November 1, 2022
Telehealth is becoming an increasingly popular option for patients and providers alike. However, there are a few things to consider before diving into telehealth app development. In this article, we'll cover the features and cost of telehealth app development, as well as some of the potential pitfalls.
Today, telemedicine apps are an emerging field, as the healthcare industry needs innovative solutions.
Telemedicine is currently available in almost half of all US hospitals. They provide several advantages, including reducing hospitalization time, decreasing costs, and improving the quality of healthcare service quality.
Telemedicine has been growing rapidly these days. It's an exciting field that offers new opportunities for investors. Read this article to learn everything you need to know about telehealth app development.
Before we dive into the different aspects of the overall costs involved with building a telemedicine platform, let’s take a quick look at some recent industry trends.
Telemedicine- The New Digital Age of the Healthcare Industry
Telemedicine refers to online medical services provided by physicians via video conferencing software.
Telemedicine offers convenience, affordability, support for weak healthcare systems, and connectivity between global healthcare provider communities.
Telemedicine allows people to get medical services from doctors without being physically present at a hospital. Statista (2019) states that 58% of American adult residents say they would use telemedicine if given the option.
Patients use telemedicine to supplement their regular medical care rather than replace it. They can help patients who need immediate attention, for example, when they're sick at home.
Benefits of Telemedicine Apps for Patients and Doctors
During the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent lockdowns, people felt safer consulting their physicians online rather than seeing them in person. This has led to an increase in the number of development requests for telemedicine.
We'll start by discussing the main benefits of telemedicine apps for healthcare providers and patients.
Benefits for Patients
Here are the benefits of telemedicine apps for patients:
Benefits for Healthcare Providers
Telemedicine applications, in many cases, improve professionalism and medical services' qualities and come as a big boost to the entire healthcare industry. Here, we discuss some of the main advantages of telemedicine applications for doctors and hospitals.
Telemedicine apps will probably become even more important than they already are. Suppose you want to capitalize on this trend. In that case, you need to choose an idea for a telemedicine application that will be useful, hire experienced telemedicine app developers that understands your needs and has experience developing applications using the right combination of technologies, test the application thoroughly before launching it, and then get the word out by marketing it effectively.
Types of Healthcare Applications
Now as you know the fundamentals of the field of telemedicine and its potential benefits for patients and healthcare professionals, we'll not get to the commonly asked question, "what are the different kinds of telemedicine?"
Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Apps
Due to the increased prevalence of the IoT idea, it is no surprise that the scope of related technology has also reached the healthcare industry. In particular, wearable devices such as Fitbit wristbands and Oura rings have been in high demand for many years, along with smartwatches. Also, many diseases today necessitate constant monitoring (at least on the part of the patient), so they can get prompt medical assistance. In particular, we're referring to cardiovascular problems, strokes, epileptic seizures, and critical illnesses.
Instead of hiring a personal care assistant (PCA) is a relatively expensive and illogical measure to provide each patient with an appropriate solution-tracking device whose work in practice lacks the human element.
Artificial intelligent applications can help physicians diagnose diseases faster by using their already-existing knowledge of the disease. As a result, these telemedicine apps reduce doctors' workload and speed up diagnostic procedures.
Today, the IBM Watson for Healthcare system uses information from thousands of international medical reference books to help doctors diagnose their patient’s conditions. It can also independently assess the patient’s symptoms and determine whether they require further investigation.
mHealth Apps
This software guides patients to a specialist based on their schedule and busy appointment times. This can aid in expanding the services offered by hospitals or the whole city's infrastructure. Most of the time, such apps have the option of creating an account for each patient. They also have push notifications to remind patients of their next appointments regardless of their current mode. From the most well-known examples of telemedicine, we can pick SimplyBook.Me.
“Store-and-Forward” Practices
Telemedicine technology allows patients to receive care from healthcare providers who may not be physically present. Medical images, lab tests, and other types of diagnostic information can be sent securely between doctors and specialists. In addition, electronic health record systems allow physicians to access patient information remotely and make decisions based on that information. These technologies also improve efficiency by reducing the time spent traveling to appointments and waiting rooms.
No appointment is necessary, so many patients-focussed telemedicine platforms often use this asynchronous platform to solve minor medical problems. Pathology, radiology, dermatology, and many other specialized medical fields depend on this telemedicine daily. Many platforms exist to help integrate this sort of info into a single coherent record for a person. Not all electronic health record systems are interoperable; widespread telemedicine usage pushes the industry to make better platforms that can cooperate and communicate.
Real-Time Interactive Services
About telemedicine, the last in line is the real-time interactive service. However, for most people, this is the only approach they use when consulting doctors and specialists.
Using this method, people can get direct doctor appointments without waiting in long lines at hospitals or clinics. Doctors can see if there are any signs of disease on their patient's faces so that they can diagnose them right away.
Popular Telemedicine Apps in the Market
Online consulting with a doctor has become increasingly popular among patients who want convenience. Meanwhile, physicians use these applications to connect with their patients for medical reasons.
Furthermore, nowadays, during urgent situations, patients don't need to wait for long periods anymore; these days, there are telemedicine apps available that allow them to receive medical care anytime they want. So, here are some of the best telemedicine apps without further ado.
Doctor on Demand
Doctor On-demand is a popular telemedicine solution that supports remote medical consultations anywhere, anytime. Available 24/7, this app allows patients to connect with a doctor through live video. This service offers a wide range of specialist services, including behavioral medicine, urgent care, preventative medicine, and chronic disease management, at a reasonable price. Patients can also avail themselves of any number of private insurances.
MDLive
MDLive is a software for telemedicine that allows you to schedule a virtual visit with a doctor at your convenience using any electronic device like a tablet, laptop, desktop and mobile phone. It makes healthcare easy efficient, quick, and easy. Affordable and high-quality care is revolutionizing remote healthcare. With more than 15 years of expertise working with doctors, secure access to medical records and connection to local pharmacies are among the primary aspects that MDLive presents and are reason enough to make MDLive an extremely popular app in the field of remote medicine.
LiveHealth
With LiveHealth, expert medical advice, diagnosis, treatments plan, and prescriptions are just a few clicks away. Choose someone who meets your requirements by inspecting their profiles.
The consultation fee is $49 or less per session without any additional consultation charges. You must register an account and can also download their mobile app to get some assistance with your health condition.
Doctors who provide online medical consultations are trained to conduct them. They're also certified by their professional organizations.
PlushCare
PlushCare offers an outstanding virtual primary health care experience right from the comfort of your home. They've got a panel of highly trained physicians with over 15 years of medical background. Their online platform allows patients to communicate directly with them via video chat and conference calls. They also provide access to nearby pharmacies so patients can get prescriptions picked up quickly. They handle urgent medical issues, ongoing chronic illnesses, and everyday care needs.
HealthTap
HealthTap provides personal health information and advice 24/7, right from your smartphone. We offer an intelligent platform where we combine our artificial intelligence (AI) technology with human knowledge to provide accurate and actionable insights into your health. We also make recommendations based on your specific needs and preferences. With our AI-based tools, you get quick results and can easily find the best treatment options for your conditions. You can also ask our experts any question about your health concerns, and they'll give you the best answer possible.
Must-Have Features for Telemedicine App Development
Adding new functions to an existing application makes the application more complex and expensive.
We'll now examine some key features you can add to an app.
Registration
Signing into an app is its primary purpose; therefore, the telemedicine application should allow for signing in via email or third-party applications.
Profile Management
Once logged in, the next thing patients need to do is create their profile. From them, the application should gather details like health information, medical conditions, and previous treatments.
A doctor's profile can include their experience, the hospital they work at, contact info, etc.
Video Conferencing
Live videoconferencing is an important part of any telemedicine application. High-quality transmission of videos is essential for doctors to be able to diagnose patients' conditions.
Calendar
A calendar is useful not just for doctors but also for their clients and even their families. It helps people schedule appointments and remember when they're due.
You should sync the calendar with the patient’s smartphone, so they get notified when appointments are due.
Payments
A key feature of a telemedicine app is integrated seamless payment process. If you want to integrate new feature in your app, in that case, you can either develop it or use a third-party library to integrate it with one of the many existing services. Most of these services charge fees for their services, but there are some free ones available too.
Search and Filters
Patients can use the app's built-in features to find doctors by location, preferred language, specialties, availability, and fees.
Notifications
Notifications are important features for both doctors and their clients. They notify doctors of upcoming appointments, new texts, payments, and more.
e-Prescriptions
This feature enables physicians to prescribe medications electronically for patients without having to fax them.
You can also use your knowledge of behavioral health technology development to estimate its cost and see whether it would be useful for your healthcare practice.
Common Pitfalls with Telemedicine App Development
Here are some of the most common pitfalls that may incur during telemedicine app development:
App Security
The main problem with a telehealth application is its security. A telehealth application has much sensitive personal information, so it needs to be highly secure. To ensure that, you must follow the highest international regulatory norms like GDPA (General Data Protection Regulation).
Lack of Manual Examination
The last one is the restrictions on exams. Utilizing online medical services, doctors cannot perform a manual exam. They must ask a patient to carry out the manipulations independently. This also poses a chance for a decrease in quality due to the possibility that a patient will interpret the results of manipulations in the wrong way.
Compliance to Regulations
A telehealth app is still considered a medical service, even though it's not government-run. It's regulated by laws and regulations specific to each region.
An online psychiatrist app needs to comply with prescription regulations. Prescription medications are often controlled by governments and require prescriptions from doctors with special licenses.
Video Quality
In certain situations, like dermatology, a physician must conduct a visual exam of patients. This is why technology may fail: if the internet connection isn't steady or the quality of the video is less than HD or higher, a doctor could suffer from poor vision, which can affect the quality of medical services.
Cost of Developing a Telemedicine App in 2023
Several factors affect the telemedicine app development cost. Some of the most common factors are:
Depending on its functionality and complexity, a telemedicine app may be priced anywhere between $40,000 – 200,000.
A basic telemedicine application that includes a remote doctor or nurse consultation service can take three to six months to develop and implement. It depends on the size and experience of the development teams involved. Still, the costs of developing a basic telemedicine application can range from $40,000 to $85,000.
An application that provides various features for medical professionals can require anywhere from eight to eighteen-month development cycles.
The cost of developing a complex telemedicine app can vary widely, ranging from $150,000 to $350,000.
The Key Takeaway
Telemedicine apps are not as simple a project as they sound, but the rewards can be worth it.
The market trend shows a big demand for telemedicine applications globally. If you're willing to develop such an application, conducting a thorough market analysis before starting development is important.
Once you've understood everything there is to know about telemedicine; you're ready to get started.
A good telemedicine app needs a robust set of core functionalities, including a user, interface for searching, booking appointments, securing payments, having a virtual consultation, prescribing medications, and providing ratings and reviews.
However, new technology like virtual reality, artificial intelligence, speech recognition, and augmented reality is becoming essential to telemedicine applications. These complex features increase the development costs by a significant proportion.
Telemedicine technologies are increasingly becoming popular among consumers, which makes them an interesting alternative for business owners. They help construct a whole facility without needing physical buildings, schedule medical appointments efficiently and offer proper healthcare services to people without requiring them to leave the comfort of their homes.
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