Healthcare apps offer many benefits, such as automating routine tasks, providing real-time data, and improving communication. Medical apps for doctors and patients help streamline processes, improve data accessibility, and enhance decision-making.
Our 15 years of experience in software development and successful healthcare projects helped us define the main challenges, peculiarities, and best practices in medical app development. In this post, we will share our insights and discuss the steps you need to make to successfully create an app that will help you enhance patient care and stand out from the competition.
Stfalcon's expertise in creating healthcare apps lets us know all the specialties of the development process first-hand, and we are ready to walk you through the whole process.
Core Features for Different Mobile Apps for Doctors
To develop a medical app for doctors, you must clearly understand those features and characteristics that make a difference for physicians or other healthcare experts. The more accurately you address the needs of the app users, the quicker it will succeed. That’s why it’s essential to differentiate between various medical app types existing.
Medical reference mobile solutions
This app helps doctors quickly access information about medications and diseases. It also keeps them updated on the latest research and advancements in medical industry. A proper example of such an app is Medscape. It is arguably the best app for doctors that allows healthcare providers and medical students to access medical news and check details on drugs, diseases, symptoms, and conditions. It comprises over 3000 clinical procedures, over 150 videos, and over 2500 images.
Epocrates application helps check drug details and their interactions. A user can identify medicines by code or by focusing the camera on the pills and checking the recommended dose. Medics can use a drug interaction checker to avoid harmful interactions in complex treatments. A doctor can check which medications are covered by insurance, as it includes over 6,000 US insurance plans. They can also use built-in medical calculators to ensure prescriptions are accurate.
The major features of medical reference solutions:
- Convenient search by various filters and categories
- Quick access to the medicates and diseases descriptions, medical studies, guidelines, and articles
- Opportunity to take and store images, play videos and share media files
- Variable medical calculators’ integration
- Tests integration
Professional networking solutions
Today, instead of conferences and in-person networking, doctors can use software to connect with a network of medical specialists. This allows them to consult with colleagues and experts in different fields and keep track of up-to-date medical information. When faced with rare cases, they can seek advice or a second opinion to make important decisions.
DailyRounds is, for instance, a medical startup from India that combines a social platform and a medical digest. It allows healthcare specialists to check medical tutorials and medicine databases, view case files, and share practical advice.
Key features of networking apps for medics:
- Possibility to edit and share files and images
- Inbuilt chat
- Access to medical content and reference materials
Patient health and condition tracking solutions
A common reason for creating hospital apps for doctors is to facilitate patient health monitoring from the first visit through the entire treatment process. Software solutions allow immediate access to health info, even on the go. Thus, a physician is no longer restricted by his workplace but can consult, prescribe treatment, and perform associated tasks anywhere.
Software solutions that can set all the lab and examination results, medical history, patient charts, and other details right help medics check the necessary information all in one place and make well-weighted decisions. These medical mobile apps can connect with wearable sensors and other health-tracking tools. They help notify doctors about the patient's condition, treatment, and progress. A doctor can then adjust further treatment accordingly and give proper orders to the caring nurses.
VitalHub DOCit is a solution that provides prompt access to the individual’s health data up to the moment. The app offers diverse layouts for healthcare specialists to fit their particular workflows.
Core features of a health-tracking app:
- Hassles access to EHRs (Electronic Health Records)
- A simple collection of the clinically vital info
- The patient’s lists and charts review
- Viewing images and scans right from the device
- Possibility to prescribe and place lab orders
- One-click e-prescribing
- Prescription management
- Lab results reporting
- Real-time notifications about critical lab results or health conditions
- Follow-ups arrangements for the patients in rehabilitation
- Custom interfaces for different user categories
- Billing options
Apps for booking an appointment with a specialist
Clinics and medical centers are trying to automate their appointment scheduling as much as it’s possible. So, they create a mobile medical app for doctors that allows quick and hassle-free scheduling, appointment booking, and cancellation whenever needed. This app helps doctors manage their schedules and receive timely notifications about any changes. This way, they can quickly fill any open time slots that come up.
ZocDoc is one of the best apps for doctors appointment booking in the United States. Patients use it to look for the specialist they need covered by their insurance and book appointments with various medical experts. The app contains doctors’ profiles, credentials, and reviews. A user can check what languages the specialist speaks.
Key features of appointment booking apps:
- Doctors search by location, specialty, insurance network, availability, etc
- A date picker or calendar integration for visit booking
- Appointment slots management
- Booking with a tap option
- Payment systems integration
- Booking history revision
- Appointments view, editing, and management
Telehealth solutions
The challenge of creating a medical app for doctors that will allow online doctor consultations has become especially significant in COVID-19. It relieves the patients of the necessity to sit in the hospital and improves access to remote areas.
Such applications allow the patients to text their physicians, call them, or even get a video consultation to get medical advice.
To make healthcare apps for doctors convenient, the developers should make them intuitive, simple, yet functional. Medics should be able to create profiles that include their credentials, ratings, feedback, and reviews. They need to quickly check and manage patients' information. Accessing a patient's illness timeline, history, reports, immunization records, lab results, X-rays, CT/MRI scans, and other medical records must be simple, secure, and hassle-free.
KRY is a Swiss telehealth solution. The doctors consult patients online after they get acquainted with the symptoms, records, and photos the patients have provided through the app. A doctor holds a video consultation and then prescribes medicines or gives a referral to a specialist in another sphere. Patients can pay for the consultation right in the app.
Must-have features for a telehealth app:
- Personal profile creation option
- Voice or video calling/conferencing
- Texting or chatting
- Files like scans, X-rays, etc. attachment and view
- Opportunity to make notes and records
- Possibility to write out a prescription
- Payment system integrations
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Get a Free ConsultationChallenges in Developing Medical Apps
Choosing the right tech stack
The choice of the best tech stack requires in-depth analyses and strong technical expertise. To choose the best technologies for your mobile app for doctors, first look at market trends. Then, clearly define your project requirements. You will need to answer the questions of what requests your solution resolves, who your target audience is, what load you will have to deal with, and more. With all that covered, you can choose a tech stack that will be best for turning your idea into a functional app. This task may be challenging for anyone who is not an experienced tech professional.
Solution: If you require expert assistance, the smartest decision would be to turn to a trusted outsourced partner. At Stfalcon, we assist clients at every stage of their project. We start with market analysis and help you choose the best technology to bring your idea to life.
Security requirements
To build a health app that operates sensitive data, compliance with strict security regulations like HIPAA or GDPR is a must. Following these regulations requires serious security measures to protect patient’s information. Developers must invest time and resources in implementing security protocols, encryption techniques, and regular audits to meet these compliance standards.
Solution: To reduce security risks, it is essential to prioritize security at every stage of the development lifecycle, from initial design through deployment and maintenance. Only collect the patient data that is absolutely necessary and ensure it is stored securely. Implement strong multi-factor authentication (MFA) for both doctors and patients to access the application. Use industry-standard encryption algorithms to encrypt all patient data both during transmission and while at rest. To identify and address potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, conduct regular security audits and penetration testing.
Data Integration Complexity
Another significant hurdle is the complexity of medical data and the necessity for seamless integration with current healthcare systems. Medical applications often need to access and process large amounts of complex data, such as patient records, lab results, and imaging scans. To build a medical app, developers must take into account data formats, interoperability standards, and API integrations to ensure smooth data exchange and analysis within the application.
Besides, many hospitals still use outdated legacy software that isn't easily integrated with new technology. While creating a medical app for doctors, you may need to consider these legacy systems.
Solution: To ensure seamless integration with legacy systems, consider the following methods:
- Application Programming Interfaces (APIs): If the legacy system provides APIs, use them to extract and exchange data effectively.
- File Transfer: For legacy systems that do not have APIs, implement secure file transfer protocols, such as SFTP, to facilitate data exchange.
- Data Warehousing: Evaluate the option of using a data warehouse to consolidate data from various sources, including legacy systems, for enhanced analysis and reporting.
If needed, develop and execute a data migration strategy to transfer relevant data from legacy systems to your application's database. You may adopt a phased approach to integration, beginning with the most critical data exchanges and gradually expanding to include other systems.
The Process of a Doctor App Solution Development
Medical app development process is time and effort-consuming multistage procedure that combines analysis, design, and development. Lots of planning is required to make it smooth and ensure superior quality to the users. When talking about how to develop a medical app, there are specific steps to follow.
Project scope defining
At this stage, we estimate the overall scope of work required for doctor app development based on the data and requirements from our client.
If the client does not offer a written scope, we offer our project management service and a CTO to define it. Since Stfalcon already has expertise in healthcare mobile app development, our experts can present their vision of the present-day market in target industry sectors aligned with the client’s business goals and MVP features.
At this stage, we consider the features of medical apps for doctors that are essential to our product-to-be, decide on the functionality we offer, and often recommend starting by creating a Minimum Viable Product. An MVP allows launching a product with minimal features to test the product and the market. Later on, it is always possible to improve and optimize the product in its later iterations.
Medical app UI design, development, and testing
Medical app development requires a flexible and iterative approach. Design and dev teams collaborate to create intuitive interfaces and robust security architecture. Features are prioritized, designed, developed, and tested through short development cycles, ensuring a continuous feedback loop. Designers resolve the questions of the app usability, color scheme, intuitive tapping, static and animated presentations. The development team handles the front- and backend development and all necessary integrations. The product is thoroughly tested at each stage to reveal any bugs and issues.
As the app evolves, it's crucial to incorporate user feedback and adapt to changing medical practices. By embracing an Agile methodology, development teams can deliver a high-quality app that meets the evolving needs of medical professionals.
Launching the application
Launching a new product smoothly is a challenge, yet a crucial step to its success. When you launch the MVP, you should ensure all the spot bugs are fixed and all the vital features embodied. However, while the major bugs that influence the app’s business operation are removed, the client should realize that a live interaction of the MVP with real users will reveal slighter bugs to fix. It’s quite a natural process.
Moreover, we help our clients submit the developed apps to the Google Play and App Store. There are lots of nuances there, and we already know the specifics. So, we gladly share our experience to speed up the time to the market.
Post-launch support
As a rule, Stfalcon supports the launched product and continues working on improving software solution and optimization. However, this stage is determined by the customer. Still, considering what is mentioned above, we advise our clients to sign post-support as well. The support includes development and maintenance, bug fixing, stability checking, infrastructure testing, monitoring, and updates.
After the MVP has been successfully launched and tested, the accurate analysis of its operation, user feedback, and experience is realized, and the next version of the product is figured out. Thus, the client can turn to us to develop the next solution iteration, and the process will start at the discovery stage.
To gain a better understanding of these principles in practice, let's examine some successful real-world examples of medical app development projects carried out by our team.
Stfalcon’s Experience with Medical App Development
HospApp
Stfalcon created a new mobile system to help maintain the interaction between all the medical center employees in the groups linked to a particular patient. The developed HospApp allows communication, sending files, prescribing medications, and carrying out tasks referring to a specific patient in the group.
Our team provided the complete process, from the user interface design through Android development, manual testing, and quality assurance to implementation. However, we only worked on several screens: messages, chat room/group, and tasks.
The primary challenge was to differentiate between text messages and tasks, as they serve similar functions. However, tasks have been designed to stand out because they are a higher priority. Tasks are displayed in chronological order and can be filtered by status, as well as by received or assigned tasks. Consequently, we developed an app that facilitates communication, task creation, and fulfillment by staff, ensuring that all patient details remain highly secure.
IsDocIn
Stfalcon’s team developed a mobile app for a service that helps people to make appointments with doctors. Doctors can set up profiles and receive notifications when somebody has booked an appointment with them.
We created a prototype of a mobile interface based on user stories and our client’s expertise in professional medical routines. Although the app was developed both for iOS and Android, we have chosen a universal solution for in-app navigation.
During the development process, we implemented such features as doctor search by specialization, location, and available time slots. To build the user interface in Android, we utilized native libraries that offer backward compatibility. When developing an iOS app, we used several new features:
- UISearchController, a class used to conduct searches within the available data, like searching for doctors from a list.
- UIAppearance, a class enables us to specify certain parameters and styles (such as color and font) for UI elements before they are loaded. This approach saves time and reduces code duplication since we can define a general style only once.
- Refactor to Storyboard, an Xcode tool that helps classify and group screens with related functionality. It simplifies the process of managing a large number of screens in the storyboard.
Conclusion
Though developing healthcare applications for doctors is always a challenge requiring attention to detail and adherence to regulations, software solutions now become a driving force for better service and enhanced user experience in the medical sphere. Much effort, dedicated work, and proven expertise are required on the part of developers, but they are all well-paid off since the market is quite rewarding nowadays.
Now is the right time to enter this ground and improve the existing digital products with innovative approaches and fresh solutions. If you have some idea how to offer a win-win scenario in medical practices for patients and medics, let’s discuss it. Stfalcon experts will gladly consult you and take up the challenge.
FAQ
How long does it take to start a medical app?
The time required to create a doctor app solution depends on a bunch of factors, like the type of the app, its complexity, and the specific features you need to implement. An approximate time to release an MVP is about 3-4 months.
What are key health app business models?
There are several ways to monetize a healthcare app. The most common would be a subscription model, in-app advertising, commissions (app owner receives a commission from payments made by end users through the app), and a freemium model (app users use basic features for free and pay for access to advanced features).
How much does doctor app development cost?
The major aspects which determine the cost of developing an app for doctors are project scope, platform choice, features, their amount and complexity, design quality, third-party integration, team experience, support and maintenance required. Based on Stfalcon’s experience, the price of creating a medical app for doctors will start at $70000, but the budget should always be discussed and estimated individually.
