Healthcare App Development Services

The healthcare industry has traditionally been resistant to innovation. Just a few years ago, connecting with a doctor via video call was revolutionary. However, the situation changed dramatically during the pandemic: online doctor consultations became commonplace, the younger generation started paying closer attention to their health, and hospitals began embracing new technologies. This shift created numerous opportunities for startups developing healthcare software.

Why Do You Need a Healthcare App?

Healthcare applications are usually developed with two main goals: generating revenue and/or enhancing the standard of provided medical care. The first is crucial for entrepreneurs who often release relatively simple fitness apps, insurance apps, or consultation apps to break into a market projected to be worth $50 billion by 2050. Patients eagerly use these apps as the technology simplifies health monitoring and offers much-needed convenience.

How Quality Software Improves Patient Experience

Effective medical solutions can enhance the user experience for everyone involved in healthcare. Here are some examples of how quality software impacts the field:

• Streamlines Hospital Workflows: Medical platforms replace stacks of paperwork and automate routine tasks for doctors. For instance, instead of making entries in paper medical charts, doctors use electronic medical records (EMRs) to store information about medical history, prescriptions, doctors’ notes, and other health data.
• Centralized Patient Information: The main advantage of EMRs is that all patient data is stored in one place. There’s no need to piece together past diagnoses or request lab results—everything is in the database and accessible online.
• Makes Healthcare More Accessible: During the pandemic, not all patients could visit doctors in person. For those at high risk, like the elderly, telemedicine became crucial: online consultations, electronic prescriptions, and remote monitoring were actively developed.
• Promotes Self-Help Tools: Health trackers help users reduce risks by incorporating small but effective habits into daily life, such as regular meditation, walks, and stretching throughout the day.

Types of Healthcare Applications

MHealth apps for medical centers can be divided into two main categories: client-facing and internal applications.

Client Applications

• Health Scanner. These apps create a health map based on external data, such as research, blood test results, and smart device readings.
• Analysis Interpretation and Storage. Medical laboratories also have apps that provide patients with quick access to test results. Instead of sending SMS notifications or waiting for the patient to collect results, they are given a password to their personal account in the mobile app, keeping health information readily available.
• Women’s Health Calendars. These serve multiple purposes, allowing users to track their menstrual cycle and ovulation, note symptoms, and plan pregnancies. Leaders in this category, like Flo and Clue, offer educational content such as blog articles and courses from doctors and medical experts.
• Mental Health Support. This category offers tools and advice to improve mental health, manage stress, anxiety, and depressive moods.
• Nutrition and Fitness Planning. These apps offer personalized home workout and nutrition plans for goals like weight loss, toning, or muscle gain.

Internal Applications for Hospitals

These are channels designed for clinic administration and doctor communication. They can perform various tasks:

• Reference Apps for Doctors. Knowledge base apps that store information useful to doctors in daily practice or research.
• Staff Applications. These help maintain internal communication among clinic doctors and enable consultations with colleagues from related fields about specific patient conditions.
• Clinic Management. These apps handle various administration tasks and can be linked to web services that fully automate clinic operations.
• Telemedicine Platforms. Allow online consultations with doctors, a practice that gained popularity during the pandemic when many hospitals stopped accepting non-emergency patients. Many clinics switched to online consultations, enabling doctors to diagnose and prescribe treatment promptly.

Do Health Apps Generate Revenue?

Absolutely! There are several monetization strategies:

• Paid Subscriptions. Offer users access to premium features temporarily. For example, MyFitnessPal offers a subscription for $9.99 per month or $49.99 per year, which removes ads, allows data export, scans meals using the camera, and provides detailed diet analysis.
• Paid Content. Another way to earn from software is by offering access to expert content or courses after payment, teaching users how to improve their health and well-being. Flo, a cycle tracking app, provides audio and video lectures from doctors for $10 per month or $49.99 per year, along with women’s health articles.
• In-App Advertising. While ads can annoy users, they provide revenue for startups from advertisers looking to reach your audience. For example, low-calorie snack companies often advertise in calorie-counting apps. However, balance is crucial to avoid harming user experience.

Cost of Developing Healthcare
Mobile Apps

The cost of developing a healthcare app increases with the complexity of the concept. Numerous development and testing hours are needed for user interface components, application states, buttons, fields, business logic, and server architecture. The cost usually depends on:

• Business analysis: competitor analysis, user pathways, and experience, technology stack.
• Platform selection: iOS, Android, watchOS, etc.
• Choosing specific technologies like machine learning and AI.
• App design specification, branding, etc.
• The mobile app development service provider you choose to hire.

One of the most expensive parts of healthcare mobile app development is implementing business logic and application screens, requiring a team of specialists from mobile developers to project managers and quality assurance engineers.

Creating Medical Mobile Applications

1. Define Goals and Scope: The first step is understanding your target audience’s pain points and problems. Identify what’s missing for users to provide a unique solution, akin to studying a route before an expedition. Imagine developing an app for people living with diabetes; understanding their needs is crucial.

2. Market Research: After identifying user needs, research competitors by analyzing existing market apps to find a missing segment that improves user experience. Answer the question: “What do users want but aren’t getting?”

3. Define Functionality: With the basics covered, plan the functionality. Don’t limit yourself to your segment’s apps; draw inspiration from any services you admire. Borrow cool features, like interactive functions from gaming apps or easy navigation from social networks, to secure a market advantage. Think outside the box!

4. Assemble a Team: Beyond developers, who are pivotal, you’ll need UI/UX designers, QA testers, and data security specialists. For insider data, include experts in healthcare, fitness, or nutrition based on your app’s focus. For a meditation app, invite a practitioner. If finding experts is challenging, consult a company experienced in developing such apps.

5. Develop and Test Prototypes: This stage involves creating design layouts, feedback mechanisms, and testing with users. Expect many iterations; after feedback, make improvements and test again. Find potential users for testing to get valuable feedback. For a menstrual cycle tracking app, involve women who use cycle calendars.

6. Enhance Technical Aspects: Start with choosing the right platform—native, web, or hybrid—based on app functionality and audience. Focus on data protection and regulatory compliance.

7. Implement Analytics Tools: Set up user data collection and determine key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate and optimize app effectiveness post-launch.

8. Launch: After completing development stages, launch the app in stores. But hold the champagne! Plan a marketing strategy involving partners and influencers, media interaction plans, and content strategy development. Consider a soft launch with a beta version for feedback before the official release to fix issues and avoid major reputation mistakes.

9. Regularly Update and Support Users: Efficient customer support and regular updates ensure your app meets audience needs. Remember, updates and support are ongoing processes! Users need care, expecting apps to work correctly, add new features, fix bugs, and respond promptly to messages. User feedback is a free and valuable tool.

Conclusion

In healthcare, new technologies optimize workflows, collect patient information, increase healthcare accessibility, and promote self-help tools, benefiting both doctors and patients. A quality healthcare app facilitates efficient information exchange between doctor and patient, needing to be comfortable and secure—a role quality development fulfills. It’s essential to continue improving functionality based on user demands, not stopping at minimally satisfactory results.

Developing med-tech is crucial for patients without access to needed doctors. Digital products can make qualified care economically and geographically accessible, attracting more users. This is why businesses start investing in med-tech services.