development you can perform

The type of healthcare app depends on its utility. There can not be just one app that does all the work, hence there have different types of apps that have to work for maintaining your health. There are many apps, like healthcare and fitness app which is responsible for providing information on the exercise you can do regularly to stay fit there are nutrition apps as well which helps in setting the diet chart for its customers. 

There are numerous other apps like women’s healthcare app only for women to make appoints and solve gyne related problems, medication management app helps you remember your medication so you can take it on time, children healthcare apps are only for child-specialists and problems related to children’s health, personal health records app for keeping checks and balance on your health without anyone else’s involvement, and emergency and urgent care app which will guide you accordingly in case of emergencies or urgent needs.

Apart from this, I have made a list of the primarily used medical apps. The ones I mentioned are just subdivisions of these points.

• Healthcare Apps for regular use- This app will help your customers with heavy diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, etc which needs to be checked and looked after almost every day. This kind of healthcare mobile app development will include daily measures of checks and balances that will send reminders of medications and will help your customers to maintain a healthy diet by sending them charts of their appetites, food elements that is not allowed for certain patients.

• Healthcare apps for clinical use and assistance- This healthcare mobile app development will help your customers to check their EHR or EMRs i.e. electronic health/medical records. Using this app will help your customers to access the e-reports for their health purposes. As technology has developed it has influenced the healthcare market as well. The AI domination has spread like a virus with all the systems helping them to analyze reports and suggestions on what the patient should do for such a report. These apps also provide doctor’s contacts so that the patients can consult with the doctor on the reports and ask them what measures they can take. This app might involve video calling and other features like chatting keeping aside e-report integration.

• Healthcare for doctor’s reference- This healthcare mobile app development will help your users to see suggestions on which doctors are available and when can they schedule a session with them. In this app, there will be reviews and ratings on doctors depending on their qualifications and treatment done for the other users. This app will include video calling, directions to the clinic, calling features, making an appointment, canceling an appointment, etc. When your users access this app they should land on the homepage where the activity feed should be present on the home page so that they can see the activities of the doctors and their treatment process.

• Healthcare apps for reminding the users- A mobile app development for healthcare in this area will include the app to send reminders to the users so that they do not forget to take the medications, attend doctors appointments, eat healthy food, consume a lot of water, exercise on time, etc. This app will help your users to take the medication on time, this app might include a shopping list for medicines and food items so that they can purchase what is needed and avoid unhealthy consumption. 

• Medical software- This kind of software will help the technicians (radiologists) to use the x-ray feature, diagnose the patient and provide descriptions on the symptoms detected by the software. This software can be integrating into your app so that the users can scan for broken bones or muscle cramps.

• Healthcare apps for a healthy lifestyle- When a healthcare mobile app development platform like this is being spoken about I should mention that these apps concern in the areas where they can help your users to maintain a healthy lifestyle by offering gym training, tracking your progress, determining calorie intake, etc. These apps might not have doctor’s contacts but it will help your customers to maintain a healthy lifestyle by keeping on reminding them about performing an exercise on a daily basis and eat healthy food. This can also be an obesity management app that will help your customers to reduce weight and maintain that stats even after they have reached their optimum weight.  

The features of a healthcare mobile app development

When you are on to mobile app development for healthcare it is important for you to understand what are the features that you can add in such an app. Let me first tell you what is the functionality of these features. The features that you can add in a healthcare mobile app development is directly proportional to the function you want your app to do. As we have already spoken about the different types of apps this will help you to locate which app will use what features. 

The healthcare mobile apps development that you will execute will have to provide certain things such as:

Functions

1. Book appointments and view the doctor’s schedule for when he is free and your user can consult the doctor.
2. Sending your users reminders on appoints, medication, etc.
3. Your users should be able to book, change and cancel the appointments. 
4. Sending e-prescriptions to the patients and refilling those prescriptions.
5. Receiving a notification on hospital events and news such as blood donation camp setup, free health checkup week, dental week, etc.
6. Your users must be able to access electronic medical records and lab reports, download and upload them. Reports such as ultrasound scans, MRI scans, X-rays, etc.
7. The profiles of doctors should be updated and open for all your users to view those profiles, in which they can see the photos of the doctors, qualifications, experience, records, etc.
8. Your user should be able to call or video call the doctor to consult them for emergencies.  
9. Integrating maps will be a splendid idea that will guide your users to the right directions in the hospital wards, doctor’s chambers, etc and for a fitness app, it should show the direction that the user will follow back home.
10. A healthcare app is also responsible for monitoring the height and weight changes, cholesterol levels, glucose, and other such health indicators.

Features

For performing the functions mentioned above there are certain features that have to be integrated into the healthcare mobile app development. All the features that are mentioned below can not be integrated into one particular type of healthcare mobile app development, whereas you will get a hint of which one can be integrated with which type of app. These are very complicated features and are very expensive.

General Features– 

• Login and registration- The login and registration is a feature that is present in almost all the apps, this is a feature which allows you to draw information from your users and use it as data to serve that user regarding their specific needs. The login and registration can also be done by social media influence, i.e. you can ask your user to login with Google or Facebook account which will help you to draw data from their social networks.

• Customer profile- The customer profile is completely devoted to the customers, it will consist of their pictures, age, gender, what medical issues they have, and other details like email, etc.

• User dashboard- This is a feature that will allow your users to create pages that will contain charts, forms, and other customized information.

• Smart search- The search option is again a famous feature. This allows the customers to make their search according to their requirement also use for the search, they will be able to find out the medical support according to the payment they are willing to make or the location they want to visit the doctor in, etc.

• Activity Feed- This is for the users who have a tendency to order chronologically, hence showing their previous orders or checkups will help them keep track of their medical status.

• SSL encryption and two-factor authentication- The user is entitled to a secure authentication method that will protect their information from the pirates of the internet. This is a feature for user benefit.

• API for third-party- There are a few third-party integrations which are necessary for healthcare mobile app development one of them being Google maps and the other can be any other pharmacy app that will act as the online store for the customers.

• Payment gateways- You have to introduce payment gateways in your healthcare mobile app development so that the users are able to pay directly through your app. This can include a number of payment options so that the user doesn’t face any difficulty to pay online.

• Multiple device compatibility- The healthcare mobile app development should be performed in such a way that the user is able to access the app from any device, not only devices like mobile phones, computers, laptops, and tablets but also devices which are wearables i.e smartwatches, Fitbit, etc. 

• Notifications- All the apps out there send notifications for their users to stay updated with what is going on in those apps. However, the notifications that you will send will be completely medicine oriented i.e. notifications about doctor’s appointments, checkups, medications, what’s new in the app, what are the programs the hospitals have introduced that week, etc.

Medical Features– 

• Medical work automation- This feature is a supportive module to EHR, which includes medications, incident tracker, and accidents. This is done so that this report can be submitted to the professionals about the dosage of medication and its timings, refreshing fluid timings, waste and drug management, etc.

• EMR/EHR- The electronic medical record and electronic health record module provide a centralized system for easy management of patient data and records. This also helps the patient to stay connected with their records so that they can easily show it to their doctors using the app.

• Communication between the doctor and the patient- This is like a chatting service within the app which will help the patients to directly talk to their doctors about appointment scheduling, communication on the progress or deterioration from the medication, visit tracking, and other similar procedures.

• Video calling- Communication has different reaches hence a video calling service is very useful. As both the patient and the doctor can see each other and speak to one another from anywhere they are at. For the busy schedule of the doctors, this feature is a time saver and very productive. 

• Shopping cart- If your healthcare mobile app development can include medicines, medical goods, other medical products that the user can directly buy from the app then it will be easy for them to keep those things in the cart and look around for other necessary goods.

• Analysis and report- A regular check on the patient’s reports and healthcare so that the app can produce a percentage on how well the patient is that day and what are the measures they will have to take for attaining better health or maintain the good health that they are at.

Other features– 

• Help and FAQ- The patient or the user is entitled to some frequently asked questions which need to be answered this section or maybe a chatbot will answer any question they have regarding the app function or utility. 

• Report and analysis- A regular report on app behavior, any kind of issues, network bottlenecks, and app crashes, etc will be sent as reports so that the problems that arise can be fixed and maintained as per the requirement.

• Review and Rating- The customer will be able to review and rate the doctors on the basis of their treatment and behavior so that the other users can get an idea of how that doctor is and how he proceeds with his treatments.

These are the features that you can add in a healthcare mobile app development. Nevertheless, you can also consider adding other features that you feel fit to integrate into your mobile app development for healthcare. However, you will have to remember certain important points such as integrating a CMS in the development process so that it can maintain and manage all the content that is being produced in the app.

If you already have an existing website you have to introduce custom APIs for that website to pair with the app, this will help in exchanging data between the two fields. You will have to think about the design as well which has to be a clean user interface design so that it does not impact the mood of the users and they leave the app. The design has to be professional, unique along with some custom content and a page layout that sticks with the user. 

Note– for making an EMR system in your healthcare mobile app development you must follow certain guidelines that will allow you to run the app without any problems. *if you are not interested to equip this feature in your healthcare mobile app development you can skip this paragraph. 

The steps that you will have to follow before you integrate an EMR/EHR system.

• If your healthcare mobile app development has to be integrated with an EHR then you will have to think about making it multi-device compatible so that it can perform better with smartwatches, coaches, Fitbit, etc

• You will have to get legal permission before you can integrate this feature. A certification knows as HIPAA a famous certificate knows worldwide has to be acquired as well as you will have to get all the local certificates for the local regions.

• You have to think you introducing an appropriate and well off monetization methods such as in-app purchase, subscriptions, and ads which will help in the revenue model for the integration

• For integrating such complex features you will have to hire an experienced development company for your app so that the architecture of the app is not hampered. 

A successful healthcare mobile app development should look like this

For making your healthcare mobile app development a successful venture you have sought out your target audience as well as what are their needs and what they focus on for implementing the essential features in your healthcare mobile app development. If your app is a patient-based healthcare app the development should always target the end-users, their requirements and always should concentrate on delivering the amazing user experience.

If you have the plan ready and you have already selected your target audience the next thing that you will have to focus on is the market survey. The market survey will provide you with the necessary details that you will have to keep in mind while selecting the features. The next thing that you have to focus on is the UI/UX of the healthcare mobile app development. As it is very important to look after users’ experience you must not add bright colors in your healthcare mobile app development it will only cause loss of users. 

Healthcare mobile app development 

Encryption of data 

For better security, the app should ensure the protection of the data being shared in the app. The users and medical associates are sharing their delicate date on the app they would of course not want it to go wandering around the internet. Hence, encryption is very important. The encryption should take place in all the stages of data collection.

This data will be protected by a secret code that will only allow certain personnel to open this data who has access to this information or a passkey. An encrypted data is known as ciphertext and a decrypted text is known as plain text. As data encryption is being used in abundance the outdated data encryption standard (DES) is being replaced with the modern encryption algorithms.

The cost of mobile app development for healthcare

The development and the cost of a healthcare app depend on the features that you choose and ask you to integrate into the app. The ultimate cost reduction will go under just in this process. As the design is quite simple and sorted that will not consume much cash in the case of mobile app development for healthcare.

The first thing that is considered in the development process is the features that you add. It is evident that if you develop a complex app you will have to pay a lot of bucks. Depending on the features that you add will directly be proportional to the cost of building the app. You can start by integrating the simple features initially then looking at the app’s performance go up the ladder and add other advanced features that will help your users.

The second factor for cost is the time taken in development. More the features you add more time it will take. On average a healthcare mobile app development takes 30-45 days and if you are developing it for both the operating systems then it will take 20 days for the development of the app. Some companies like us, take the payment according to the time that is being consumed later comes the features part.

Thirdly, the platform that you choose will be a factor that will determine the cost of the development of the app. You can go for both the platforms or choose anyone depending on your target audience and what device they use. It will cost you at least $20,000 to $60,000 in the development process, coming from the previous experience we have. You might have completely other requirements and your cost can look completely different from this one.

Conclusion:

The healthcare mobile app that you develop will have to be absolutely amazing with certain unique features that all the other apps do not provide. Most essentially it should ethically and medically analyze the performance of both the user and the app. There are few regulations established and enforced by the law that will secure the sensitive health details of your users and making a secure app will also help in preventing data breaches. 

I hope this article was useful and it helped you to understand the basic needs and necessities for healthcare mobile app development. If you are planning to make such an app reach out to us, we are a leading software development and design company that will be able to meet any requirements that you have regarding information technology.

Leave feedback or comment if you think I have missed out on something. If you have any questions regarding this topic or anything that concerns information technology reach out to us we are here to help.