Software Development Updates

Mobile healthcare apps, or mHealth apps, are elevating the quality and standards of health services. They were very helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic. These apps are still widely used across the globe for healthcare services. 

mHealth apps have proven to be advantageous for everyone, from stakeholders to patients. According to the report, the global mHealth market size was estimated at USD 62.7 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.1% from 2024 to 2030.

Let’s discuss the concept of the mHealth app, its benefits, how to build one, and its challenges during development. 

1. What is mHealth?

mHealth, short for mobile health technology, refers to the practice of offering medical and healthcare services through mobile devices such as wearable devices, smartphones, tablets, etc. It is widely used to collect and access patients’ medical data, monitor patients’ health remotely, send prescriptions, book appointments, and provide other healthcare services. 

Mobile health apps allow patients to easily access medical services while healthcare providers and hospitals can enhance healthcare operations.

Developing and deploying a mobile health app is more than just keeping up with the latest trends; it provides an edge in preventive care and disease management. Remote health monitoring and telehealth solutions have become a widely used healthcare practice, catering personalized treatment to patients through mHealth. 

Adopting mHealth has also led to increased administrative efficiency in hospitals and clinics. However, it comes with a learning curve as both medical professionals and patients need to familiarize themselves with these mobile applications. 

2. Types of mHealth Apps

Different types of mHealth apps are available in the market to address different aspects of a patient’s health. These mobile healthcare applications can be categorized into the following groups: 

2.1 Remote Monitoring Apps

Not every patient has a critical condition that requires hospitalization. But they do need continuous health monitoring. In such cases, healthcare professionals can use remote monitoring apps to keep patients under their virtual care. They can monitor the patient’s vitals such as heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level, blood glucose levels, and other necessary information without inviting patients over to the clinic. 

The medical practitioners can track the patient’s symptoms, gather their reports, and log them into the app. This helps to observe how patients respond to the treatment. This also acts as an electronic record of a patient’s medical history.

2.2 Telemedicine Apps

Telemedicine apps make healthcare more affordable and easily accessible for patients. They were a growing trend in the healthcare industry that became a necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Patients can use telemedicine applications to get medical care without leaving their homes. It allows healthcare providers to deliver telehealth services through audio and video calls. 

Remote monitoring, appointment scheduling, medication management, audio and video conferencing, and a user-friendly interface are some of the distinguishing features of these apps. 

2.3 Productivity Apps

Productivity applications in mHealth are designed to increase the productivity and efficiency of healthcare providers. This app allows medical professionals to create schedules, perform mobile charting, organize health records, use remote dictation, communicate internally, etc. 

The system offers all the features required to increase the administrative efficiency and productivity of the professionals while maintaining necessary regulatory compliance.

2.4 Reminder Apps

Patients often need reminders for things like taking medications, especially when they are suffering from complex or chronic conditions. Reminder apps are just as basic as a healthcare app can get. 

Patients receive notifications to remind them about taking medicines, following their appointments, tracking their symptoms or vital signs, etc. Although major mHealth apps would have such a notification and alerting feature. But such reminder apps are also developed and used separately. Often, doctors also use these apps to remind them about their appointments, upcoming surgeries, and more. 

2.5 Mental Health Apps

Mental health applications help make therapy more accessible and effective. It provides gamification elements, pre-recorded meditation music tracks, and breathing exercises. These tools are designed to help patients who are struggling with sleep disturbances, anxiety, stress, and depression. 

Patients can track their symptoms using mental health apps, connect with professionals, and get expert advice.

3. Benefits of mHealth Apps

The adoption of mHealth applications benefits both patients as well as healthcare providers. Let’s discuss a few of those advantages. 

3.1 Reduce Healthcare Costs

With mHealth technology, hospitals and clinics can streamline the workflow, increase administrative efficiency, and boost the productivity of doctors. This app reduces in-person visits by encouraging telehealth services, providing effective care at affordable rates, and more. The combined benefits of mHealth trump the initial cost of mobile health app development. 

3.2 Better Decision-Making

Healthcare mobile applications offer required medical information in real-time. It can provide access to the patient’s medical history, drug information, the latest treatment guidelines, and digital medical textbooks. Having such vast information at their fingertips helps physicians make informed decisions quickly. This allows them to wisely chart a suitable treatment course. 

3.3 Improved Communication

mHealth apps support features like instant messaging, audio, and video calling, enabling real-time communication between patients and medical professionals. These features allow doctors to track the symptoms and patients to provide a health update and seek necessary medical counsel. There is no need for doctors and patients to conduct in-person appointments, and they can communicate online to provide or access required medical care. 

3.4 Reduced Cancellations

Sometimes, it is not convenient for patients to travel to the hospital. There can be various reasons why patients cannot keep their appointments. Canceling a doctor’s appointment may not only affect the patient’s health by delaying necessary medical attention but can also place a significant strain on the administration, wasting time and resources in adjusting the schedule and maintaining a smooth workflow.

mHealth apps allow patients to attend virtual appointments, so if they have any trouble traveling to the hospital, they can still make the appointment. The app also reminds you about the appointment, so there won’t be any chances of misunderstandings or forgetting about it. This way, mHealth apps reduce appointment cancellation rates and costs for hospitals and clinics. 

3.5 Easy Access To Health Records

Previously, patients were required to visit the clinics for the tests and then again to receive the reports. Healthcare professionals also had to look into the hospital’s physical records or contact the patient to access their medical records. With the advent of mHealth, both patients and healthcare providers can access medical records online from anywhere at any time. These apps facilitate secure online storage for health records, so you no longer need to worry about manually compiling a file. 

4. Step-by-Step Guide to mHealth Application Development

We saw what the mHealth application is and how beneficial it is for patients and medical staff alike. But those advantages can only be reaped once you produce such an application. Therefore, we provide a step-by-step process to help you build a mHealth application. 

Step 1: Identifying the Problem

Identifying the problems is an important aspect of the app development process. You must know the needs of the end-users, the problems they are facing, and the solutions you can offer. This will help you decide what type of mHealth app you need to build, along with the required features and functionalities. 

Step 2: Choose Platforms

When considering the development of a mobile healthcare app, choosing the appropriate platform is important. You need to select a suitable platform for your mobile healthcare application depending on the operating system of your end users. 

Picking a development platform helps you choose a suitable programming language and a framework required for the project. For example, languages like Swift are ideal for iOS development, whereas Java and Kotlin work best for Android development. 

However, if you opt for cross-platform development, then you would need to use frameworks such as Flutter or React Native. These frameworks enable you to write code in TypeScript or JavaScript programming language. 

Step 3: Hire an App Development Company

If your organization lacks the necessary resources or in-house experts for developing a mobile health (mHealth) application, outsourcing the project is the best option. It’s essential to find a reliable technical partner with extensive knowledge and experience to create a suitable mHealth solution. 

Finding and managing an in-house development team would be costly as well as time-consuming. On the other hand, partnering with an app development company can easily guide you through the development process while following the relevant regulations. 

Make sure you conduct background research on the company by reviewing its portfolio, customer reviews, ranking, and more before hiring them. 

Step 4: Select a Monetization Model

The primary objective behind building an app is to offer better services. However, generating revenue is equally important. Like every other industry, there are two main app monetization models in the healthcare sector. 

The first is a subscription-based model where users can subscribe to the required mobile healthcare services from a wide range of offerings. Another is a freemium model where hospitals allow patients to use the mobile app and its basic features for free, but have to pay to access their premium services.

Step 5: Design and Development

Your mobile application must have an elegant UI/UX design. No matter how good a service it offers, your app won’t succeed if it isn’t visually appealing and easy to use. The app should have a design that delivers an enhanced user experience, allowing users to easily navigate through different pages and functionalities. 

Once the blueprints are ready, the actual development process kicks off. It involves setting up the app architecture, building the required features, integrating various APIs, and more. 

Step 6: Test Your mHealth App

After building a mobile application, it needs to be tested thoroughly. This process helps find bugs or defects in the app’s code and ensures that all the developed features work without a glitch. A thorough testing process is carried out to verify if the app meets the predetermined technological and quality standards. 

There are a series of tests, such as security testing, usability testing, unit testing, regression testing, integration testing, cross-platform testing, functional testing, etc., to ensure you are launching a secure and reliable mobile health application.

5. Challenges in mHealth Application Development

Though it offers a multitude of benefits, the path to mHealth app development is not an easy one. Despite following a step-by-step guide to mHealth app development, you must look out for the challenges along the way. Here we discuss a few problems that you need to address to ensure the success of your mHealth application. 

5.1 Regulatory Compliance

Ensure that your healthcare app is compliant with all the regulations enforced in your jurisdiction. Software solutions are strictly regulated in the healthcare sector. If you are building an app for US-based users, then it must comply with PHI and HIPAA. For Canada, it’s PIPEDA, and for the EU, it’s GDPR. 

To meet these regulations, your app must effectively handle privacy, data protection, and other important aspects. If you are building a global application, then it would surely need to comply with the health regulations of each country where it is deployed. 

5.2 Security and Privacy

Medical records and healthcare data are highly sensitive. Failure to protect them can lead to reputational, financial, and legal damages. With the ongoing digital transformation, healthcare and personal information are more vulnerable than ever before. A single data breach or unauthorized action can have serious consequences. 

So, it is important to use robust tools and technologies, implement security protocols, and adhere to relevant regulations to develop and maintain a secure healthcare mobile application.

5.3 Interoperability

Health monitoring apps are required to function seamlessly in integration with other systems and applications. This can be a little challenging because of the different standards, security protocols, and file formats. In such cases, developers should either adhere to the industry standards or employ open standards to allow easy integration and data exchange in their mobile health applications. 

6. Conclusion

mHealth apps are increasingly making healthcare services more affordable and accessible to a wide range of audiences. These apps not only provide better services but also encourage people to become health-conscious. 

Mobile healthcare applications also help healthcare providers in effective patient monitoring, making accurate diagnoses, streamlining their processes, and improving doctor-patient relationships. 

In short, mHealth apps are proving to be a game changer, especially in an era of digital transformation. In this blog, we discussed the benefits of mHealth apps, how you can build one yourself, and how to overcome potential problems. The key to your project’s success lies in offering a satisfactory user experience, it’s for the betterment of both patients and doctors.