Developing a Healthcare Mobile App in 2021
Digitalization has made progressive adjustments to almost every industry and the healthcare sector is no exception. For the past few years, healthcare mobile application development has snowballed at an unprecedented level.
What Can Healthcare mobile apps do?
Offering medical solutions through mobile health apps has become an increasingly popular trend in 2021, especially amid the times of the Covid-19 pandemic. Organizations and individual healthcare providers are heavily investing in healthcare mobile app development solutions to promote self-management behavior in patients and ameliorate the quality of services. The wide range of improvements that such apps can bring to medical services, has significantly made the lives of patients and doctors easier. Here are some of the practical merits:
- Improve communication between doctors and patients
- Offer time-saving features to medical staffs
- Boost customer engagement and loyalty
- Lower spendings for patients and hospitals
- Reduce medical mistakes
- Enhance health data gathering
- Deliver timely care irrespective of the location
mHealth Market Analysis
The mHealth market size value was valued at nearly $45 billion in 2020, which is remarkably high for an industry in its infancy. However, as the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a drastic surge in the pharmaceutical market value, it is now estimated to reach over $100 billion by 2021.
Aside from the double market size, we have witnessed a positive change related to the overall mobile app usage. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, the number of healthcare mobile application downloads has spiked by approximately 60% globally.
However, it also noteworthy to analyze that there are more than 400K apps available in the app store today, yet very few of them have really hit a mark. Well, when it comes to developing healthcare apps, it is all about offering attributes and functionalities in the most convenient way possible. According to research, only 11% of the hospital apps provide one of many patient-oriented features: the ability to request prescriptions, schedule/cancel appointments, and easy access to medical records. What’s more upsetting is that hospitals can engage with only 2% of their patients on mHealth mobile applications. Following are some tips that will assist you in decoding what users really want and what areas should you focus on while developing a healthcare mobile application.
Also Read: How Businesses Should Power Their SaaS Product Development Process
Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) First
Developing an MVP or Minimum Viable Product for your healthcare app is a smart move to know what users really want in an app. As the name suggests, MVP is the most generic and basic version of an application that has all the primary features.
When it comes to creating a mHealth app, MVP is extremely important as it assists in generating a lot of actionable insights from early adopters and beta testers. However, ensure that you take user feedback seriously and implement them in order to make your app more convenient and accessible.
Simple Yet Engaging Digital Experiences
Data suggests that 90% of the existing mHealth apps are not used on a regular basis once they are downloaded. Poor user experience can be one of the biggest reasons why most healthcare mobile applications fail to make a striking first impression.
In fact, it is observed that nearly 21% of millennials tend to delete a mobile app if it furnishes a substandard digital experience. Therefore, it is crucial that your app should have a customer-friendly UI/UX. Mobile healthcare applications that offer attractive data visualizations are much more effective and likely to engage and retain patients.
Easy Access to Functionalities
Patients prefer an app that helps them save time on scheduling, changing or canceling doctor appointments. If your mobile app takes a lot of your user’s time to figure out how it works, they will never use such an app. Therefore, it is better to have functionalities in your app, however, basic features should be readily available and accessible to the end-users.
Seamless Communication with Professionals
The mHealth apps should allow users to easily interact with medical and healthcare practitioners. According to a study, nearly 75% of the hospital visits are very basic and could be easily handled over a video or phone call.
Creating a platform where users can connect and communicate with doctors would help doctors and patients alike. Telehealth solutions assist patients in saving time and efforts on hospital visits and enable doctors to serve their patients on an in-person level.
Final Thoughts
The medical and healthcare industry is adopting new technologies faster than ever. Having a clear understanding of what patients want in a mobile app and developing a healthcare application to match higher expectations is altogether another game-changer. If you a medical practitioner or healthcare service provider and seeking to develop an incredible healthcare mobile app, contact us.
