How to make your Doctor appointment Mobile App stand out!

As per the reports collected by Markets and Markets, global healthcare IT market is expected to grow to $280 billion by the year 2021, with annual growth of around 16%. Even the mobile sector share, which in the year 2017 was$26 billion is amazing, as it has reported to experience 17% and higher yearly growth.

In the arena of health there is absolutely no dearth of mobile applications, in fact as per the recent consumer surveys conducted in USA, a quarter of US adults tend to use one or more medical and health tracking apps. Not just this, but even one third of a physicians have recommended such a medical app to a patient in the past one year. This way, on worldwide level, there are around a billion smartphone users who are using a medical or wellness mobile apps, and in the years to come, we expect this number is increase by triple.

So much is the significance enjoyed by these apps that today the app stores features more than 165,000 health applications, and the way the healthcare is growing via this pioneering technology, more and more healthcare institutions have started engaging in the medical mobile app development in order to provide their patient a more effective and hassle-free way to collect and share their health-related information.

How the IT development has contributed in transforming the health sector?

Doctor on demand app development

In case you are contemplating to create a medical mobile app for your healthcare institution or clinic then you would be glad to know how much development has taken place in the arena since the emergence of these medical apps. Owing to the progression of IT, today a large number of doctors and medical practitioners are able to provide a myriad services with the use of just fewer resources. And these below-mentioned statistics vouch for the same.

  • There are around 80& physicians who adept at using smartphone & medical apps.
  • Around 25% doctors are providing the required care to their patients with the help of these medical apps.
  • In fact, you would be amazed to know that every second a user runs a medical or healthcare app.

Now, before you go ahead with the app development process, you need to understand a few things.

What are the main issues faced in the Healthcare?

If you look over in the mobile app stores, be it Google Play Store or Apple App Store, you would find that there are around lakhs of medical or health apps out there. In fact it was revealed in a survey in 2016 that there were about 259,000 mobile health apps present in the app store at that time. Needless to mention, the number has only increased in the past three years.

So, even though the market is flooding with the m-health apps, one thing that needs to be noticed is that not everyone attains success or makes a mark in the market. Often many good app ideas sunk in owing to the lack of planning or for their incompetence to solve the problems present in the industry.

Hence, you need to put in a lot of time researching and planning. To start with, you need to see whether your app solves a specific problem of your target audience. An app should try providing their users a range of services but ultimately it must offer one service that it dedicatedly provides in an excellent manner. Once you have decided your app category, next you need to put attention to the user-experience and user-interface. It has to be outstanding, as the people use an app for the convenience it offers, and in case your app fails to offer that, then your app is bound to doom. Usually, the app users detest the idea of app taking too much time to load or execute the usual functions. Hence, ensure a perfect UX and UI.

The most important factor in a healthcare app is that it should maintain the privacy and security standards at all levels. After all, a healthcare app will consist of a lot of private patient information and hence the privacy is integral here.

Now, in this blog, we are focusing on the Doctor Appointment Mobile App and will discuss what aspects need to be taken care of to create an amazing Doctor Appointment app.

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Creating a Doctor Appointment Booking Mobile app

Now in the process to create a Doctor Appointment Booking Mobile App, the first thing comes to the Key features that need to be integrated into such an app. Here, we have mentioned the list of features that you need to include in the appointment Booking app.

Key Features to be included in a Doctor Appointment Booking app:

doctor on demand - doctor panel

  • Online Consulting: It can take place via Video, Audio, or Chat, and is usually open 24/7.
  • Search Doctors via Filters: Search Filters may consist of experience, rating, specialty, location, etc.
  • Doctor’s Profile: It is vital that it consists of all the crucial information such as the doctor’s experience, Available appointment Time, place of work, languages s/he speaks, Appointment experience Score, Ratings, Feedbacks, etc.
  • Integrate Maps: A map functionality can be integrated into the app with doctors & clinics in the arena. This is mainly useful for a big city.
  • Video Appointment Recording: Users can be allowed to record of appointment with their doctor, so they remember all instructions & recommendations.
  • Health Tracking: The health app can be integrated with features like fat, blood pressure, weight and glucose tracking. These data can be exported by the users to spreadsheets, generate interactive charts, calculate the statistics, and take notes in diary.
  • Drug Interaction Checker: Using this, the patients will be able to check harmful drug-to-drug interactions in order to avoid hazardous situations.
  • Drug Reference Tool: This features will display the safety information about the different drugs, their side-effects, list of recommended dosages, and their prescribing.
  • Medicine Ordering: An online pharmacy can be integrated in the app so that users can place online orders for medicines and get them delivered at their homes.
  • Online Prescription: Post appointment, doctor can give an online prescription to the patients with a list of medicines & dosages.
  • Push Notifications: This functionality is useful in an app, to send alerts to the doctors and patients regarding upcoming appointments.
  • In-app Payments: Depending on your consultation duration, a fee is deducted automatically via the online payment modes.
  • Calendar: Calendar needs to be integrated showing the available dates & hours for appointment for the online appointment scheduling.

 

Essential Ways to instill the users’ trust in your Doctor Appointments App

Doctor’s Scanning

Doctor appointment app development

Considering integrating thorough verification procedure in your app. For instance, a renowned Medical App, Practo publishes a profile only when the doctor provides his registration number as well as the scanned copies of his/her medical degree, registration certificate and ID. This will build the trust of app users in your app and they will end up recommending it to more and more people, eventually leading to mouth-publicity.

Accurately indicate the experience of a Doctor

Prior to approving a doctor’s profile, make it a point to thoroughly check and verify the doctor’s experience. For instance, for the purpose of information processing, CEO of Amino, David Vivero hired a data science team. This firm has this interesting approach to data gathering and is the first of its kind to use electronic insurance claims that contain information as facts on the doctor, health facility, costs, treatment, etc. This way, users are able to access the comprehensive statistics about doctors in the USA. At the same time, the firm has an access to the anonymized information from 188 million people who filed five billion claims. They get this data from Affordable Care Act and Medicare data.

Ensure genuineness of the reviews posted on the platform

It is vital to ensure that the users are convinced about the authenticity of reviews posted on the platform. There are several apps that ensure the same by only allowing the verified patients to give reviews after they have an appointment confirmation. Also, ensure that the review can only be given once in a lifetime and only after the mobile number verification. Like, one of the means can be to sending SMS on the mobile number of patients post the appointment. Once the patient gives a missed call on that number, they will get an access to write a review.

Final Note: Ultimately, keep in mind that the healthcare market is flooded but still there is always some room for improvement. Hence, by delivering a unique app with great features and amazing user experience, you surely can make a mark in this segment.

 

 

 

 

Sumit Garg

Project Manager @ Octal Info Solution