How to Develop a Hospital Mobile App For Patient Care?

While mobile Internet services have been trying to cover hardly any niche, hospitals are trying to keep up, building hospital medical apps for their institutions. That’s great, considering their boon effect in decreasing the burden laid on doctors and paperwork patients faced before they get quality medical aid.

According to the report, about 54% of health consumers wish to collaborate more with medical treatment facilities via applications on their mobile devices. While this trend is still unraveling its popularity, 66% of the largest 100 inpatient facilities in U.S. have some kind of mobile app functioning. However, not everything in the garden is rosy.

A Fly in the Ointment

Many of these apps are not meeting customers’ needs due to poor user experience and unsatisfactory functionality. It appeared that only 11% of hospital apps provide users with the features they want, that’s why many of these apps receive mediocre ratings. Basically, the demand for health application exists, but many hospitals are leery of building custom solutions that would be used by both patients and medical workers on a regular basis.

How comes it? Here are some of the reasons many hospital apps are failing:

• Incorrect app structure that does not address users’ needs or poor usability characteristics

• Lack of cooperation with public medical institutions

• Not meeting regulatory specifications (like HIPAA, FDA etc.)

It is Time to Sweeten the Pill!

Well, enough of the sad sides. While we are not able to get all the hospitals engaged in a wink, we are able to do something on our side. It means you have a large room to spread out and to win the competition! You may become the one who supplies your medical institution with an app that truly addresses patients’ needs. How to do that?

First, be aware of what users want to see when installing a hospital mobile app.

Hospital Mobile App For Patients Should Have The Following Features:

• Access to electronic health/medical records;

• Booking, rescheduling and canceling appointments;

• Receiving appointment reminders;

• Receiving medication reminders;

• Ability to have one’s medical prescriptions refilled;

• Obtaining information about ER and clinic wait times;

Viewing Facility locator with the closest facility pointed out;

• Viewing maps and directions:

- Geofencing – receiving push messages and maps at the entrances, in parking spaces etc.
- Pop-up maps that show users’ location and give directions to reach destination.;

• Finding physicians and contacting a practitioner;

• Receiving news and event alerts;

• Reviewing lab results;

• Downloading and uploading reports like X-ray, ultrasound scans, MRI etc.;

• Paying balance electronically;

• Viewing educational content on a specific condition or procedure;

• Tracking and monitoring weight, height, cholesterol and glucose levels as well as the other health metrics;

• Calling in a doctor and getting emergency aid;

• Observing services and specialists and being able to call/email them with one tap;

• Observing physicians’ profiles, including their photos, publications, and credentials.

How to Stand Out From the Crowd? Tips for Startups That Engage Into Hospital Mobile App Development

1. To create a highly sought mobile app, you need to conduct a research and understand what your potential patients would like to see in this app. After finding out what is bothering your potential clients, find solutions to these issues, which should be resolved by means of your custom health app.

2. Be uniquely positioned. In order to stay ahead of the pack, build a mobile app for patient care that offers at least one feature that your main website does not provide. In addition, if your company is able to provide solutions that are not offered by any other app in the field, you hit the jackpot!

3. Make it easy to use. People are fed up with bulky apps with too many clicks. Do not overstuff the app with unnecessary information. This is especially topical for people who are searching for some medical aid. Ironically, patients are not patient. Nevertheless, they will be grateful for reducing paper trials, since paperless has become a synonym of efficiency.

4. Use analytics platform to understand who is using your application, what are the most viewable parts of it, how frequently it is used etc. Implements functionality for feedbacks. All this will help you streamline the user experience, understand customers’ needs and quickly make necessary adjustments. You can get started with Google Analytics or Flurry, for instance.

5. Take care of privacy. Although privacy and security are important for any kind of mobile app, these notions obtain paramount concern in healthcare. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protection should be provided on the part of hospital app developers, who make sure that information is properly handled within the app, as well as by security measures, like using strong passwords etc., which is the responsibility of physicians and hospitals.

Read also: Insurance App Development. What You Need to Know

How much does hospital app development cost?

To get the general understanding of the costs, please refer to our price calculations for application development. We will be able to advise you further after we are aware of your plans, strategies, and capabilities. Well, consumers of health apps expect to receive more and more commodities value over time.

Some of the best players in the field

If you are looking for some good ideas for developing a hospital app, take color from these top apps that make their customers happy:

• HSS Mobile is the official app of Hospital for Special Surgery App that received the gold award from the Healthcare Leadership Awards in 2011 for best mobile communications. Hospital for Special Surgery is considered to be one of the country's leading hospitals in orthopedics and rheumatology. Users are able to get info about their condition, find a physician and make an appointment.

• ZocDoc. This award-winning app allows users see neighborhood doctors and read reviews about them. With the app, patients may observe appointment times and instantly book them without no need to call on the phone, as well as to receive important notifications with Wellness Reminders feature.

• Medscape is the leading (with over 4 million registered users) medical resource, widely used by medical students, physicians, nurses and other healthcare specialists. This free app offers a wide variety of options, including medical news, drug information, disease & condition information, medical calculators and more.

Hippocrates said, “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” Technologies are evolving, providing many people – patients, doctors, programmers, and marketers – with these as-yet unused opportunities. Are you already rubbing hands, ready to hire healthcare app developers to step into this innovative land? Feel free to request a quote and build a mobile app for patient care that may change the rules!

Get a 17 min consultation for free with our CTO via Skype maximgor or hangouts [email protected] or reach him via mobile  +1 (805) 364-5433