Developing a Healthcare Mobile App – Complete Guide 2022

Last Updated on November 4, 2022

The information age has already touched the healthcare space, so healthcare app development has caught up in an integral position in the healthcare industry too swiftly. It’s famous for easing medical procedures and enhancing the patient experience. 

By witnessing the worldwide healthcare market size to be $153.6 in 2021 and hoping it to reach $178.5 in 2022, most medical experts and brands are looking to expand their healthcare app development services. 

No wonder various healthcare mobile app development companies are evolving, making the competition quite challenging. If you are too trying to catch up with the race, you must bring something unique and distinguishable from others. 

Let’s start with our healthcare app development venture. 

What is Healthcare App Development? A Precise Explanation

Mobile healthcare apps can be directed not just toward the patients but also the medical professionals and healthcare providers and save doctors’ and patients’ time and enhance health care quality by facilitating scheduling doctor visits, patient examinations, and treatment. 

Health care app development surfaces many advantages, like tracking and submitting their real-time health issues, enhanced health data accessibility, elevated remote health delivery, reduced expenses, diminished medical errors, improved communication, and the list will go on. So, to boost patient satisfaction and your company’s profit, healthcare mobile app development is a must.

Besides being functional, mobile apps need to be user-friendly. The targeted users reach you after wandering through all the corners. They might be looking for ease of use that they failed to find in other mobile apps. 

Additionally, exemplary user interfaces are the basic requirement that may impact the app’s popularity. 

mHealth Market Overview – Figures Showcasing the Growth in The Healthcare Industry 

According to Pew Research, around 85% of Americans that too adults have smartphones. 

• Top app stores have 350,000 mHealth apps that embrace medical, fitness, and health.
• mHealth apps segment rules the mHealth market in 2021, with a share of about 75.4%. 
• From 2022 to 2030, the global mHealth market will grow at a CAGR of 11.0% and reach $130.6 billion.
• In 2022, the US health and fitness app users increased to 86.3 million, with a rise of about 2.6% compared to the previous year, 2021.
• Considering an Accenture survey, around 75% of the patients know the significance of the health-based app. 
• By 2026, the telemedicine app market will likely reach $17.14 billion. 
• The global mHealth market size in 2018 was $34.28 billion, likely to hit $293.29 by 2026, showcasing a CAGR of 29.1%. 

Why Develop a Healthcare Application – Top Reasons

• To make money – Many businesses develop a healthcare app to earn and roll out comparatively simple fitness apps, consulting, or insurance apps to step into the market that will reach $50 billion by 2050. 
• To enhance the quality of offered medical services – The features incorporated in the mHealth apps helps the doctors to offer the best quality services that patients love.
• Remote access – Such apps offer the patients and doctors remote access, that’s a must, especially in pandemic times. 
• Risk reduction – The verification and authentication of the doctors and patients make the mhealth apps safe to access.
• Cost-saving – Getting advice and recommendations anytime and anywhere leads to a cost-saving venture. 

The technology eases health parameters monitoring and offers essential convenience so that people may use such apps willingly. 

How Pandemic Impacted Global Healthcare? 

The global pandemic has also propelled a huge innovation effort from governments, companies, individuals, and universities. 

In 2020, the global mHealth market was about $45.7 billion and was expected to expand at a CAGR of 17.6% from 2021 to 2028. 

The pandemic era helped everyone realize the usefulness of healthcare apps. The potential of virtual consultations, online payments, home-delivered prescriptions, and more was all valuable when people were restricted to their homes only.

Again, the latest telehealth services permit patients to connect with health experts and conduct therapy online comfortably in their homes. Even with such medical apps, patients easily speak with doctors about medication, diet, lifestyle, and more. 

Such apps assisted millions of users worldwide in seeking medical help and staying safe without leaving their homes during the pandemic. 

The other factors that are expected to boost the healthcare market growth are

• Internet connectivity
• Smartphones
• Supportive government initiatives
• Increasing demand for preventive healthcare
• mHealth startups’ growing funding,
• Increasing mobile health technologies adoption

Why Is Healthcare App Development Essential?

Healthcare app development is helpful for everyone, whether patients or medical specialists. 

The patients use mHealth apps to get medical care, whereas the medical professionals ease their routine operations and devote their spare time to diagnosing and treating other diseases. 

Besides, the health care app simplifies the process of obtaining data, accelerates decision-making, and cuts the gap between doctors and patients. 

Benefits of Health Care App for The User

The patients just need to pick the appointment timings as per their need and convenience, easily access their health details, reschedule timings, engage with medical solutions to catch up with better conditions, stick to medical regimens, etc. 

• Billing
• Claims submission
• Reimbursement
• Healthy Lifestyle
• Easy remote patient monitoring
• Improved communication and feedbacks
• Raised medication reconciliation accuracy that improves the safety of patients
• Rapid access to healthcare service providers
• Improved medication

Benefits of Health Care App for The Businesses/Medical Professionals

Obviously, a digitized platform smoothens various activities in the routine workflow, this way it lowers the load of medical staff. Previously, tasks were carried out manually, demanding repetitive procedures, but now, these can be achieved using a hospital application with just a few clicks. 

• eHealth records
• Scheduled appointments
• Well-arranged test/scans
• Easy results fetching
• Health records update
• Tasks automation
• Improves patients’ health
• Saves people’s lives
• Increased customer engagement
• Improved customer loyalty
• Attract more customers

So, digitizing these processes leads to increased productivity. 

Difference Between Healthcare and Medical App? 

The chief difference between a health app and a medical app is:-

Health apps targets offering health-related services via every type of communication device and smartphone. 

On the contrary, medical apps are software users and can apply to operate medical devices on a mobile device. 

Through healthcare software, users get medical assistance remotely and help them monitor their health conditions more effectively. 

Types of Healthcare Apps

When hiring healthcare app developers, you must know the categories you need to provide input data. 

Let’s look at current and general categories people usually pick:

Type 1. Healthcare Apps for Professionals

Professional healthcare apps include doctors. The apps that act as mediators between doctor and patient in communication and treatment are known as professional. 

Below is the list of various types of professional apps:

• Electronic health/medical records apps
• Doctor appointment apps
• Database apps
• Medical reference apps
• Networking apps (for doctors)
• Health tracking apps
• Telemedicine apps (doctor-on-demand apps)
• Patient medical health tracking apps

Working Model of Healthcare Apps for Professionals

Professional healthcare apps have a diverse and complicated working model. The chief target is to assist the healthcare service providers and doctors in diminishing the friction between various processes. Hiring healthcare mobile app development services can help develop a custom solution. 

The working model can be divided as follows:

• Networking (Patient and Clinical Communication)
• Database
• Doctor Scheduling
• Patient Health Tracker
• Risk Assessment
• Medical Record
• Medication Prescription and Dosages

Revenue Generation

Professional healthcare apps help doctors generate revenue in two ways:

• Directly: Through subscription-based mobile healthcare apps for patients.
• Indirectly: Saves cost by streamlining process development and execution using mhealthcare apps.

Type 2. Health Apps for Patients

This category usually doesn’t demand doctors’ involvement, but they offer valuable information for patients. 

Below is the list of various features that healthcare apps for patients should include:

• Healthy lifestyle apps
• Diagnosis apps for preventive purposes
• Reminder apps including medical tracking apps
• Dieting apps
• Medical education apps
• Women health apps
• Mental health apps
• Monitoring apps for chronic conditions
• Patient medical education apps

Working Model of Healthcare Apps for Patients

From a patient’s perspective, these app follows a different pathway. Simultaneously, we can say, the working of both patient and professional apps may overlap. 

Revenue Generation

In this type of healthcare app, revenue generation is vast. You can offer effective healthcare mobility solutions to the patients focusing on their pain points. 

In-app purchases are the best way to generate revenue from a media app. There are around 5.76% of such apps on the Google Play Store.

The rest medical apps are free and hold an in-app purchasing model. 

Use Cases for Healthcare App

Firstly, you need to determine an application type that can meet your purposes and needs to provide an in-demand and related product. 

In this case, to develop the best healthcare app, you need to keep up with the trends in this specific corner and implement them. 

Let’s review some most trending use cases of healthcare apps.

1. Telemedicine & Telehealth

Healthcare app developers build custom apps and improve the existing solutions letting providers and patients connect virtually. 

2. Electronic Health & Medical Records (EHR / EMR)

EMR or EHR software can help boost interoperability, improve patient care quality, facilitate clinical workflows, and enhance productivity within healthcare organizations. 

3. Patient Management

Custom patient management software solutions improve patient care, enhance practice and staff efficiency, automate routine jobs, and develop better provider-patient relationships while diminishing costs. 

4. Pharmacy Management

Custom pharmacy management software solutions can help you overcome the limitations of pharmacy management systems. It converts your challenges and struggles into viable solutions. Besides, more development of pharmacy software solutions include Pharmacy Management System, Retail Pharmacy Management Software, Hospital Pharmacy Information System, and Prescription Processing Software. 

5. Prescription Management

Prescription management software assists in streamlining business workflows that let you dispense high-volume prescriptions. Moreover, it will reduce errors and save physicians time so that they can pay more attention to a patient’s health rather than being busy filing medication paperwork. 

6. Laboratory Management

You can streamline workflows and increase the efficiency of your lab by using custom laboratory management software solutions. It can also meet your other relevant needs through Hospital Laboratory Management Software, Genetic Laboratory Management Software, Histopathology, and Molecular Biology Laboratory Management Software. 

7. Medical Practice Management

Now, you can automate your workflows using custom medical practice management solutions. Also, you can make the front and back-office operations flawless with end-to-end practice management solutions. 

8. HIPAA/HITRUST Compliance

HIPAA-Compliant solutions improve personal privacy and safeguard the sharing of confidential health details. Moreover, such applications ensure that every covered entity utilizes the nationally-recognized identifiers and the exact code sets. 

9. Healthcare Operations

Robust healthcare operations software solutions make workflow efficient, ease documentation access, centralize overview and reporting, and enhance patient care for hospitals and healthcare practice. 

10. Ambulatory Services

Custom Ambulatory Software solutions streamline workflows, automate the billing process, and handle ambulatory patients. 

Ambulatory Software includes Ambulatory Practice Management Software, Ambulatory EHR/EMR Software, and Ambulatory Patient Portals. 

11. Pharmaceutical Management

Such software solutions strengthen your pharma business. These solutions streamline pharmaceutical operations, conduct clinical trials while confirming compliance, and assure rapid time to market.

Popular Healthcare Apps in The Market

Calm-  Meditate, Sleep, Relax

Available on – Android, IOS 

One of the widely-downloaded apps for meditation and sleep, Calm helps discover a healthier and happier you through its sleep stories, meditation, music, and more. This app is for anyone a beginner in meditation or a seasoned expert. One who is looking for a mental break, a peaceful rest, and a soothing sound may try this app. 

Features include

• Happiness
• Deep Sleep
• Calming Anxiety
• Gratitude
• Breaking Habits
• Concentration and Focus
• Managing Stress
• Breaking Habits
• Forgiveness
• Calm Kids
• Body Scan

MyFitnessPal – Fitness Starts with What You Eat

Available on – Android, IOS 

Using this app, you get access to the huge food database available with the right nutrition facts for 14+ million foods. You just need to log your diet every day onto your diary to get the detailed insights relevant to your nutrition. It’s a free macro tracker, calorie counter, and health and fitness tracker. 

Nutrition tracking tools included

• Calorie Tracker
• Nutrition Insights
• Personalized Dashboards
• Biggest Food Database
• Macro Tracker
• Net Carbs Mode 
• Personalized Dashboards
• Custom Goals
• Track With Wear OS 

MyChart – A Leading Mobile Medical App In The USA

Available on – Android, IOS 

The patients would find this app a big savior for them. It will ease them with their complete health details in one place. The users can see their test results, medications, medical bills, appointments, and price estimates, even if they are consultations at various healthcare organizations. 

Features included:

• Schedule an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine
• Get health information at one spot
• Share your health records securely and safely
• Schedule appointments and find care
• Connect with doctors in no time

GoodRx –  One Of The Best Telemedicine Platform In The USA

Available on – Android, IOS

A free pharmacy coupon and a deal finder app, GoodRx assists millions save money on prescriptions, pills, drugs, and medical costs. 

Features included

• Medication Tracker & Prescription Reminder Notifications
• Deal finder for Rx drugs
• Pharmacy service from anywhere
• Drug guide with prescriptions

FollowMyHealth– The Best Healthcare App For Accessing Personal Health Records

Available on – Android, IOS 

This app eases track your health, let you view your health summary, send you reminders, and more

Features included

• Appointments scheduling 
• Prescription refills
• Billing history
• Pay outstanding bills
• View test & lab results
• Secure communication

Teladoc – One Of The Best Mhealth Apps In The USA

Available on – Android, IOS 

A popular app in telemedicine and telehealth, Teladoc is serving 50+ million people. You can use this app to schedule a virtual appointment with a specialist or medical doctor, talk with the doctor, send prescriptions to the local pharmacy, and more. 

Best at:

• Wellness Care
• Mental Health
• General Medical
• Specialists & Expert Opinion

VisualDX

Available on – Android, IOS

Now, clinicians and patients can visualize the diagnostic journey perfectly using this app. It’s an award-winning app trusted by various medical professionals today. 

Features included

• Custom differentials across internal medicine, dermatology, pediatrics, etc.
• Patient engagement by picture sharing of skin
• Improved diagnostic accuracy
• Therapy and test options access
• Quick infectious disease recognition

Features To Include While Developing A Healthcare App

Now, let’s check out the top and essential features you should include in a healthcare app. 

Must Have App Features for Patients

1. Registration And Login

The user logins and in-app registrations assist users in inputting their details to diminish their appointment time. In a healthcare app, the login functionality needs to be flawless to provide a good user experience. 

Registrations and login can assist patients in crafting their profiles on the app and inputting the details they need. 

2. Doctor Profile Lookup

The medical app should permit patients to select the doctors as per their preference. This is one of the essential features if you want your app to offer a booking facility for virtual or in-person healthcare appointments. 

3. Virtual Waiting Room 

One more healthcare app trend, a virtual waiting room, will help avoid infection risk, a common issue that was one of the top concerns during the pandemic. 

It’s a process in which the patients can use their mobile devices to check while staying in their vehicle outside the hospital. This way, they can come in when they find the exam room vacant. It will avoid unnecessary contact also.

4. Appointment Scheduling

An online healthcare app needs to offer an appointment scheduling feature that may be beneficial for both the patients and medical staff and doctors as well. 

Your app should showcase the available appointment slots and let the users book at their convenience. Once the admin or the physician approves the appointment, the app sends the confirmation to the users. 

5. Reminders and Notifications

Push notifications and in-app reminders also hold importance when it comes to a healthcare app. 

If implemented perfectly,  such features will prove to be effective and will advance user engagement. You can use such functionality to send reminders to the users for upcoming appointments and make sure that they don’t miss any appointments. 

Doctor-Patient Communication

Lately, telemedicine apps have started offering encrypted and secure audio or video consultations between patients and healthcare providers in recent years. 

Besides, you can append a feature that may allow physicians to access the patients’ records directly while conducting virtual consultations to catch up with access to patients’ clinical history. 

The data accumulated, stored, and shared via the app should comply with HIPAA privacy and security rules. 

Symptom Checker

As an increasing number of patients are becoming tech-savvy, the symptom checker feature has become essential. 

The symptom checker in an app has a database of verified healthcare details that users can access using their app, which may make the app user’s most-preferred source of information. 

Appending the file-sharing power to the app will let the users transmit files, like clinical pictures or reports, to physicians for better diagnosis. 

Integration With Medical Devices

Surely, you can expect the healthcare future to be data-driven. Healthcare wearables and medical devices are more-than-important considering patient data and should be used to enhance complete health results. 

The healthcare providers can make the right data-driven decision regarding the patient’s treatment routine, having access to data accumulated by the medical devices. 

This feature will increase user engagement when they get a complete overview of the stats relevant to their health. 

Access To Medical Records

It’s not wrong if patients demand easy and fast access to their medical records. When you store healthcare records on the cloud, it will increase security and ensure that the healthcare records are easily available to the practitioners and patients. 

When developing a medical or healthcare app, you should integrate the medical records access feature stored on HIPAA-compliant cloud servers. 

Prescription Tracking

ePrescriptions in an app permits healthcare service providers to generate and transmit prescriptions to patients. This helps with clarity concerning the prescribed medications and dosage schedule patients need to follow. So, with digital prescriptions, the patients will no longer need to struggle deciphering the doctor’s handwriting. 

A pharmacy look-up feature within a healthcare app will let the patients check the availability of medicines, drug-relevant information, side effects, and more.

Patient Community

The healthcare apps have witnessed an improvement in the healthy behaviors of patients through the enablement of patient communication with each other. 

Such a patient community will support the patients who want to recover. Moreover, such a community will assist in promoting engagement and enhancing results a long way. 

Health Education

In the US., the healthcare costs, per year, for chronic illnesses are likely to account for about $2.7 trillion. 

Therefore, a medical care mobile app is believed to be perfect for both avoiding and slowing chronic illnesses’ advancement. 

For example, updated health education via mobile app usage helps the generation gain the knowledge they need to understand what harms their health. 

Besides, the healthcare app users should have access to knowledge about their exercise, health, mental health, the human body, and other issues relevant to wellbeing. 

Useful Features for Doctors

EHR/EMR Integration

Electronic Health Records (EHR) integration in telemedicine apps improve the viability. Moreover, Electronic Medical Records (EMR) maintains your treatment history track, while EHR digitally stores all your laboratory tests, blood reports, radiographic pictures, medications, and every valuable health-relevant information. 

This way, both the patients and physicians can save their time when it comes to monitoring and examining their health. 

EHR integration in the telehealth app ensures immediate processing of the patient data and their accumulation in one place. Also, it eliminates repeated data from virtual visits. 

Advantages of EHR/EMR Integration

• Simple telemedicine billing
• Integrated payment systems
• Cost-effective telehealth reimbursement.
• Proper processing of telemedicine visit data.
• Improved patient data accumulation
• More efficient patient treatment.
• Easy-to-use
• HIPAA compliance for data protection and telemedicine apps. 

ePrescriptions

ePrescription is essential as it helps patients, pharmacies, and prescribing healthcare service providers by accelerating healthcare service delivery. 

Lately, ePrescription technology has been easily accessible, which saves time and is convenient for both the patient and doctor. Doctors may use this function to produce and share prescriptions with other important information. 

Telemedicine mobile apps with this functionality are already compatible with the below telemedicine laws:

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) 
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
• Meaningful Use Stage 1 (MU-1) and Meaningful Use Stage 2 (MU-2) 

Besides, with ePrescription functionality, the doctors can craft and render prescriptions with no mistakes, which will save time while improving communication and the patient satisfaction. 

Advantages of ePrescription Features

• Reduced re-hospitalization
• Lower medication costs
• Easy grasp of the patient’s history.
• Simple and quick medical renewal
• Decreased prescription and pharmacy errors.
• Complete drugs’ list with dose directions
• Streamlined process
• Improved patient care

HIPAA Compliance

While using the app, patients should be ensured that their health information is secured and privacy is not at risk. Various individuals are cautious about revealing medical information as it’s not used in determining insurance coverage. 

A federal law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects patient data and sensitive information. The healthcare app should follow security protocols and HIPAA requirements that access PHI (Personal Health Information).

Healthcare Technology Trends and Digital Innovations 

Digital health trends are constantly attracting huge investments, assisting the industry in enhancing global health equity.

In brief, health equity makes healthcare more affordable and accessible for everyone. And digital health trends are acting as driving forces behind it. 

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare

In the healthcare industry, Artificial Intelligence is not just a digital transformation trend, but more than that. AI showcases a perfect example of a medication revolution, and the industry players are willing to invest millions in the same. 

By 2025, the healthcare AI-powered tools will likely go beyond $34 billion, which states that this technology will carve almost all the faces of the healthcare industry. 

Virtual health assistants and Chatbots are other AI-based technologies with which patients are getting familiar. 

From customer service reps to diagnostic tools, Chatbots can play a plethora of roles. The integration of such tools demands heavy investments. By 2023, the worldwide healthcare chatbots market will likely reach $314.3 million. 

Besides, you can witness the real strength of AI in medical imaging, precision medicine, genomics, and drug discovery. 

Furthermore, top biotechnology and pharmaceutical brands are using machine learning algorithms to reduce the drug development cycle. 

Overall, by 2026, AI is expected to save $150 billion annually for the US healthcare economy. In fact, startups have started grabbing this opportunity with 14x increased active AI startups. 

2. Machine Learning (ML) in Healthcare

In a medical app, ML helps identify and diagnose diseases and ailments that are hard to diagnose, like cancers that are tough to catch in the starting stages. 

The chief clinical app of machine learning lies in the initial stage during the discovery process, which includes R&D technologies. 

Besides, ML and deep learning are accountable for the breakthrough technology known as Computer Vision. 

Machine learning ensures data access and time monitoring of the trial participants, emerging with the best sample size for testing and using the e-records to diminish data-based errors. 

Furthermore, ML-based facial recognition in healthcare apps helps treat Asperger’s and Parkinson’s disease. 

One of the best uses of ML in medical image analysis is objects’ classification, like lesions, into normal or abnormal categories. 

Machine learning is also helpful in monitoring and predicting epidemics. So, the role of ML in healthcare apps is to offer tangible value to healthcare initiatives and assist in building sequential processes to include within your processes. 

3. Virtual Reality (VR) in Healthcare

In the healthcare app, Virtual Reality (VR) is the masterpiece of the digital revolution changing how patients are treated. 

As many people tolerate chronic pain, VR technology helps treat pain from anxiety and stroke to post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Moreover, the residents and doctors use VR simulations to improve their skills and plan complex surgeries. In fact, VR headsets assist motivating wearers to exercise and also help kids with autism learn as needed. 

By 2025, the global VR and AR will likely reach $5.1 billion in the healthcare market. 

4. Metaverse In Healthcare

In the healthcare industry, Metaverse can help improve its Digital Roadmaps by offering more personalized patient care wherever they are. Also, with AR and VR, brands can reach healthcare professionals worldwide. 

Metaverse holds an immense scope in clinical care. It proves to be best at surgical simulations, patient care management, diagnostic imaging, health management, and rehabilitation. Using immersive experiences recrafted from surgery, one can offer real-time guidance in the surgeon’s field of view. 

Furthermore, you can use Metaverse to get simultaneous training, education, and planning with collaborative medical processes. 

In the future, Metaverse development can possibly modify the healthcare industry by enhancing and changing as required. 

5. Blockchain In Healthcare

A digital leader, or we can say, a computerized database of transactions, Blockchain, when shared across a network of PCs, permits customers to exchange financial details safely with suppliers with no involvement of any third party, like a bank. 

The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are already investing millions in the market to vouch for that may, in turn, increase its efficiency. 

A recent report states that by 2023, blockchain will likely reach $890.5 million in the healthcare market. 

In the healthcare industry, blockchain is acknowledged as an effective tool to prevent data breaches, improve medical records’ accuracy, and diminish costs. 

Some countries, like the UK and Australia, have started experimenting with creating blockchain technology for medical records and transaction management between healthcare providers, patients, and insurance companies. 

The computers’ decentralized network registers all transactions and detects conflicting details automatically while handling the blockchain. Resultantly, the records appear to be 100% accurate and tough to hack.

6. Telemedicine and the Evolution of Remote Care

Since the start of a pandemic era in 2020, telehealth has caught up with the trend. 

In 2022, care providers have opted for online video conference meetings with patients to discuss health issues and give medical advice. 

By 2026, telehealth is likely to grow to $185.6 billion. 

The telemedicine app that healthcare providers use to communicate with their patients must be HIPAA compliant, certified, and safe to handle private health details. 

A dedicated telemedicine app development demands one of the chief technologies, like WebRTC, an open-source API-based system to connect web browsers and mobile apps and permits video, audio, and data transmission. 

Some healthcare operations demand electronic health records (EHR), so to maintain their efficiency and functionality, HIPAA-compliant cloud hosting solutions are required. 

7. Extended Reality in Healthcare Settings

A blanket term, extended reality includes Virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality and holds the potential to transform the healthcare industry. From helping surgery to telehealth apps, AR and VR technologies assist in enhancing the healthcare industry to a great extent. 

In various healthcare settings, augmented reality and mixed reality are useful. 

The mixed reality headsets are the most useful and popular forms of this technology, like Microsoft Hololens 2 by surgeons. Such a headset is best for surgeons to get information while their hands are busy during the surgery. 

Such products may appear to be a perfect remote effort and help in training purposes also as the head-mounted headset with a camera view can allow other doctors to offer advice while observing the surgery. 

Besides the usage in operating rooms and headsets, AR helps the nurses find the veins to draw blood. 

8. IoT and Wearables in Healthcare

With the increasing popularity of wearable and IoT technologies, their capabilities are also growing significantly in the healthcare industry. There’s even a call for this trend from many for apps developed with telehealth and telemedicine technologies in microprocessing the Internet of Medical Things.

At the starting of 2021, there were around 11.3 billion IoT devices. By 2026, the global IoT devices market will reach $94.2 billion from $25.6 billion in 2021. 

For IoT technology, one of the widely-known apps in healthcare is a smart pill concept that remodels The Internet of Things into The Internet of Bodies. Such pills are edible electronics that serve as pharmaceuticals and offer valuable information about patients to care providers. 

The advancement of wearables is one of the most essential innovations in the healthcare industry. With the availability of consumer smartwatches, healthcare apps should notice their strength that can transform the industry. 

9. Organ Care Technology & Bioprinting

As the world’s transplantation market size is likely to reach around $26.5 billion by 2028, organ transplants are also gaining significance in the healthcare industry. 

As per a survey, about 50,000 and more heart transplants occur every year in the US. Predictions say approximately 50,000 and more people need a heart transplant. So, what steps should be taken to assist people with heart diseases? 

One can improve organ care technology to help heart patients with a healthy heart. 

Let’s take an example. Transmedics developed the Organ Care System that the Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center uses. This device is best for keeping a lung, heart, or liver as required outside the body for even several hours through proper heat, care, and supply of important nutrients. 

In the future, we can foresee that this technology may use AI to preserve the organ for a period automatically without any involvement of doctors. 

Or, ML may help in determining if the organs being preserved are good for transplantation or not. The faster determination could save a life. 

One can explore other options also to keep organs alive outside the body. 3D-printed organs are quite real. The process that’s followed is slightly the same as a traditional one. A first digital model of the tissue is created carefully as the materials used are living cells, known as bio link. Post that, they are tested for functionality with simulation. 

Bioprinting has been in use since the past but is yet to hit the altitudes. AI analysis of organs and characteristics of the recipient, organs can become compatible with the new hosts through better engineering. 

10. Healthcare Privacy and Security

After the quality of care and efficiency, privacy and security catch up with priority in the healthcare industry. As per a report, last year, about 550+ firms faced data breaches that affected about 40 million people. 

Making your organization HIPAA compliant is an important step toward avoiding and staying away from expensive data breaches. To serve international patients, you should consider  the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union.

Some healthcare providers use software, such as Skype to communicate with their patients that are not surely government regulations compliant. Although various compliant video conferencing software exists in the market, sometimes a customized solution is required. It includes a case where the current data infrastructure doesn’t integrate with the options available. 

The use of third-party programs doesn’t ensure the safety of patient data. And, keeping details safe through remote doctor calls could be tough. 

How to Develop a Healthcare App – Steps to Follow

The healthcare mobile development process includes the below steps:

1. Finding an App Idea

A perfect way to finalize an idea for healthcare app development will originate from the issues and their solutions. 

So, initially, you should organize your internal resources. Next, know the market needs in terms of healthcare app development services. 

Post that, check the viability of that idea that will embrace four processes:

• Market research for customers
• Health care app idea development
• Testing
• Validation

2. Conduct Market Analysis

Before you start any business, it’s always important to analyze the market, know about your competitors and the value they provide. You should also know their strong and weak corners and what you should do to stand robustly before them. 

3. Identify Target Audience & Their Needs

Besides; you should know your target audience to whom you would offer your healthcare services. Understand their healthcare-relevant needs and emerge with solutions to them. This way, your success chances would take a hike. 

4. Choose App Type

The healthcare application type determines various things: the app database, functionality, and goal. The medical app developers can develop an app without any key points defined by a team, like:

• Requirement of app type
• Working of app
• Pain points it will target

5. Create Design

Design is accountable for the biggest share of the app’s success. The design of the mHealth app should be intuitive and consistent. Its target is to make the user reach the endpoint seamlessly. 

The design needs to be user-friendly with fewer interaction points to offer users a better experience. 

6. Pre-Development

After determining the app type you need to develop and your target audience, you should start your project, determine requirements and specifications for developing an app in terms of features, functionalities, resources, personnel, and cost.

In this stage, you will determine what professionals, technologies, tools, certification needs, development cost, and more you need to develop an app.

7. MVP Development

While building an MVP for your healthcare app, you should keep track of MVP creation rules: Develop faster and make it viable. 

Firstly, you should prioritize the important features, make sure that they resolve issues, and iterate continuously. 

MVP arrives with a competitive benefit that will offer fast time to market and sooner feedback accumulation from real users. 

8. Development

Here, a load of work starts. After hiring the right professionals (frontend developers, backend developers, project managers, etc.) and having the right technologies and tools, you need to work with your app development team, as most companies prefer. 

First, build your app from scratch, then constantly test and iterate it to ensure it’s performing perfectly. 

9. Make Your App HIPAA Compliant

A HIPAA-compliant app makes sure personal healthcare information is protected for both parties; healthcare providers and patients. 

So, you can:

• Limit access to your user’s health data
• Ensure app backup and data encryption
• Use HIPAA-compliant services.

10. Quality Assurance

This stage of mobile app development is crucial as every identified issue needs to be resolved before the release of the app. 

11. Product Release & Constant Support

After the app deployment, you would need constant support. Post-development maintenance and support are important to make the app stay up-to-date. 

Challenges In Healthcare App Development 

Since the start, the healthcare industry has constantly been adopting various technological advancements. Earlier, healthcare experts were the users of healthcare solutions. But, with time, with the inclusion of more features and functionalities, such solutions were built to meet the needs of not only the healthcare providers but also the routine health check and tracking needs of the patients. 

A mHealth app should be launched being feature-packed, which is quite challenging. 

Therefore, while developing a healthcare app, one must face various common challenges to make the app expert and user-ready. 

Privacy & Security of Patients’ Data

Every health-relevant information is highly confidential. So, the users expect medicare apps to be secure on which they can trust. They want to feel secure and comfortable sharing their sensitive and confidential details, like diagnoses, prescriptions, analysis, etc. 

Also, your app must stick to specific standards based on departments and regions if it involves health information gathering, storing, or sharing.

Data Encryption

In medical apps, encryption should be imposed on incoming and outgoing data so the users feel safe while sending and receiving their data. 

Log-in Security

Moreover, the log-in process of healthcare apps should be made more advanced for the users’ data security. You can use multi-factor authentication for safe and easy user access. For example, fingerprint, retina scan, voice identification, password, etc. 

APIs and Integrations

Undoubtedly, the healthcare technology ecosystem includes various devices, like smartphones, smart fitness equipment, wearables, etc. 

Therefore, we need various APIs (application programming interfaces) to integrate different platforms and technologies. API eases the interaction of software pieces and data exchange. 

Target Audience Hardware

While developing a medical app, you need to consider your target audience’s hardware, like tablets, desktops, smartphones, and specifics. The users’ way of interacting with each platform may vary. 

For example, smartphone users demand short texts and quick information access. On the contrary, clinic workers work with tablets. 

You need to consider such points to make a better decision for:

• The budget you need to start with.
• The time limit you want your app to be built.
• Your app objective and features you want to include to meet that objective.
• The experience you want to offer your customer through your app.
• You want to hire an in-house team of healthcare app developers or a mobile app development company.

Complete Testing

Before launching your healthcare app, it’s essential to conduct thorough testing to avoid possible errors. You should already know about the working of your app regarding security, cross-platform support, scalability, and regulation compliance. 

However, regardless of the app type, every application should undergo precise testing procedures, but in the case of healthcare and medical apps, this point becomes more crucial. 

So, be sure that you test the below aspects:

• Data privacy and confidentiality
• Data security
• Performance
• Usability

Design & Accessibility

Add design and architecture with flaws, and confusing logic may leave a wrong impression on your business and can also prove to be harmful concerning the medical solutions. 

Let’s take an example. In a medical app, pressing the wrong CTA may lead to incorrect filling of the patients’ fields, which can create complications with data work.

On the contrary, a carefully planned interface assists in establishing quick and easy communication between a patient and a medical expert, saving their time by optimizing the use of data and storage. 

Maintenance & Support

The app development journey doesn’t end after you roll out your app. Instead, it goes a long way for post-development, support, maintenance, and scalability. 

So, while planning healthcare app development, you should consider these crucial factors. 

Big Data Management

When talking about the healthcare sector, big data assists predict epidemics, curating medicines, and improving the life quality of the patients. In fact, some apps include pedometers that track users’ walks, a calorie counter that lets the user know his calorie consumption, etc. 

So, all such features accumulate a noticeable amount of data, the management of which becomes challenging. 

Keep Up With Market Trends

To survive in this competitive market, your business should walk with the latest trends. 

In the healthcare industry, frequent fluctuations occur because of the introduction of new devices, changing lifestyles, and compliances.

The transformation of healthcare towards digitization demands considering IoT, deep learning, and machine learning.  

It becomes challenging for startups and mid-sized fitness and medical firms to manage healthcare apps per the latest trend.

IoT & AI Enablement

The real-time health details of patients is crucial to know their health status, speed up the diagnosis of the issues, and help find the proper treatment. For such a need, you need to integrate IoT in mobile apps for smooth functioning. 

On the other hand, to offer suggestions and real-time recommendations to the patients supporting their health status. 

Meet Users’ Requirements 

The app users would love to use those apps that are not tricky to use. The healthcare apps need to meet the doctors, patients, and other users’ needs to offer a better user experience. It’s not impossible but tricky to make the app successful in the market. 

What is the Cost of Healthcare Mobile App Development?

Before discussing the cost, let’s consider the app development team’s needs. 

For healthcare mobile app development, you need

• Front End Developer
• Back End Developer
• DevOps
• Business Analyst
• Compliance Expert
• UI/UX Expert
• Project Manager
• Quality Assurance

Number of factors affecting mHealth development cost:

• Type of development service you hire; in-house team, outsource or hire freelancers.
• Location of team or developers you choose.
• Design of your app.
• Features you need to include.
• The platform you choose.

The cost to develop a healthcare app lies between $20,000 to $25,000*, excluding post-release maintenance costs. 

Choosing a Healthcare App Development Company

Various healthcare firms have already started functioning with their mobile apps after hiring the healthcare app development company. 

As it’s not an easy and straightforward task to develop a mHealth app you should go with a company that can help you meet your objectives successfully. 

Let’s check the points to consider while picking a Healthcare app development company. 

a. Determine mHealth App Needs

As we know, within a healthcare sector, there lie different categories catering to healthcare professionals’ and patients’ needs. 

So, whichever type of app you want to develop demands clarity considering the requirements. You need to determine your app needs beforehand. 

b. Conducting a Complete Market Analysis

Profound market analysis will lead to

• Better understanding of your objectives and needs.
• Expect to get funds from investors.
• Keep a check on your opponents to know what they’re missing that you can transform into an opportunity. 

c. Opt for The Right Development Team

First, you need to decide between hiring a mobile app development company, a freelance team, or moving ahead with your in-house team. 

After that, you must ensure better communication with the team of developers you hire. Also, assure the app development services include customer support. This way, you will collaborate with the right healthcare development company and save time and effort. 

d. Ask for Portfolio

Every app development company has a dedicated page for the portfolio. Remember to ask them to show their app portfolio. The page will showcase the work samples they have completed successfully. It’s a crucial step to evaluate whether the company holds the right and required experience that you need to develop your mHealth app. 

e. Check the Reference

The mostly-chosen companies generally mention genuine references from their past clients. You can send them emails or call them and connect with them to get a clear picture of their performances. 

f. Compare Cost of Services

Obviously, different services cost differently and depend on the value the company would offer you. So, connect with the shortlisted companies and let them know your app’s specifications, features, and whatever you want. Ahead, you will be all set with various proposals from which you can choose the best fit according to your budget. Well, low cost doesn’t mean the quality would not be up to the mark, but the too high price also doesn’t mean the quality will be the best. So, decide wisely and carefully. 

Common Pitfalls While Picking a Healthcare App Developer 

Let’s talk about the mistakes you can make while choosing a healthcare app development company:

1. Making a Decision Considering Just the Cost

The pricing is not a standalone factor that may help you choose the right app development company; there are more, like company reputation,  domain expertise, human capital, and more. 

2. Missing App Optimization 

Be sure that the company conducts app optimization that may improve your app visibility, help it get discovered, increase organic app downloads, and more. 

3. Hiring The Cheapest Company

The best quality comes at the best price; it may be less or even more. So, observe patiently the features you like to include in your app and the expected cost. You can ask to cut down the price, not the quality. 

Reasons Behind the Failure of Some Healthcare Startups

You can find 370,000+ health-related apps on the Play Store and App Store. But, not all get success. They might have caught up with mistakes that led them to their downfall. 

We should learn from their mistakes and be careful never to repeat them.

a. Lack Of UX Design

When crafting the app interface, one needs to be clear in his thoughts about the offerings with simple principles. Besides, you should append the tooltips explaining the working of the app. 

Ease the user interaction with the app by allowing saving history, using the information entered earlier, and more to lower the steps ahead. 

b. Not Adhering to Regulatory Specifications 

The healthcare app industry demands the apps to be safe and reliable regarding sensitive and confidential patient details. The app should meet the regulatory needs, like FDA and user data specifications, to meet its success ends. 

c. API Security Vulnerabilities

APIs let us know about the app’s communication with the other systems and apps and information sharing. 

APIs are integrated with most healthcare and medical apps, which makes the apps vulnerable to attacks because of the data exchange that can be intercepted.  

d. Hire The Cheapest Vendor On The Market

Some healthcare apps have faced failure after picking the cheapest app development teams. It’s not like teams that are available at the lowest price are not the deserving ones. But, it’s just that, other than this, you need to consider other factors to secure the success of your project from the start.

e. Keeping Price As The Deciding Factor

Being price-specific and making a decision regarding that would lead to worse results. Yes, you should consider a price factor, but just that would never let you reach there. You should pay attention to other aspects also. 

f. Not Doing Enough Background Checks

Also, allow the short-listed companies to undergo background checks; this will ensure you make the right decision for your healthcare development. For that, verify the firm’s details, portfolio, and every aspect to ensure that you have picked the right company for your healthcare app development.

g. Not Valuing Project Expenses

The budget estimate should be considered beforehand, not when your team asks to update your project estimate by infusing more cash. You need to emerge with an estimate reviewing your project’s functional needs, timeline, and market strategy. 

h. No Preparation For The Post-Launch Phase

The app development doesn’t end after the release of your app. You should be prepared for the post-release phase to maintain your success and position in the market. 

How Can We Help You?

We hold a robust portfolio in developing mobile apps for varied industry verticals, teams of expert app developers, various professional testers, and multiple suitable candidates for meeting the requirements of healthcare app development projects.

You can reach us with whatever budget estimate you want to start, and we can ensure that you will applaud your decision to pick us as your app development company later. 

Key Takeaways

The article taught you various business opportunities for healthcare app development. More and more healthcare providers and organizations are coming forward to invest in this sector. The boosting competition will constantly improve the healthcare service quality, make operations more efficient, and promote self-management behavior of the patients. 

So, to execute your healthcare app development idea, always check the related industry experience while evaluating the caliber of potential technology partners. Ask about their market strategy, and review their pricing, privacy, knowledge, and data security. 

We hope this article will prove helpful when making relevant decisions. 

Frequently Asked Questions about Healthcare App Development