Technology is transforming countless industries. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the healthcare sector. Health (mobile health) pertains to the increasing use of technology, such as apps, to allow people to take more control of their health. Telemedicine has been around for years, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated its adoption. More and more organizations are now looking to healthcare application development to better treat their patients while keeping their staff safe. With 71% of patients saying they’d prefer if their doctors had a mobile healthcare app available, it’s a no-brainer to start thinking about medical app development.
What are Healthcare Applications?
So, what is an app in healthcare? Healthcare apps can be used for any number of functions. Most people automatically think of apps that help them to book appointments with their doctors. This only scratches the surface of healthcare application development, what healthcare apps are, and what they can do. Other uses for healthcare apps include:
- Fitness trackers
- Manage medical conditions
- Obtain lab results
- Consult with healthcare providers
- Manage insurance claims
Healthcare app developers are helping shape the way we prioritize our health. Even when things do return to normal, medical app development is here to stay.
Types of Healthcare Apps
There are two paths healthcare app development services can go down. Some apps are designed for patients to enable them to manage their health on the go. Others are aimed at medical professionals themselves. From patient management to carrying out administrative tasks, healthcare professionals find handling their day-to-day tasks much simpler when utilizing an app. From the patient's side, they can book appointments, receive lab results, and get advice on their treatment.
For Medical Staff
For medical staff, healthcare application development is designed to reduce friction among various processes. Rather than managing a busy practice through email (or worse, on paper), doctors, nurses, and other healthcare experts can plan out their days via a smartphone.
Another advantage for medical staff is that they can generate indirect and direct revenue through healthcare mobile app development. Streamlining a healthcare business by saving on costs and becoming more efficient is one-way healthcare app development creates indirect revenue.
There’s also an increasing drive toward allowing patients to pay a subscription for these apps. Perks could include instant, remote access to medical records, health trackers, or exclusive access to their doctors.
For Patients
The advancements made within smartphones and wearable technology make it easy for patients to share essential health data with their medical providers. Health plays a role in making diagnosis and treatment faster and more accurate. There are many areas where apps for medical professionals and patients overlap, but from the patient perspective, these apps function differently.
The potential for generating an additional stream of income via patient-focused medical apps is vast. The pandemic has shown that people are willing to invest in better healthcare, which may include premium, on-demand access to their doctors. Our experienced Darwoft medical app developers have extensive experience working with healthcare businesses to help them elevate their services and generate more revenue.
Healthcare Application: Considerations
Hiring a healthcare app development company to carry out the digital transformation of your business isn’t an easy decision to make. The key to any successful app is advanced planning. Before you get in touch with Darwoft, you need to discuss the upsides and downsides of building an app with your stakeholders. Let’s go through some of the most important primary considerations you’ll need to discuss.
Define Your Digital Strategy
Why do you want to build an app? It might seem like a simple question, but you’d be surprised at the number of organizations that want to build an app just because it’s the trendy thing to do. Define your digital strategy. Figure out what you want to achieve by building an app in the first place. Have clear goals, as well as specific metrics for what constitutes success and failure.
Who is Your Target Audience?
Your target audience controls the look, feel, and functionality of any app. If your business mainly deals with elderly patients, your app is going to be different from that of an organization catering to millennials or Gen Z. Starting out by talking to some of your existing patients about what they would want to see in a healthcare app is a great place to start. At Darwoft, we help our clients with this process by delving into focus groups to ensure we’re meeting the market’s current needs.
Inspecting the Competition
Don’t get stuck inside the silo. Your app can’t stand in isolation. Spend time exploring other apps, particularly those already offered by your closest competitors. Download those apps and figure out what their strengths and weaknesses are. Are people pleased with these apps? How are they ranking online? What are people saying they like about them? Successful apps are those that build on what came before to provide a superior solution to anything else that’s available.
Inspecting the competition is a huge part of Darwoft healthcare's mobile app development services. We deep-dive into the healthcare sector to come up with ideas that not only fit the needs of the existing market but ideas that do Health better.
Legal Compliance
Healthcare organizations have to abide by much stricter rules on privacy, security, and confidentiality. HIPAA rules are the benchmark every company has to meet, or they risk getting heavily fined by the FDA, or even being closed down. Other consumer protection laws, such as CCPA, are mirrored on the European GDPR and must be complied with. Make sure your idea allows for full legal compliance. We’re not lawyers, but we can support you if you need to change your vision to protect your patients and remain in compliance.
Costs
One of the most common reasons we hear from healthcare organizations as to why they don’t invest in medical app development is they believe it’s too expensive. This myth has pervaded the industry for years, and it’s been one of the most significant barriers to break. At Darwoft, we’re entirely transparent about our fees. There are no hidden charges, and you’ll know how much your app will cost before we start. Plus, our Agile development approach means that we can successfully cut down on existing healthcare app development costs by up to 50%. That’s part of the Darwoft Difference.
How to Develop a Healthcare App
How do healthcare app developers transform your idea into a fully functioning app that medical professionals and patients can use in their day-to-day lives? Other healthcare mobile app development services tend not to support their clients in helping them to begin the development process. Our team is your team, and we’re here to help turn your ideas into a reality.
Step One – Find Your Big Idea
Any vision for successful healthcare mobile app development must be framed by identifying a problem and coming up with a solution. Forget the nuts and bolts of prototyping and development for now. It’s time to go to the drawing board and test ideas for viability. Make sure you’ve already set up a team internally and identify the needs of the market.
You’ll likely have lots of potential solutions at this stage, and that’s okay. You’ll test the viability of them all. Within healthcare app development, testing for viability represents a major part of the process.
Step Two – Conduct Market Research
The next step is to carry out market research. Whether you’re developing an app for medical professionals or patients, you’ll be talking to your target audience about your big idea. Focus on their existing problems and how you can make their lives easier. Remember, your app is there to solve a problem that isn’t being solved by existing solutions on the market.
But just because you can make a solution happen doesn’t make the idea viable. You also need to conduct broader-level research into the number of people who can benefit from that app. You can have the best idea in the world, but if only 100 people have that problem, it’s not a viable idea. There has to be a wider market need for your solution.
Step Three – Validation
Assuming there is a market need for your solution, it’s time to validate your idea. At this point, you’ll be sending out targeted ads. Putting out an ad for people to try out your upcoming app during its alpha phase will help you discover whether people are likely to be interested in the final product. You’ll need to make sure that you’re targeting your promotion precisely to get reliable results.
For example, if you’re building an app to support patients who suffer from a heart condition and need a better way to manage it, your ads must only target people with this heart condition. If you don’t carry out the validation stage correctly, you might think there’s no market need for your app when there’s actually a huge pool of potential users. Likewise, it could also display interest in an idea when, in reality, there isn’t any.
Step Four – Build Your MVP
In the world of mobile app development, an MVP is a development method used to create an app prototype with its core functionalities. Using the knowledge from the previous steps, your app will be developed with a basic look and feel. Darwoft creates this base prototype that’s ready to go for use by both your target audience and for presenting to any potential investors.
Your MVP is only a small part of healthcare application development. If something isn’t right or the whole idea fails to gain traction, we go back to the beginning and start again. We aim to produce MVPs for our clients quickly so they can make informed business decisions. This saves on costs and ensures you get nothing but the best.
Step Five – Launch the Design Process
An MVP in no way resembles a finished healthcare app. It’s a development approach designed to display what it’s designed to do and how it works. This ensures you don’t have to wait for the finished product to test drive it. Once you give the green light to continue with the app, our medical app developers will begin to incorporate the primary design elements into the app. This includes great UI/UX, buttons, screen rotations, and more.
The healthcare app market may be emerging, but the players are extremely aggressive. Without the design and development to hook users, your app will flop. A good design will make or break your app.
Choosing an App Development Company
How do you choose the right healthcare app development company to create your app? The design process is about so much more than just writing lines of code. Healthcare apps, in particular, come with special requirements that mean not every developer may be suited to build these applications. You need a team that understands the business side of things and supports you through thick and thin. If you’re starting to look for an app development company, here’s what you need to look for.
Can Your App Developer Conform to Data Security Requirements?
Data security elements are a top priority in healthcare. Fail to adhere to them, and your business could be shut down. These rules are designed to reduce the risk of patients' private medical data being exposed. Every healthcare application must be developed with creating a secure platform in mind. In the U.S., there are several regulations impacting healthcare app developers, including:
- HIPAA
- CCPA
- NIST
- HITECH
Make sure your development company is aware of these regulations and how to conform to them before moving forward with design and development.
Does Your Developer Implement Smart Integrations?
Successful apps are not only about their functions but the overall user experience. From the design to the interface to the app’s speed, these are all important in building an audience of loyal users. Think about how your users will be using your app. Darwoft specializes in creating a frictionless, streamlined process for signing up and taking advantage of your app’s primary functionalities. Without an eye on the customer experience, your app is doomed to fail.
But what smart integrations should every medical app have? Here are some of the integrations all modern healthcare apps should have:
- Secure file storage
- Geo-location technology
- Live chat
- Video conferencing
- Smart payment
Of course, the right integrations depend on the nature of your app, but unless they work seamlessly, your app will be uninstalled as quickly as it was picked up.
Will Your Developer Take Advantage of New Age Technology?
The healthcare domain has been undergoing a gradual transformation for many years. As the competition heats up, you must act to introduce new-age development features. These state-of-the-art technologies are what bring your app into the modern era and ensure that your customers’ needs are met. Successful integration of cutting-edge technologies leads to faster apps, more customer interaction, and superior performance.
Some of the technologies your organization should consider include:
- Artificial Intelligence – AI is essential for providing personalized healthcare. Together with machine learning, AI has the power to give each user the unique experience they deserve.
- Virtual Reality – Doctors and patients still need to build a relationship to achieve better healthcare outcomes. VR bridges the patient-doctor gap and increases the likelihood of reaching a mutual understanding between both parties.
- Internet of Things – Embedded IoT is the essence of smart wearables. IoT capabilities within your app make it simpler to gather data about a patient’s condition and provide targeted treatments and recommendations.
- Blockchain – Security is a huge concern among app developers, particularly in the healthcare business. Blockchain-powered app development allows for a decentralized format and fragmented data. This makes it less likely data breaches will occur, as well as allows for more efficient payments.
We regularly develop apps that incorporate this new-age technology. To create a truly outstanding healthcare app, you must go above and beyond existing technology and look to the future instead.
Is Your Developer Using the Right Tech Stack?
Tech stacks are a part of every developer’s arsenal. Within healthcare, the tech stack has a direct impact on whether a healthcare application is successful or not. Our developers utilize dedicated healthcare tech stacks on both the backend and the front end. We’re the experts in the dedicated iPhone language Swift, Java for Android, as well as other top-notch pieces of technology that enhance performance and improve core functionalities. Anyone can write a line of code, but not everyone can carve out an app that surpasses the current competition.
Healthcare App Development Services
At Darwoft, we understand the unique challenges facing healthcare organizations in forging apps that can both compete with what’s already out there and stay compliant with all the rules and regulations. We work with businesses large and small to create apps that provide better health outcomes for their clientele. To do this, we go further than other app developers by implementing the latest technologies, such as AI, blockchain, and IoT. This is all part of the digital transformation healthcare companies need to face up to if they’re going to get a return on their investment.
The Darwoft Difference is what sets us apart from our competitors. But what is the Darwoft Difference, and why is it so important for healthcare application development?
- Understanding Your Business – We go deeper than other companies because we attempt to understand what makes your business tick. Our app developers collaborate with you to create an app that works for your business.
- Full-Service Development – Darwoft takes control of both the design and construction processes. This includes speaking to focus groups, proposing new ideas, and creating MVPs that bring your idea to life. We don’t stop until you’re satisfied.
- Revamp and Integration – Our developers build apps that can be integrated into existing systems. We can also revamp legacy systems to bring your organization into the modern age. When we develop a healthcare app, we think about its impact on your business as a whole.
- Cutting-Edge Security – The big trend in Health app development is security. We help you address patient concerns by using blockchain technology to enhance your security and comply with HIPAA.
- Adaptability – Health is changing rapidly, and you need a company that can adapt to that. We love what we do and are always excited to flex our muscles to take on new challenges. Without this ability to adapt, you’re always playing catchup with other healthcare businesses.
- Committing to the Long-Term – Businesses grow and change. By hiring trusted independent contractors, we can enhance your existing team and scale according to the changing needs of your business. Darwoft is here for the long haul.
- Slashing Your Development Costs – Building an app doesn’t have to be expensive. Our Agile approach means that we streamline the traditional app development process for the healthcare industry. Many of our clients save up to 50% on their development costs.
- Working with the Best People – The standout feature of a Darwoft app is our people. We go the extra mile to employ not only the most skilled developers but also to employ the people who want to work with us. It’s this passion and drive that’s reflected within our award-winning apps.
We’re all about making a lasting difference in your business. Our goal is not to develop an app but to develop an asset. If you need a company that knows healthcare, Darwoft is the only choice. Find out more about how we have helped other medical organizations by getting in touch today.
Conclusion
Developing successful applications for the healthcare industry presents its own unique challenges. Any old developer will not be enough to meet the needs of your target audience while staying compliant with industry-specific regulations. You need an enterprise app development company that understands this and provides real, workable solutions. Transform your future and supercharge your growth with specialist healthcare app development from Darwoft.
Get in touch with our Darwoft healthcare app developers today to learn more.
