What you need to know about medical apps
Smartphones have been a staple device used by the modern individual for several years now. They continue to actively penetrate all areas of life and open up new use cases. Against this backdrop, medical apps are becoming more and more popular. Today, they help people manage their health and improve their quality of life.
They can be useful for many different purposes, such as tracking physical activity, tracking sleep, watching nutrition, managing chronic diseases, etc. It can be an excellent tool that will contribute to providing information about diseases and medications, and organize treatment. For doctors it is an opportunity to collect data, track their condition, and communicate with patients. No wonder why the question about how to develop a medical app is getting very relevant.
Basic types of medical apps
Developing a medical app is one of the most popular ideas nowadays. Medical applications are diverse and can be used by doctors and patients. Let’s look at the main types:
For Health and Fitness
They provide the ability to track physical activity levels, calories, water balance, and other health factors. They can also provide tips for a healthy lifestyle and make recommendations for better nutrition.
For Chronic Conditions
Designed to suffer from conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, and many others. They track symptoms, manage medication dosages, and record treatment results.
For Patient-Physician Interaction
Patient-physician interaction projects are designed to simplify doctor-patient communication. They can make an appointment with their doctor, get an online consultation, get test results, and communicate with their doctor.
For Health Monitoring
Allow them to track various health parameters, such as blood pressure, heart rate, blood glucose levels, and other indicators. They can also watch their weight and manage their records.
For Self-Education and Exercise
Designed to help improve a person’s lifestyle, motivate them to exercise, monitor their diet, activity level, etc.
For Mental Health
Help users deal with common mental health issues. For example, they can allow you to start meditating, cope with daily stress, or track your mood. In general, such apps help to improve emotional well-being.
These are just some of the most well-known types. The common thing in all of them is that they make our life easier by providing convenience in handling with health-related issues.
What features to add if you want to develop a medical app?
Medical apps are an important tool for health management as they can provide patients and doctors with many useful features. Let’s divide the features according to the types of medical apps for doctors and for patients:
Features For Doctors
Medical apps provide physicians with a lot of handy features and functions that allow them to better manage their work and improve the quality of care. Some of the chips for doctors:
- Electronic Records: Many medical apps offer the ability to store and manage patients’ electronic medical records. This can help doctors easily access a patient’s medical history, watch their condition, and coordinate treatment.
- Telemedicine consultations: The ability to conduct a telemedicine consultation with patients. This can be particularly useful for physicians who work in remote or hard-to-reach areas.
- Diagnostic and disease monitoring tools. For example, apps can be used to measure blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and other health parameters.
- Drug information: drug databases that can help doctors quickly find information about dosage, side effects and other drug parameters.
- Doctor-patient messaging. Doctors can receive feedback from patients, answer their questions, and check their condition.
- Manage appointment and appointment schedules.
Features for Patients
Today’s apps allow you to take better control of your health and get quality care. Some of the features of a medical app for patients:
- Make doctor’s appointments and get reminders about upcoming appointments.
- Store and manage electronic health records. Patients can easily access their medical history and track their health status.
- Conducting telemedicine consultations with doctors. This is useful for patients who cannot see a doctor in person or live in remote areas.
- Disease and medication information to better understand their health conditions and take their medications correctly.
- Medication, dosage management, and reminders to take your medications at the right time.
- Health monitoring, such as measuring activity levels, food intake, blood sugar, and other parameters.
- Sharing research results.
How to develop a medical app? The process
Medical app development is a complex process that includes several stages. The main stages of the development process:
Market research
The first stage is the research of the market and potential users. Competitors and their applications need to be analyzed to determine their competitive advantages and unique features. It is also necessary to study the needs and requirements of users to create the most convenient and functional application.
Concept Creation
In the second step, a concept is created. This includes defining the main functions and features that the app should provide, as well as its design and user interface.
Designing
The third stage is design. At this stage, developers define the architecture and structure and create mockups and prototypes. They also determine the technologies that will be used.
Development
In the development phase, the creation of it takes place. Developers write code, create a database, and implement features. During this stage, it is important to make sure that the application meets the security and data protection requirements.
Testing
Once the application has been created, it needs to be tested to meet the requirements and expectations of the users. Testing is done on different devices and operating systems. If bugs or flaws are found, developers make the necessary fixes.
Release and support
After successfully passing the testing, the application is ready for release. It is posted to the appropriate app stores (such as the App Store or Google Play), where users can download it to their devices.
Conclusion
Creating a medical app is a promising direction for a startup. But it is also a challenge in terms of security and regulatory requirements. Developers must carefully study the requirements of the market and the needs of users.
This market is constantly growing, and every year more and more people are using mobile apps to improve their health and monitor their health indicators. But today there are still many opportunities and unrealized ideas to offer the market a truly unique product. So everything is in your hands!