The Health sector is metamorphosing big time. This torpaedic change is aided by the influence and emergence of broadband connectivity and changing customer priorities. Healthcare services are shifting addresses from local clinics and landing directly into the pocket of anyone who can afford a smartphone (which is practically everyone).
This change is cementing grounds for entrepreneurs to not just launch growable Health-tech startups, but also make significant contributions to the lives of people by adding convenience. The key pillar of such health tech startups are, more often than not, apps. If you are struggling with the question of how to develop (or get developed) your healthcare application by partnering with third party developers, then this article is for you. Let’s get the ball rolling.
Layout Your Health App Requirements
Before you hire a dedicated healthcare app developer it is vital to deliberate on the nature of your application. Healthcare, within the USA, is a multi-trillion dollar industry. In 2019 it generated revenues to the tune of US$ 2, 487.7 billion. It is but natural to come across myriad business models, each catering to a different set of users. In fact, we can create two parent categories under which the entire ecosystem of healthcare applications is concentrated:
- Applications for Health Service Providers
- Applications for end-users
Now, let us fabricate each segment further as per the flurry of healthcare app ideas we find manifesting today.
1. Applications for Health Service Providers
This community is constituted by those rendering any/every medical service under the sun, from doctors, to part-time care-takers and other miscellaneous strata of medical professionals. For general awareness, we’ve mentioned the most prevalent health app ideas below.
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Electronic Health Record Software
You’d find profound diversity in EHRs. These are software used to store and process structured information such as patient health records, clinical recovery, and medical history among other things. Look up Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and Electronic Patient Record (EPR) for further information.
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Medical Diagnosis Software
Seasoned medical app developers are familiar with such software. It helps uncover ailments based on the inputted parameters by medical practitioners. Examples of such software include Holonic Diagnosis Systems and Generic Human Disease Ontology (GHDO).
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Hospital Management Software
It is used more toward administering a well-coordinated hospital experience to the patients by the staff. Major specifications include facility management, insurance claims processing, invoicing, tax planning, and much more.
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Medical Research Software
Citing precise records for medicinal research is mission-critical. When records related to a particular field are concentrated in one place, scientists can address bigger questions and reduce primary research efforts and that is what this software achieves.
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Medical Equipment Management
Medical hardware could be easily tied and run with smart algorithms that not just control operative movements but also analyze machine performance and predict downtime instances. The cycle is capable of saving establishments maintenance costs and delivering longer equipment life thus increasing the ROI.
2. Applications for End-Users
This is where most of the first-time entrepreneurs with healthcare app ideas come to life. The solutions are targeted towards people at the tail-end of the supply chain.
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Health Monitoring Apps
The apps are designed to capture patient information in a sequential way that highlights health patterns to medical experts. In-built features allow users to consult doctors online and receive electronic prescriptions.
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Wellness Apps
A series of self-improvement and personal well-being applications fall into this category. They target chronic ailments that reveal symptoms through longer timelines such as blood pressure, and diabetes. Many wearables come pre-loaded with such applications specially designed to service health-conscious people with features such as heart rate tracker, calories burned, weight changes, etc.
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Personal Medical Records
There is a growing movement around data preservation that has awakened the population to the significance of personal information. This applies equally to the healthcare sectors as it does anywhere else. Playing to the fear of preservation, many health app developers have officiated works on this online business model.
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Appointment Booking
Quite often such apps act as aggregators. They offer a platform for health experts to accommodate the citizenry’s inquiries. In dire cases, patients can even book a home visit by the doctor. Although best suited to people living far-off from commercial health centers, such apps have actually picked up given the social distancing norms of COVID-19. Telemedicine is a prominent feature of such apps.
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Pharmacy Delivery
Again, given the virulent circumstance, the world is toiling through, offline to online business models are the norm. And if everything can be delivered at the doorstep then why not medications. You’ll feel the heat of competition in this segment due to the overcrowding by me-too startups.
How to find Your Ideal App Development Partner?
When you hire a dedicated healthcare app developer, follow the below guidelines to unravel all the essential qualities of your soon-to-be technological partners.
1. Gauge an All-Encompassing Understanding
- When you are in the zone to hire healthcare application development company, the first place to begin acquiring information is social media. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram should offer enough fodder to bite into and verify the identities of the app development team. Conformity of their existence and especially their work location entails the details whether the workers are local hires or contribute virtually.
- Next, go through their portfolio and look for awards and recognition. If that is not enough, try and peruse the case studies usually posted by developers on their website to showcase how they overcame challenges. In due process, you would have a list of customers to contact and verify their experience.
- Everything said and done, you can move on to breaking the ice and sharing your interest to set up talks.
2. Enquire about the Team
- The contact details posted on the website leads customers to sales representatives. To appear serious (which you should be) in your quest to hire healthcare mobile app developers request a session with the development team.
- Use this one-on-one time to find out their specializations, experience, work interests and level of creativity. Although going too far, nevertheless you may ask them to present you their CVs.
- Ask for references and links to their work on the App Store.
3. Level-off Communication Gaps
- Language barriers aren’t the only issue you could face. There are cultural sensitivities one needs to bear in mind before expressing opinion to foreigners. In addition to this there should be a platform to communicate readily other than emails. The thumb rule dictates English proficiency to be a must in the enlisted companies from whom you will hire healthcare app developers.
- Applications like Zoom, Cisco Webex, and Skype are something that are easy to operate and use based on a consensus. However, for security reasons, the developers could recommend their in-house tools as well.
4. Find out about the SDLC
- It should be clear which Software Development Life Cycle model is deployed. General consensus is that Agile methodology is the preferred choice for mobile app developers. Gain clarity on the developers to be allocated to your project, their niche (android, iOS), and the turnaround time for each stage of the SDLC.
- To avoid re-runs in writing code, commitment is needed at the troubleshooting and debugging phases. Question the approach of the team players in this regard.
- After-sales support has to be part of the deal. As you build a user base feedback would pour in mandating interactive changes every now and then. Engineers should have your backs when such a calling comes.
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