Over the past few years, leveraging the digital health solution, healthcare applications have become significant means to enhance patient experiences and outcomes and access to care services. The advancement in mobile applications has significantly impacted healthcare technology, either in the application of telemedicine apps or health and wellness apps. In 2019, we need medical applications for patients’ engagement or EHR optimization, so it is crucial to know the aspects that define the core of a healthcare application.
Device Doctor India is one of the top mobile application development companies in India that focuses in developing the best healthcare mobile applications that fit the current standards of medical facilities. In this blog, we will look at the features that cannot be missing from any healthcare app and how they could benefit patients, secure the data and deliver improved care and better health.
1. User-Friendly Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX)
The necessary criterion for the healthcare application is the interface, which has to be simple and easy to navigate. Both the users, which are the patients and the doctors, need to easily use the application for booking appointments, reviewing medical records, or even for remote surveillance. An overcrowded and confusing layout is not very effective for the users and may contribute towards wrong medical information searching.
For a successful healthcare app:
- Propose the mobile health (mHealth) work interface layout that enables users to navigate through with ease.
- Make sure that medical information is available within a few taps.
- Prominently use visuals and adhere to the basic philosophies of principles of design, such as simplicity.
2. Telemedicine and Video Consultation
Due to COVID-19 and a shift to remote work and online communication, such applications as telemedicine applications gain popularity. They have incorporated this feature whereby patients have a way of seeing their doctors through a video conversation without physical contact. Telemedicine applications mean comfort for both the patient and the medical personnel when it comes to receiving and providing treatment.
Key benefits of including telemedicine features:
- Integrate with medical devices for ‘Remote Patient Monitoring’ with non-intermittent connectivity.
- Allow patients to chat one on one with healthcare practitioners in real-time.
- Deliver fast video streaming on their sites and be able to protect the data of their users.
3. Electronic Health Records (EHR) Integration
Another essential feature of today’s health care apps is to integrate EHR. It enables doctors and the patients to get the details of medical history, test reports, and treatments, among others, at real-time. This feature can be described as bringing efficiency to the medical processes and improving the topic of individualization.
Benefits of EHR integration:
- They should have a better approach towards the handling of the patient information.
- Allow doctors fast decision-making since they gain quick access to all the necessary information.
- To allow clients to retrieve any information regarding the patient’s history, medications, and lab results any time they want.
Implementation of secure data storage solutions for EHR means that patients’ information can only be accessed by those who are legally allowed while at the same time the information stored in EHRs is secured.
4. Remote Patient Monitoring Systems
There are several benefits that can be derived from health care applications with remote monitoring options for persons with chronic diseases. Health care apps that are out there on the market can monitor some critical health indicators, including heart rate, blood pressure, glucose levels, and others, and relay the information to the healthcare personnel in real-time. This is helpful in assuming the role of personalized medicines by giving the much-needed health tips and an early call for treatment.
Important features of remote monitoring:
- Monitor the patients’ health data from wearable or linked medical devices.
- Give notification to the clinicians should there be any abnormality in the patient data.
- Let the patients track their improvements, and exchange essential information discreetly.
5. Appointment Scheduling and Medication Reminders
- 55 Patient engagement requires good appointment scheduling and medication reminders. They enhance the patient experience since his/her time is well managed to ensure that the patient receives proper and timely medical attention.
Key aspects of appointment scheduling:
- Enabling patients to schedule appointments, reschedule or even cancel an appointment through their smartphones.
- Allow health care providers to have an efficient calendar for their appointments and reduce cases of patient no-shows.
- Remind the patients of their appointments by sending them notifications or alerts of the pending scheduled appointments.
The medication reminders help the patient/stakeholder stay on track by giving them various notifications on their medication. This is especially helpful for a patient who is old or one who is taking many prescriptions at once.
6. Secure Data Storage and HIPAA Compliance
Privacy is very important, especially in healthcare apps that require protection of sensitive health information. It simply means that the healthcare app that you are developing should be HIPAA compliant; otherwise, the users will never trust you.
Important elements of secure healthcare data storage:
- Employ the use of encryption technologies to preserve the confidentiality of patients; data when transmitting as well as when storing it.
- Require the use of strong passwords and enable multi-factor authentication on login points.
- It is recommended to update the application for the purpose of sealing the cracks that experienced hackers could use to penetrate into an individual’s personal data.
The reliable storage also protects the patient’s details, and it also serves to strict health care standards across various geopolitical locations.
7. Health Tracking and Analytics
Most health and wellness apps include tracking capabilities where patients can include their fitness, nutrition, and health records. The skills offer details concerning the behavior patterns of users related to their health, facilitating their ability to make better decisions concerning their daily practices.
Key health tracking features include:
- Calorie data records, books, pedometer records and exercise records.
- The two features of the smart Snooze button include sleeping monitoring and mental status evaluation.
- Connecting it to other wearable devices to allow for tracking of some health parameters, such as pulse rate and blood pressure.
The integration of health analytics can help in assessing the patient information that is essential in providing detailed advice, recommendations and alerts to the healthcare apps.
8. Medical Billing and Insurance Claims Processing
If the healthcare application is designed to optimize procedures in the administration department, then functions like medical billing or insurance claim processing are a must. They facilitate the way through which a patient and healthcare provider can go about billing, payments, and claims.
Benefits of medical billing features:
- There is also a need to expand the patient billing process through the provision of online methods of payment.
- To have the capability of connecting with the insurance claim systems of the healthcare providers.
- Ensure that users have clean and quick ways of accessing their payment history and bills that are due.
It not only serves the need for rational allocation of healthcare funds by the patient but also lightens the load of medical organizations.
Conclusion
As depicted above, these features are critical in developing effective applications that may solve numerous patient and medical-related challenges while ensuring the protection of the patient data. Telemedicine apps, health and wellness apps, and full-scale medical software should all embody these features to provide a solid, convenient, and security-enhanced foundation for developing providers’ experiences and easy mobile access for patients.
With healthcare technology moving forward, integrating these basic essential features may also place your app in the front line within the digital healthcare market. Moreover, you cannot go wrong in involving an app development firm that has previous experience in developing healthcare apps, which will guarantee the use of contemporary features as well as pertinent industry standards.
FAQs
Q-1 What are the essential features for healthcare app development?
Ans- Some are telemedicine, electronic health record integration, data security, scheduling and remote patient monitoring. These make sure that when the application is adopted, the health care provider and the patient for that matter, get the best experience.
Q-2 Why is secure data storage crucial for healthcare apps?
Ans- Data security mainly concerns the safety of patients’s records and details that need to be safeguarded. Encryption and HIPAA will allow healthcare apps to keep data safe from hackers and other unauthorized users to gain access to the data
Q-3 How do healthcare apps improve patient engagement?
Ans- There are certain characteristics of healthcare apps that can enhance patient interactions with them, such as remote health monitoring, health management and scheduling of appointments, among others. These tools help patients to have linkages with the health care providers and they can manage their health.
Q-4 What is the role of telemedicine in healthcare apps?
Ans-Telemedicine is a way through which patients can interact with doctors in real time through video calls that would help patients to access medical services at their convenience and especially from the comfort of their homes. This helps cut on one-on-one consultations and increases the availability of the healthcare services.
Q-5 How do healthcare apps support personalized medicine?
Ans- Healthcare mobile applications give insight into the health and well-being of a patient through built-in health analytics and tracking. This means that patient care and treatment can be personalized and delivered early, especially where complications are expected.
