Medical app developers number in the thousands. But how to cut through the clutter and separate the best from the average?
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.
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:
Now, let us fabricate each segment further as per the flurry of healthcare app ideas we find manifesting today.
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.
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.
Seasoned medical app developers are familiar with such diagnosis app or 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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Health and fitness app developers that have been long in the game acknowledge the reality of a few specifications being ever-present, notwithstanding the varying business model of apps. The following features would therefore formulate the skeletal structure of the app.
Getting into your app should be a piece of cake be it for first-time users or returning customers. With new registrations, you should offer auto-sign up with their emails or other contact details. Don’t complicate matters by asking too many security questions. For registered users, there should be no more than a click or two required to jump right in.
Whether you hire a dedicated healthcare app developer or not, you cannot control the incoming traffic of users based on their socio-economic, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds. App developers should play it safe by powering their code with multi-lingual support catering to all the regional languages of at least their geography.
The introduction of GDPR and similar data protection acts around the globe is strangulating the ease with which digital businesses used to collect and abuse user data. Now that data malpractices are getting curbed, it’s in the interest of health and wellness apps to collect only the information central to their product. They must also adhere unflinchingly to the statute laid down by the authorities for data use after the user has unsubscribed from the service.
As you hire healthcare app developers make sure to emphasize the inclusion of multi-factor authentication in your app to protect sensitive medical info such as customer history from being stolen. 2FA is the industry standard anyway and should be there, to say the least.
It is for a reason that Apple & Google release their APIs which is to facilitate professionals such as health app developers to maximize in-app functionality. For instance, integrating the Box API makes possible secure document storage. The Doximity API allows patient-doctor interaction which is a key pillar of many medical apps.
This feature allows online consultations to transpire without any bumps. Especially now that in-person visits are advised against, patients can communicate their ailments to the respective experts via the telemedicine feature. It is because of telemedicine, that video conferencing and on-demand doctored advice are considered a bare essential of any mobile health app.
Technically, these aren’t features but interdependent domains. The reason we gave it an honorable mention is because a well thought out UI UX lays the groundwork for customer satisfaction. When you satisfy the audience, they demand less out of the app, saving the cost to the company for modifications in design later. Just remember one concept, do things right the first, and the only time.
Awesome, you have made up your mind for the business model along with a preliminary picture of the in-app features. It would also be wise to take a closer look at the nature of adversaries you would have to overcome. Make no mistake, your marketing strategy as well as the premium functionality of the product would depend upon the volume of competition.
Analyse how others are excelling and what is their USP within your niche. Is it their legacy that attracts strong subscribers or do they give value for money? The answers could help you refix your understanding of customer expectations and the means required to achieve the same.
If nothing strikes you initially either you are looking in the wrong places or the questions you ask need refining. Perform a SWOT analysis to cut down on relevant Agencies you would lock horns with.
When you venture forward to find a suitable app development ally, you would be faced with 3 critical questions namely:
Inhouse teams are a no-brainer. Since they share the same workspace with you, coordination is no big deal and communication is prompt. Moreover, if there is a genuine camaraderie between your peers, extending over-the-top favors comes as a bonus. But in-house teams are not everybody’s cup of tea for they could pose the following challenges:
Outsourcing can save you a lot of time. Given that there are hundreds of medical app development companies to choose from, with a proper hiring framework, you can leverage the following advantages:
We must point out that as you outsource decisions to remote teams that probably operate across time zones, communicating requirements could be a challenge.
A freelance healthcare mobile app developer could fill in ad-hoc, 11th-hour requirements. The work distribution is directly linked to your in-house teams’ competency to manage tasks. But of all the three questions asked, this is the one with the greatest drawbacks:
Weighing all the pros and cons in the previous section, the safest bet is to hire a healthcare mobile app development company as it offers the lowest downsides.
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.
We cannot stress the gravity of this section. This ain’t your everyday doubt clearing session. There are some straightforward, difficult to face, and uncomfortable questions that need answering before money changes hands between two parties. Knowing the nature of the partnership you will harness with the app development agency is mission-critical. Below we suggest our top 3 picks of such questions you should memorize and throw at the vendors like a bullet from the gun.
A complete handover is but natural but buried deep under the SLAs there could be a clause that lets the vendor walk away with the code. A worst-case scenario could see you face recurring bugs to resolve with the app agency might give you a runaround and shell out extra cash. Clear this beforehand, than rue on it later.
Time ticks fast, especially when you have sleepless nights. We hope you don’t and it is to avoid an outburst of blood-pressure and emotions when the penultimate delivery date is delayed, that you pose this question. How would the agency compensate for the time lost? The devil is in the details, don’t let it lurk in ambiguity.
It would not be amicable, yet the word needs to be set in writing. An exit strategy is what the smartest people look at first because they know we’re all humans (mostly) and **it happens. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst should be your guiding principle.
We’re almost through this guide on how to partner with a healthcare mobile app development company, but for one last consideration. The mistakes that you could make do. You need to be regard-ful of these.
Quality doesn’t come cheap. Price war is one thing among health and fitness app developers, to cut the asking rate below the industry threshold, is totally another. If you’ve done your due diligence like we instructed above, the high price point of a truly expert healthcare app development company shouldn’t be a problem.
Again, money is not the standalone metric based on which you should join hands with someone. It is a multi-factor calculated risk that includes parameters such as company reputation, human capital, domain expertise and more. Don’t let passion get the better of reason.
This would be a suicidal folly. The first phone call you make should be based on the conclusions drawn during the information gathering stage. Make sure there is visible, verifiable proof of the successes that the market players claim.
App Store optimization is an art and proves that work doesn’t end with code completion. Ask for previously developed apps that are hosted on the app store. Download and see the level of optimization achieved.
Project estimation must be handled beforehand and not while you are being cornered to infuse more cash by the developers. Ground your projections on a summary of functional requirements, timelines and marketing strategy.
It is just as essential to market the immense effort that has gone into developing the product as it is to engineer it. You should not be facing the now what question right after the app has been published on the app stores.
In the end, we hope that this healthcare app development tips blog for hiring a good developer was useful. Mobile App Daily is your informal yellow-pages publication with one the most comprehensive registries for top healthcare mobile app development companies. Having gone through the guide there is only one thing left to do. Execute it.
Aparna is a growth specialist with handsful knowledge in business development. She values marketing as key a driver for sales, keeping up with the latest in the Mobile App industry. Her getting things done attitude makes her a magnet for the trickiest of tasks. In free times, which are few and far between, you can catch up with her at a game of Fussball.
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