Digitization has offered a shield to every industry and healthcare is no exception. The number of healthcare apps continues to boost on Google Play and App Store as the current scenario is impacting the lives of millions. As per a report from Statista, the size of the market of the healthcare industry was around 106 billion USD in 2019. It continues to rise at an exponential rate. The market is projected to reach around 640 billion USD by 2026 at a 28.5% CAGR.
The COVID-19 outbreak has made us realize how crucial the health care system is and why is it necessary to mandate serious adjustments in healthcare applications.
The article is based on what are healthcare apps along with the comprehensive details that you must know before moving forward with your app development project.
What is mHealth, and why is it so Important?
Healthcare Mobile App is a program based on offering health-related information to patients and users. The professionals and the experts from the healthcare industry offer an appropriate solution to the users. The healthcare apps are divided into two main categories: Healthcare Apps for patients and healthcare app for users.
For Doctor: These apps are for the physicians and other healthcare professionals that offer a prescription to the patients based on the needs.
For Patients: These apps are for the patients and general users who can ask experts their queries and get instant resolution without having to wait in long queues. The general users can maintain their fitness by asking experts their queries.
The trend of healthcare apps has especially seen a huge rise during the pandemic as people fear visiting hospitals to get their treatments. Many of the startups and entrepreneurs have initiated to offer healthcare via applications so that the patients can stay home and stay safe while getting professional treatment at home. The outbreak has triggered a drastic rise in the market value and is projected to even grow more by the end of 2021.
Facts and Figures of the Healthcare Apps
As it can be seen that the value of the global healthcare market is expected to grow twice every year, there is a vast business opportunity in the industry. The global healthcare market value saw a growth of $6.7 billion in 2012 to $59 billion in 2020. Here is the graphic representation for the same.
- Research2Guidance reports that 80% of the physicians and patients are using medical applications that offer treatment with ease.
- 74% of hospitals that use mobile devices to collect healthcare data are more efficient than those that don’t.
- More than half of the population visiting hospitals have shown a will to shift from regular hospital visits towards mobile applications.
Top benefits of developing a Healthcare App
1. Easy monitoring for remote patients
These are the most crucial apps for healthcare workers as the doctor can keep an eye on the patient and monitor their health conditions. From patient medical reports to prescription to test reports, they can monitor the health of remote patients. Remote patient monitoring can be done that helps the patients to manage their condition and ensure they are taking the medications correctly.
2. Communication and Co-ordination
With mobile health technology and applications, there is an increased ability of the patients and doctors to stay connected. The platform makes it easier for the doctors to have a complete picture of the patient and treat them accordingly.
3. Professional Networking
The app provides a platform and a network that allows professionals to share their knowledge while answering all the queries of the users and interacting as a community.
4. Gives Patients a Faster Access
The patients no longer have to stand in long queues for their treatments. The pandemic has hit the country so hard that it is unsafe for the patients to visit hospitals. With the health applications, the patient can schedule an appointment with the Doctor anytime and gets faster access to the services.
5. Improved Medication
Once the patient is discharged, it becomes difficult for the doctors to monitor the patients whether they are taking the medication or not. Poor medication leads to bad health, and it is the significant reason for poor management of the patient's chronic condition. But with the mHealth applications, there is an improvement in patient health as it offers automated features that remind the users about medications and other necessary information.
Categories of Healthcare Mobile Apps
1. Chronic Care Management Apps
For all the patients who are suffering from chronic diseases such as Blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and more chronic mobile care health apps are a savior. These apps are proven to be an ideal solution that offers easy monitoring for the patients.
2. Medical Apps
These apps help to serve and offer diagnosis to the patient. It creates an alert and serves customers as a medical reference for both patients and physicians.
3. Healthcare and Fitness Apps
Different activity tracking apps, diet, and nutrition monitoring apps, physical workout, and weight loss/gain apps belong to this segment. With these apps, users can get regular health and fitness tips via push notifications.
These different tracking applications such as health and nutrition tracking, monitoring apps, workout apps help the users to avail the regular benefit of these applications and avail their benefits.
4. Personal Health Record Apps
With these applications, patients can store and share their health and related data with the doctors.
Features for Healthcare Application Development
1. Registration
Both the users and doctors should be able to log in via the app efficiently. The registration can be done via emails, phone numbers, or social media accounts such as Facebook or Google accounts.
2. Profile Creation
The users and doctors should be able to create an efficient profile. It should allow them to fill in all their basic details, profile pictures, medical history, qualification and experience for the doctor, and more.
3. Filter Options
The advanced filter option allows the users to find the physician simply and effectively. The filter should include options such as doctor specialization, experience, and more.
4. Tracking
This is the most crucial feature for doctors. It allows them to track and monitor the health of the patient that includes Blood pressure, sugar level, calorie count, and more.
5. Geolocation
Suppose a patient is away from the usual health clinic and needs emergency assistance. The app has inbuilt features that allow the user location to be tracked and help the service provider to reach the patient immediately.
6. Review and Ratings
The user and doctor both should be able to review and rate. It also helps the patient to determine whether they should avail the services from the doctor based on the previous ratings.
7. Chat/Video call
Video call offers real-time assistance via the camera and microphones of mobile devices. Real-time communication offers an efficient way of interaction and a perfect resolution to the patients.
8. Schedule Appointment
The doctor can check out their calendar to schedule an appointment and on the other hand, patients can check the doctor's schedule for booking the appointment.
9. Payment Options
The integrated payment gateway option helps the user to make the payment instantly using their Debit/Credit cards, e-wallets, etc.
Choose a Monetization Model
1. In-app ads
This model allows third parties to promote their products or services on your platform. The advertiser can charge a cost-per-click by the app owner or fix a commission.
2. Freemium
This is a monetization method, where the patient is offered the basic features of the app only. For advanced features, the users need to have access to the paid version.
3. Subscription
It is one of the most popular monetization strategies where the patients and users can subscribe to avail of the services offered by the app.
What influences the cost of the Healthcare Mobile App?
Several factors affect and influence the cost of healthcare mobile applications. Here they are:
- Number of features
- Number of platforms
- Number of app back-end integrations
- Size of the development team
- Hourly developer rate
Healthcare app is the need of the hour!
The mHealth apps offer a great alternative for both patients and doctors. It offers many benefits such as tracking patient progress, their recovery, detail about medications, and much offer. During this scenario, such apps have become the need of the hour!
There is no need to invest a fortune in mobile app development. If you are a startup, you can begin with an MVP that has the basic features and integrate more with time.
There is a huge demand for efficient, user-friendly, and secured mobile applications. Therefore, it is the most crucial time to invest in such an app and create a future solution for the users. Are you looking forward to developing on-demand healthcare application? If yes, ToXSL is one of the best organization for your healthcare mobile application development Contact us to know more!
