A lot of healthcare organizations are investing and deploying mobile applications, either to streamline in-house operations or to make the services more accessible to the patients, especially amidst the COVID-induced protocols. According to market experts, with the ongoing rapid digitization, there will be more health apps making a foray into the market in the coming days. From the perspective of a healthcare organization, there is a lot to understand and contemplate before investing in app development services. On that note, here is a brief and neutral take on the whole idea of a health app.
Increase of App-Usage in Healthcare
Let’s start with some statistics; it will help you understand the extent of app-adoption in the healthcare sector:
- There are more than 400,000 healthcare apps across the internet, with the Google Play Store reporting 53,054+ apps as of the first quarter of 2021.
- More than 200 health and fitness apps are added to the internet every day.
- The global mHealth apps market was evaluated at $38.89 billion in 2021, which is expected to reach 314.60 billion at a 34.8% CAGR by 2028.
- According to the latest report, the download rate of healthcare apps exceeded 3.2 billion amidst the COVID period.
All these are proof that mobile apps will have a significant role to play in shaping the future of the healthcare industry.
Now, there are three types of apps to found in the healthcare sector:
- Health & Wellness Apps: These are general apps that help you with nutrition and diet tracking, count the calories burnt through exercises, along stress and sleep management apps.
- Telemedicine Apps: These are platforms for virtual patient-doctor consultation.
- Healthcare Management App: Usually deployed by hospitals or clinics. These are used for multiple purposes. It can be used by patients with co-morbid conditions or pregnant women to track their health conditions and medications. Healthcare personnel can use the same to share patients’ health records, streamline the appointment process for a check-up, diagnostics, or admission, and more.
Why do we give you a brief on the health app variety? It would help you understand the details further explained in this write-up.
How Apps Benefit Healthcare Organizations?
Why should healthcare organizations invest in health apps? Is it just for the COVID phase? Or does it have a futuristic purpose? Let’s explore.
- Healthcare Cost Reduction: The surge in chronic diseases along with the COVID pandemic has increased the overall medical cost for both the healthcare providers as well as the patients. Given the streamlining of the overall medical infrastructure through apps and the easy availability of proper care, the early adopters of mobile applications within the sector have reported a significant reduction of medical costs for all parties involved.
- Better Data Collection & Access: The apps make it easier for healthcare organizations to collect and collate patients’ data and other medicine and treatment-related information. Everything starting from medical history, patient vitals, lab results, prescriptions can be accessed remotely by concerned medical personnel.
- Improved Patient Care: The app makes it easier to provide stellar healthcare services to patients. For instance, the online appointment and registration save the patient from standing in a long queue at the hospital reception. It even streamlines hospital admission and payment for the treatments.
- Better Coordination: It helps medical professionals and healthcare staff to coordinate with the patient in a better way, saving precious time in emergency cases. The app streamlines connectivity and coordination between different departments like diagnostic labs and management. Doctors connect directly through the app and provide a prognosis to the patient, while the staff can use the same platform to report on the condition of the patient's ongoing treatment in the facility.
- Convergence of Healthcare and New Age Technologies: the rapid adoption of healthcare apps brings forth an opportunity for the healthcare sector to finally embrace the new age technologies like Machine Learning, AI, IoT, and even blockchain to augment their existing legacy infrastructure and add scalability to the same.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to counting the benefits of having a health app from the healthcare industry perspective.
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What Patients Want in a Healthcare App?
- When investing in an infrastructural development directed towards the target audience, it helps to know the latter’s perspective. So, here’s to what a patient looks for in a healthcare app:
- They seek easy access to all the services provided by the healthcare organization from a single app, starting from making an appointment to accessing test results and even bill payments.
- Detailed and actionable health-related information including the ailments that they are suffering from. That would help them bring holistic lifestyle changes for a healthier life.
- Patients want to be an easy line of communication with the medical professional 24x7. So in case, there is an emergency then it can be addressed on time. It also takes the load of the healthcare staff, because a study shows that more than 75% of a hospital or clinic visits are basic and can be resolved overcall.
- Since wearables are all the rage at the moment a significant percentage of the patients want apps that can be integrated into their smartwatches and other wearables.
Those are a few things to keep in mind when thinking of investing in app development services.
On a Concluding Note:
Is it necessary for healthcare organizations to build an app? Now, this is a matter of contemplation! Whether one should hire an app development company to build a healthcare app from scratch customize an off-the-shelf mHealth platform or use it without customization? The answer would differ as per one's requirement and budget. There is a significant cost involved in the development, deployment, and then regular maintenance of an app. That’s for you to decide as per your investment capacity and ROI need. However, what remains undisputed is that health app development is forging a new era in the healthcare industry, making a foray into a scalable future in this Age of Digitization.
