The era of digitization has dawned on all industries. Especially since COVID-19, businesses have realized and emphasized the importance of offering their services via mobile apps. This shift has also been observed with healthcare apps.
Mordor Intelligence predicts the global IT market will reach $728.63 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 15.24%.
This read explores the difference between health and medical apps and the important steps to create a healthcare app.
Health App Vs. Medical App
Though both these apps serve a purpose related to the health spectrum, they differ in terms of the services they offer. Let's observe the different types and examples of health and medical apps.
Health Apps:
Health apps are preferred by user need a medium to inspect thier current health and knowledge and guidance to improve it. Health apps intend to offer health recommendations that majorly fall under the preventive or lifestyle management bucket.
Some popular healthcare types and examples are:
1. Fitness & Workout: MyFitnessPal
2. Mindfulness and Meditation App: Headspace
3. Sleep Tracking Apps: Sleep Cycle
Medical Apps:
Medical apps are majorly used by patients under clinical settings. They keep an updated record of a patient's medical history and must comply to medical regulations like GDPR or HIPAA. These apps primarily focus on diagnosing, treating, and observing specific medical conditions.
Some popular examples of medical apps include:
1. Telemedicine: Doctor on Demand
2. Remote Patient Monitoring: Vivify Health, MyChart
3. Chronic Disease Management: Glucose Buddy, MySugr
9 Steps to Build A Healthcare Mobile App
App development is a cumbersome process and often requires the expertise of custom mobile app development services to create performant apps quickly and within a strict budget. Here are 9 steps that can ease the development process.
Market Research:
A thorough market research is the starting point for app development. Considering the critical nature of healthcare projects where the adoption rate is low and users might have reservations learning user pain points, gaps in the market and competitor analysis is crucial.
User Analysis:
User analysis plays a pivotel role in learning their preferences, and creating user experiences that drive conversion. There are two approaches namely qualitative and quantitative research that can be used for conducting an end-to-end analysis.
Choose the Right Type of Healthcare App:
Knowing the type of healthcare app you want to create can give a definite direction to your efforts. There are 3 types of apps you can choose from.
- Healthcare Apps for Professionals
- Healthcare Apps for Patients
- Hybrid Apps
Design for Success:
Healthcare apps appeal to a wide age bracket and therefore is subjected to individuals with different levels of technological proficiency. While the app can be easy to learn for millenials it should also offer an intuitive learning experience to users aged higher than 40. This is where seeking assistance from UI/UX design services can offer the best results.
Ensuring Security and Compliance:
Healthcare apps have to follow stringent security and regulatory compliance. It's imperative for them to safeguard sensitive patients histories, lab results, and ongoing medications. Compromise in this area can lead to serious reputational damage and penalties.
Choosing the Best Technologies for Your Healthcare App:
There are numerous technologies that can be used to create a mobile app. However, you would need experience and expertise to select the one that align with your business goals. Whether you wish to use a cross-platform tech or develop a native app is entirely dependent on your total budget and technological requirements.
Building an MVP:
Developing an Minimal Viable Product can really help you understand your app's core functionality, and analyze user response. Essentially, it can validate your app's idea on whether a full-feature app should be created or not. This can save a lot of time and upfront investment.
Rigorous Testing:
Testing helps you learn how your app's performs under real-world conditions and whether it works as intended. There are different types of testing necessary to examine numerous aspects of an app's performance.
Releasing the App and Maintaining its Momentum:
Once your app is ready for launch, you would need a strategy that appeals to healthcare networks, social media, and targets the first wave of users. However, your responsibility doesn't end here, post launch performance monitoring and maintenance is of the utmost importance.
Conclusion
App development is a long, tedious, and costly process that can result in significant losses if not done following a strategic approach. However, following the right practices can help you develop an app that appeals to masses and sets the foundation for long-term success. Garner a detailed understanding on healthcare app development by reading the complete blog here.
We, Maruti Techlabs can surely offer our assistance with web and mobile app development. Our 14+ years of experience helps offer your end-to-end assistance with your digital transformation journey. Get in touch with us today.
