Healthcare, Page 28 Category

The trend of delivering healthcare solutions via a Mobile Healthcare App is garnering popularity and recognition at a fast pace! Medical facilities, as well as providers, are heavily investing in healthcare app solutions to enhance the service quality and encourage the approach of patients’ self-management. These solutions usher in immense benefits like timely medical aid regardless of the patients’ location, reduced errors concerning diagnoses and treatment, improved doctor-patient communication, lesser medical expenses, and many more.

Yet, it has been observed that the adoption rate of healthcare apps is lower than expected despite the availability of endless options. The reason is simple. Most apps fail to satisfy the expectations of the end-users. So, before you proceed to hire a Healthcare App Development Company for crafting that perfect app for you, you must be aware of what features your target customers are looking for. Now, the million-dollar question is, “What do patients expect from a healthcare app?” Well, my write-up answers it all.

This blog throws light on the consumer expectations from a healthcare app and also provides guidance on the essential features to include in a patient-centric healthcare app.

Patients using a healthcare application generally prefer the following features:

Patients using healthcare applications belong to various demographics and so we cannot expect every one of them to be tech-savvy. For this reason, your app must involve an easy login procedure, preferably through a single ID card or a Google account. Its functioning should be such that the users receive the maximum output of healthcare information by providing minimum or precise inputs. An audio-based patient compliant portal will be a perfect example in this case.

If the first page of your app asks for too many details, the users are reluctant to survey further. Therefore, it is important to devise progressive reduction methodologies for integrating information and sections so that the patients’ contribution gets reduced.

Moreover, your app must stimulate self-explanatory navigation for switching between various interfaces. Hence, it is a good idea to implement virtual assistants or audio-based instructions in multiple languages, for guiding users as they sail through your app.

Furthermore, all aspects of your app should be visually likable and instantly available. Remember that the patients’ grasp on your app is dependant on factors like fonts, colors, theme, loading speed, and response time of the application.

Most apps fail to impress end-users owing to below-average user experience. As such, it is important to deliver an amazing digital experience by providing a user-friendly UI and eye-catching data visualization based on the target audience. For instance, if your target audience happens to be elderly individuals, it is advisable to opt for larger-sized app icons and texts.

Patients are going to stick to your app, only if it offers detailed, valuable, and actionable medical information. This is because patients prefer obtaining detailed information about their medical condition, and its causes; so that they can take necessary action based on the opportunities available. Hence, your healthcare app solution should provide all-inclusive and actionable details on a particular medical condition.

The online appointment scheduling facility comes with the following advantages for patients.

Besides appointment scheduling; modern-day customers, specifically those with chronic conditions, prefer receiving reminders concerning appointments, medicine timing, prescription renewals, follow-up schedule, and checking of vitals like blood pressure, heart rate, etc. Such reminders are provided via text message notifications and even phone calls. This strategy works wonders in retaining customers as well as attracting new ones.

Telehealth Video Conferencing has elevated doctor-patient communication to a new level altogether. It provides an effective platform where the patients can connect to their practitioners and avail of online consultations instead of physically paying a visit to the medical facility. Check out its distinct benefits for patients.

Wearable devices like smartwatches, fitness bands, and health trackers are quite popular amongst the masses. So, if your healthcare app has the ability to integrate with wearables, it would be widely adopted. Wearable devices collect crucial medical data like blood sugar levels, heart rate, tremors, sleep patterns, posture control, workouts, etc. enabling patients to know more about their fitness regime and manage their medical conditions in a better way.

Most patients these days look for HIPAA compliant healthcare apps to make sure that their healthcare data is protected and the personal information shared by them is not compromised. Patients are critical about the medical data shared as this data is used for insurance coverage as well. HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) mandates that any app accessing PHI (Personal Healthcare Information) must adhere to HIPAA regulations and security standards. A HIPAA compliant app ensures that sensitive personal information and patients’ data are protected.

Adding the feature of a patients’ community will add value to your healthcare application as patients wish to connect and interact with each other. For example, a patient who has been diagnosed with a specific health condition or disease would want to contact individuals suffering from a similar condition. This strategy allows patients to garner the much-needed comfort level and peer support, and is an excellent way to engage end-users.

It is advisable for app providers to build an MVP first instead of a full-fledged application as this is the best budget-friendly way to know what your target audience expects from the healthcare app. An MVP is the most basic and generic version of the envisioned app, with all the primary features and functionalities. In the case of a mHealth app, an MVP plays a vital role in generating actionable insights from the beta testers and early adopters. Once, you identify the areas of improvement through user feedback, promptly resolve the shortcomings and implement the necessary add-ons by launching updated versions. This will make your healthcare mobile app all the more convenient and accessible.

There is a high market demand for a highly functional and scalable healthcare app. However, in today’s dynamic and competitive market your app will fail to succeed if the right strategy is not adopted. Hence, all Medical & Healthcare Application Development Companies must possess clear visibility of the expectations of their target audience and plan accordingly. Be smart enough to read the patients’ minds and include patient-centric functionalities for building a game-changing app.

Contact us for further queries and assistance in hiring healthcare app development services!

Did you know that before EHRs i.e. electronic health record systems came into the picture, interoperability of the medical information was carried out using fax machines and phone calls? But today, there are various EHRs used by healthcare facilities to cope up with this challenge. For instance, one EHR is in the office, another in the hospital, another in some other branch, or Sr. specialist in the hospital may be using another one. The principal drawback of the old method is that the crucial patient data is mostly fragmented and spread across several chambers. However, to deliver the best possible patient experience, it is of immense importance to have all the records in one place so that the complete picture of the patient’s health conditions and past treatment is easily available.

In regards to this issue, the experts in the healthcare industry realized that there is a need for more robust interoperability standards and medical APIs can be an apt solution for this. These APIs can facilitate data exchange and its processing between numerous systems in medical firms.

So, this article will take you through what are APIs in healthcare, how they are used in healthcare software applications, and how they benefit healthcare app development firms. Let’s commence.

APIs i.e. Application Programming Interfaces are a set of protocols and definitions that helps a software system to communicate with other services and products without knowing how it is implemented. Likewise, medical APIs can be integrated within a medical software for elevating the effectiveness and the overall efficiency of that product. It helps the data systems like EHRs communicate seamlessly and transfer the medical information between each other and thus, improve interoperability.

What else does a Medical API do?

These were the key benefits of medical APIs. These APIs prove beneficial to numerous parties like individual clinics, large healthcare bodies, medical app development companies, health clubs, other medical service providers, drug developers, patients i.e. end-consumers, pharmacies, health payers, transaction services, and even the concerned government agencies.

Now, let me take you through several types of medical APIs being used in the industry.

The appointment scheduling feature is one of the most liked, rather mandatory features of the new-age medical apps. Scheduling API comes with features meant for incorporating the appointment booking feature, cancelling or rescheduling appointments, sending reminders, synchronizing the available slots with the calendar, etc. in the medical apps or software systems.

These APIs are utilized for handling the functions related to registration processes involved with various EMR/EHR systems. These APIs can be embedded with EMRs for exchanging patient-specific data. Both patients and physicians will be able to easily register using the Registration API.

As the name suggests, this API is used for managing money transactions between patients, medical institutions, pharmacies, or insurance agencies. It helps to generate invoices and bills, send prescriptions, and also manage claims related to insurance. It can further be narrowed down as claims API or billing API, depending on the functions it is used for. However, the healthcare app development firms must make sure that they choose the financial API that has robust security features.

This API is purposed to managing clinical data exchanges and other related operations within a medical facility. This API helps in sending and receiving medical information from various units as and when required. This information covers patient records, immunizations, treatment plans, family medical history, etc. Clinical API is another API used for performing similar kinds of tasks.

There are several processes in a medical facility that lie outside of the organization; for instance, pharmacies, laboratories, radiology units, etc. Using the Ancillary API, the concerned healthcare professional can communicate with these external units, refill the requests with them, and also gather the required data from them. A good example of this is when a hospital wants to exchange some medical information like prescriptions with external pharmacies and refill requests. Ancillary API can be helpful in this scenario.

Such APIs are utilized for exchanging reportable clinical data records with the professional, public, or federal registries, and also with research institutions. Public Health APIs can also be employed for gathering public health records in the scenario of a rampant widespread threat like the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic. Due to their ability to easily exchange data, these APIs can also be utilized for public health surveillance from data systems like EHRs.

Wearable Health apps use these APIs for data collection from several IoT-enabled devices like activity trackers, wearable devices, etc. Such data streams help in the monitoring and management of personal health, especially for fitness enthusiasts.

This API is usually employed by doctors and physicians for viewing test results, prescriptions, patient profiles, and similar other important records. This helps the doctors to access the medical data easily, save time and money, and refrain the patients from longer wait times during appointments.

Though APIs have resolved the interoperability issues to a great extent, there are still a few technological gaps.

Since there is a lack of data standards in the healthcare sector, it is essential to create customized APIs that aptly caters to the needs of the concerned service.

In case a system incorporates myriad APIs, then data transformation into a readable format could take several months or even years.

Furthermore, when there are multiple APIs in a system, it can become tedious to manage those APIs, especially when the systems need to be replaced or upgraded.

Testing of these APIs could pose another challenge because healthcare systems usually deal with complex data; which at times, may not be replicated in the testing environments.

There could also be challenges in the privacy and security of the medical data and so, the APIs must be developed to provide safe data storage and exchange, using technologies like Blockchain, encrypted protocols usage, advanced authentication, etc.

Experts have also predicted that there could be some financial concerns, lack of proper documentation, lack of tools for designing, testing, etc.

Though there are several challenges coming up, medical APIs are going to be the key when it comes to interoperability and data security. Needless to say, medical APIs have a bright future. Besides, the data exchange laws of the 21st Century Cures Act, are supportive of these APIs. They encourage the proliferation and standardization of these APIs. So, it is expected that healthcare APIs will expand and develop to deliver the best possible services to patients as well as service providers.

It’s evident that medical APIs can boost the communication, overall performance, and efficiency of healthcare organizations. It is expected that these APIs in healthcare will expand to enhance the patient experience, connect healthcare providers to complete data, enable the patients to easily and safely access their medical records, etc. and thus, be advantageous to every medical & healthcare application development company competing to deliver the best services. So, medical APIs are the future of this sector..

With this, I would like to wrap up my article. Do share your views and experiences about the medical APIs in the comments below.