Mobile Healthcare Application: Opportunities and Challenges

As the healthcare industry requires more patient engagement software, developers are innovating the industry to match the upcoming trend: mobile application.

Introduction to Mobile Healthcare Application

Mobile device healthcare applications are becoming an essential part of the industry. From homes to hospitals, mobile devices play a vital role in assisting people in the healthcare process. Doctors can use their devices (mobile phones, tablets, laptops, etc.) to remotely diagnose (telediagnosis) and communicate (chat, video call) with patients with ease. They can even collaborate with other specialists in seconds without long-haul traveling. Patients, on the other side, can make appointments, make payments, and even join in online sessions via their devices. Mobile healthcare applications are making healthcare experience more accessible, cost-saving, and time-saving.

Moreover, as wearable technology advances, real-time health records are now available for healthcare professionals to monitor their own patients. This collection method also allows big data analytics to better understand the early and subtle symptoms without doing costly research. These wearables are even designed to give people notifications, basic guidelines so they can take care of themselves, and emergency programs for elders and severe patients.

From as simple as counting steps, logging meals & medications to doing special analysis, calling healthcare services. Mobile apps can be utilized to track daily health conditions, educate people to take on new habits, remind them to get more water, and many more to come. 

Related article: Hospital Mobile Application: What Makes It a Must-Have

Opportunities in Mobile Healthcare App Development

Getting signals from the market, medical software companies are doing their best to jump in the mobile development field. Before jumping right in, here are our benefits suggestions for your apps:

Leverage Patient Care’s Quality

With this type of benefit, it is inevitable that health professionals are able to use various mobile apps to access information libraries and a pool of high-quality specialists from different countries. They are more capable than ever to make informed and educated decisions about patients’ treatments.

Avoid Human Errors

Some mobile healthcare apps can include warning features if the person’s inputs are not the right choice or the app believes there are better ways to do the task. This can be used during doctors’ prescribing process and patients’ medications buying process.

Enhance Patient Alertness

As a developer, you should think of your users’ experiences while taking care of their health. Feature suggestions include schedule reminders, goals setting, habit building, risks of having blood pressure, diabetes or other chronic diseases...etc. Developers can consider making this patient engagement software.

Increase Workflow Efficiency

Instead of processing each step on a different app, medical billing and medication management can be integrated into one platform to be the best medical billing software. This can empower users to perform smooth actions and reduce friction between steps.

Ensure Customization Experiences

With the help of mobile digital platforms and Artificial Intelligence, there are more rooms for caretakers to personalize their services for each patient (personal health records, personal counseling sessions, customized doctor and nurse choices...).

Related article: Healthcare tech: What make healthcare startups success in the era of digital health

Challenges in Mobile Healthcare App Development

Mobile healthcare software development seems to be a promising field. However, there are many underlying challenges that can put the industry at risk.

Privacy Risk

Similar to any connected platform, the privacy risk of users is the first thing to think of for developers. Especially when most of the mobile health apps are collecting users’ private data with a name assigned to it. If you are a developer considering establishing your stand in the world of mobile healthcare app development, the data breach is the first note to take during your QA - QC process.

Infrastructure Inefficiency

As this type of application concerns databases and analytics, finding the right infrastructure to keep the application running is a notable challenge, especially for startups. Data storage capacity and data transmission speed of devices are also to be taken into consideration for the best performance of the app.

User Insights and Experiences

Healthcare processes from both perspectives, the care receiver, and the caregiver, are complicated. This type of application requires a high level of expertise in the medical field to make a feasible app. Understanding thoroughly the struggles patients and doctors are facing will help developers solve the right problems rather than making these processes even more difficult.

In conclusion, either you are a developer who is looking into a new field to delve in or a client who is looking for solutions for your job, the important element in developing or using apps is to be human-centric. Software is built to make human life easier, not to become a burden. There is still a long way to go for mobile healthcare app developers and companies to complete this kind of technology.