Sometimes we forget how important our health is until we have a medical emergency. Something that seemed little yesterday becomes a matter of life and death.
It is not surprising then how Insider Intelligence’s healthcare report states that global healthcare spending will reach $665.4 billon by 2028. Money cannot replace good health.
Healthcare organizations, however, need to keep up with the changing times to help patients improve their health.
One successful strategy is custom healthcare app development.
Why is a Healthcare App Development Strategy Important?
Reason 1: Mobile Adoption Rate
Over the past 5 years, according to Statista, smartphone usage in the U.S. grew from 274 million in 2018 to over 301 million smartphones in 2022.
This smartphone usage growth changes consumer expectations in the medical field. As a result, healthcare organizations are prompted to come up with a development strategy that will help them address the shifting needs of patients.
Learn more about Consumerization in Healthcare
Reason 2: Increased Patient Engagement
According to 89% of US adults, ease of access to medical services is a number one factor important when engaging with healthcare providers.
The ability to work with medical professionals remotely empowers consumers to search for the best care they can find. Consequently, it drives healthcare institutions to work on offering better quality of care and enhancing patient satisfaction.
Reason 3: Reduced Medicare Fraud
Digital apps give massive amounts of data for Medicare claims. The government can easily collect and analyze these transactions for irregularities.
Every mobile healthcare application becomes a data point to find more fraudulent claims.
Reason 4: 24/7 Hour Availability
A standard healthcare mobile app provides customers with 24/7 access to their records, doctors’ messages, and other vital medical information.
It removes repetitive communication and reporting and helps streamline medical environment.
Discover Top Considerations to Build mHealth App
Reason 5: Healthcare Apps Reduce Hospital Management Costs
The healthcare mobility can not only improve patient outcomes but also drastically reduce hospital costs.
Hospitals save money on administration from the time savings of completing tasks remotely, faster reporting, and fewer clerical errors.
This money can then go to higher quality medicine and/or lower hospital bills. The lower costs come as many consumers have been hit with higher insurance premiums.
Key Elements of an mHealth App Development Strategy
Now that we’ve covered the importance of an app development strategy for the healthcare industry, let’s briefly explore the essential steps to support the convergence of digital transformation and health care delivery.
Following the vision of the digital strategy offered by the World Health Organization, the development and adoption of tech health solutions should support patient-centricity. It means that your strategy has to shape opportunities for a healthcare app to be:
- Accessible
- Affordable
- Scalable
- Sustainable
- Secure
Five Tips for Custom Healthcare App Development
1. Understand Your Target Audience
For any mobile app to succeed, you must understand what your target audience wants.
For example, a big requirement from healthcare IT professionals was usability. Many will not even consider an app because the clinicians will not use the app for their healthcare needs.
Source: KLAS
2. Focus on the Essential Features
An important part of custom healthcare app development is what features to include.
The growth of mobile and digital technology provides a wealth of options. However, sometimes the sheer number of choices becomes overwhelming.
Instead, we should focus on the features that benefit hospitals, patients, and staff the most.
Explore How to Prioritize Features for Your Mobile App
According to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), hospitals use various connected technologies, including telehealth and medical IoT solutions.
Source: HIMSS
Communication clearly plays a role in these features.
This brings up another point. 69% of respondents believe a secure hospital data exchange is key to following HIPAA and other healthcare industry regulations.
3. Define Your Strategic Approach
To help customers get the features they need on their healthcare app requires a strategic approach.
Velvetech’s strategic approach to the development of patient care software helps healthcare organizations improve their operational efficiency and align with regulatory compliance.
Unfortunately, too many healthcare companies do not have mobile apps that answer a specific customer’s need.
In fact, only 11% of mobile apps on the market today meet the functions consumers want the most.
Our strategy is simple. We use an agile methodology, so we can quickly respond to your customer’s ever-changing needs.
4. Choose a Monetization Option
Unless you’re building an enterprise solution without the need to generate revenue through it, you should think about the way to monetize your health mobile app. There are several options to do it, depending on the target users and initial goals the application has to address.
In general, you can leverage one of the following ways to earn money with your health app:
- Pay-per-Download
- In-App Purchases
- Subscriptions
- In-App Advertising
- Freemium
5. Consider Intuitive UI/UX Design
Excellent user experience is one of the keys to making your app useful and increasing patient engagement. Thus, ensure your mobile solution’s UI/UX provides easy navigation, coherent visuals, and informative graphics.
The user-friendly design facilitates all interactions between the app and users and creates a smooth look and feel that helps both healthcare professionals and patients achieve better outcomes.
Learn more about UI/UX in Healthcare
Bonus: Communication
We add one more component to our strategic mobile app development: communication.
At Velvetech, we mix our engineering skills with your ideas to bring your project to life. This happens when we collaborate on what the final design of your mobile app should look like, what architecture to use, what third-party services to integrate into the app, etc.
Final Thoughts
Discovering the best options for delivering your custom healthcare solution requires strategic thinking.
If you want a partner to share this responsibility, Velvetech, a custom software development company, is ready to help. Contact us for a free initial consultation today. Enter your information below to get the conversation started.
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