Healthcare Apps Full Guide: Types, Features and Compliances Compared

Software and apps have penetrated into all walks of life. Likewise, healthcare is also not left untouched from it. Apps have provided immense benefits to users as well as opened doors to new possibilities and opportunities. In some cases, technology has resulted in life-saving breakthroughs. Who’s up for a deep dive?

The first decade of 2000 was about how to make things possible on the hardware level. However, the paradigm has shifted towards improvements and new possibilities using the software. And the simplest contribution is healthcare apps.

Healthcare apps bring convenience for our hard-working medics while improving the quality of the services they deliver. Not only a patient can book an appointment and consult a doctor online, but a doctor can also help people from the comfort of his couch.

Not only that, AI and big data have lent their services for better diagnosis and treatment and it is going to expand in the future. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Types of Healthcare apps

1. Consultation Apps

Practo and Lybrate are two successful apps that allow patients to get in touch with doctors and discuss their matters online.

2. Medics’ Assistance Apps

a.) Nursing apps help to keep track of the patients’ treatment and schedule.

b.) Diagnosis apps are very convenient for chronic diseases that are much easier to treat in the early stages. For example, a hospital can have apps for nuclear facility workers that have exposed themselves to radiation while on duty and keep track of the patient’s condition.

c.) Testing software is often accompanied by some medical machinery like an MRI, a CT scan, or an x-ray. They take data from the patient’s examination in the machinery and process it to expose noteworthy areas. More modern software applications are supported by historical data of past cases and allow these apps to provide a more detailed opinion.

The majority of these apps are specially developed depending upon the usage and allied equipment.

What all types of healthcare apps can be there?

3. Self-care Apps

a.) General health test and fitness apps

b.) Women’s health apps

c.) Pill and medication reminders

d.) Weight loss and dieting apps

e.) Mental health apps

Period tracker, Zero Fasting, Flo, and Home Workout are some of the best self-care apps on the market.

4. Educational Apps

5. The Future

How to build an online consultation app?

1. Pre-commencement Analysis

Do they prefer an online consultation or do they book an appointment on the app and visit the doctor afterward? How do doctors use the apps? Are they comfortable with video chat or call the patient at the clinic for a proper checkup?

All of these aspects will allow you to understand both the patient’s and the medical consultant’s perspectives. This will help to ensure that you pay appropriate attention to important considerations on each side and ultimately, optimize your feature set.

Consulting some doctors may also prove to be useful because ultimately, they will be the ones to decide if they can offer their services remotely.

2. Design and experience

Besides, a patient would not like to go through a longer booking process if he is in pain. You just want a few taps and get in touch with the doctor straight away.

It is vital that key features like booking an appointment should be cleanly laid out with drop-down menus for the selection of the type of ailment and the expert you want to get in touch with. UI design should reflect the UI trends of the current popular apps so patients are not in an absolutely new land

An important thing to consider here is during the design and development phase, you should be compassionate about the patient. While the doctor may be able to put up with even a tricky design, the patient is not always in a condition to do the same. The same goes for the color scheme, e.g. a color-blind person using the app may not be able to differentiate between colors alone if they indicate three different options.

3. Features to include

i.) Registration and Profile Management

Creating an account and login set up is one of the necessary features to be included because these will eventually help to keep track of the patient’s illness over time as he uses the app and consults different experts.

The same goes for the doctor who wants to offer his services through the app. During the process of setting up his account, the consultant will provide details about his qualification and experience. Thus, helping to build trust between the two parties.

ii.) Search and Filters

It should be convenient for the patient to search for an appropriate doctor so while the doctors should be categorized based upon their expertise, the app should include options to rate them as well. This will allow better consultants to rank higher and people will be able to consult the best among the best conveniently.

Include a history of physicians that a patient has consulted as well so that they do not have to search through the entire list every time they want to book an appointment.

iii.) Scheduling an Appointment

Getting an appointment is the next step once you are done with setting up your account. This feature should be integrated with special focus and should be flawless to avoid any inconvenience in the app.

The doctor should have the liberty of setting up his working hours and how many days he wants to work in a week. Next, the app should ask about how much time he/she needs to attend to each patient. The selected options should populate available slots on the patients’ end among which they can book an appointment. Make sure that one slot should only be able to be booked once.

In case of emergency, including an option to contact the doctor as soon as possible so that any critical situation can be handled.

iv.) Video&Audio Calls and Chats

In the case of an online consultation app that allows an online examination as well, video call and chatbox features are important so that the patient can appropriately share his condition with the doctor. Video calls are a standard feature for such apps which can easily be integrated these days with the help of video call APIs.

Video and picture quality is highly important here because the doctor needs to examine the patient adequately before he/she reaches a conclusion. Privacy and data protection are of prime importance here because all interaction between the doctor and the patient is under-privileged so make sure to have your data security guard strong.

Basic features of an online doctor consultation app

v.) Prescriptions and Reports

Keeping track of prescriptions and reports of the patient is important because it will help in any future appointments by providing a concise history. All information available on the platform will be accessible to any doctor the patients consults and we can finally do away with sheets and files.

vi.) Online Payments

Include an online payment option in the app for online sessions as well as at-clinic ones so that the entire process can take place without any hiccups. Policies regarding the cancellation of the appointment and refunds need to be clearly addressed.

vii.) Rating and Reviews

Rating and Reviews are an integral part of most on-demand platforms. The reason it is important is that the feedback generated from users helps to separate the wheat from the chaff. A good doctor will get great reviews and comments for his work. A bad one may get a lot of bad remarks. This also keeps the providers in check so they ensure that they can only get work if they perform well.

viii.) Pharmacy Integration

Your doctor consultation app can partner with local pharmacies that can deliver medicines to the patients once the doctor is done with the examination. It can be further turned into a means of earning by charging commission from the stores.

4. Testing and improving

5. Marketing

So, two separate marketing strategies need to be formulated.

a.) For the patients, an advertisement on social media may be sufficient that targets the appropriate audience.

b.) For the doctors, the conventional marketing techniques of pharma companies may come in handy. Hiring sales representatives to visit doctors and telling them about the app may turn out to be very useful.

6. Business Model

Ads can also be a suitable method. However, over-advertisement can ruin the user experience so the placement of ads needs to be wise and well-thought.

Compliances you need to consider

HIPPA

GDPR

CCPA

NIST

PIPEDA

Our past experiences

Medics on call

Medics on call is an appointment booking platform operating in Spain that we have developed and are now working as its maintenance team. Medics on call provides patients the convenience of booking their appointment anytime with the most trusted doctors and specialists in India. Medics on call has been online since 2018 and has crossed 500,000 monthly users recently.

Knock Knock Vet App

Knock Knock Vet

Knock Knock Vet is a project that our company is currently working on. The project is aimed at bringing the veterinary doctor to your living room via online sessions. The app carries ample features that help vets check the animal before prescribing any medicine without the need for a clinical checkup.

A special series of training sessions will be conducted for doctors on the platform which will teach them how they can benefit from the different animal examining tools during the session. The professionals have greatly encouraged the initial renders. We hope it to be one of our best projects both in our company history as well as in mobile healthcare.

The field of medicine has always been important for humanity. Little improvements as a consultation app can save thousands from the toil of visiting clinics. Every little bit counts.

We are glad that we are working to contribute our bit to the world and are open to such projects in the future as well. Interested in knowing more? Give us a shout here.

Note: This article first appeared at: Healthcare Apps: Types, Features, and Compliances

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India’s Top Web and Mobile App Development Company. www.promaticsindia.com

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