A Complete Guide to Telemedicine App Development
Doctors have been busier than ever, so the scare people face when stepping out of their houses in the pandemic. The solution to both problems? A telemedicine app. The doctor and patient can easily connect over audio/video call and get a consultation within minutes through the app.
There are various advantages to it, and if you are planning to build one, there is no better time than now. People have been so accustomed to distancing and not going out of their homes, a telemedicine app becomes a necessity. Your telemedicine app has major market demand, and that’s why it’s a good option to get one developed as soon as possible.
Steps to Develop a Telemedicine Mobile App?
Step 1: Making a List of Features
There are various telemedicine apps in th market right now, but none offer it all under one. That’s exactly what your target should be; everything essential should be offered, with a few out of the box features that your users would love. If you are planning an app of your own, the majority of your thoughts should be focused on how to make it unique, and what would be the USP of the app. We have compiled a mixed list of both must-haves and out of the box features; you can come up with your own too.
Personalisation
Personalisation is the primary requirement with every app that has to do with usability and telemedicine apps to pose it. The major reason for personalisation in a telemedicine app is the listing of diseases, complications, and things like allergies in the user’s profile. Not only would it give the doctor providing consultation a better idea about the patient history, but it would also save the user from explaining things again and again.
Monitoring
A direct link with devices like the Apple Watch can be used to easily track the users’ general vitals, and sometimes this can make a major difference. The latest Apple Watch features blood oxygen monitoring, making it easier for doctors to track the patient’s severity in pandemic times. Features like ECG are also becoming more and more prominent; linking these with your app can truly stand out as a user as well as the USP feature of your telemedicine app.
Video Consultation
Video consultation is essential for telemedicine apps, as without it the doctor wouldn’t know the exact condition of the patient. This feature bridges the gap between an online and offline consultation and would encourage more people to try your telemedicine app. We strongly recommend you to include this feature in your app offering, as without it, you will lag behind those who are already featuring it.
Chat
A simple chat option can help users and doctors be in touch seamlessly and help emergency situations if a doctor isn’t available. A smart chatbot can be integrated to answer basic questions and available ping doctors in case of an emergency. Users can also use the chat option to upload prescriptions that can be directly fetched at the doctor’s end.
Appointment Booking
Doctors are busy all the time, and appointment scheduling becomes but a necessity for a telemedicine app. Make sure to include an immersive appointment booking feature in your app offering, as it will be used more than you know. Mapping different appointments are also to be done for this, and we can integrate legacy healthcare CRM software capabilities to improve the efficiency and usability of this feature.
EHR integrations
Electronic health records are not only vital in case of emergencies, but a preferred choice for doctors to know the entire history of the patient inside out. You need to provide a feature of uploading the EHR for the patients and viewing it for the doctors. With this feature, the telemedicine consultation experience will be as seamless as possible and make your app a preferred choice for the user.
Payments
Payment’s addition is a must as, ultimately, the patient or the user will have to pay the doctor for the consultation. You can include multiple gateways or integrate wallets and Apple pay or Samsung Pay for a seamless payment experience. This feature is vital as it would build confidence amongst both doctors and patients and would allow them to have a more viable consultation.
Step 2: The Development Part
The development part is vital to the success of any mobile app, and that’s why you need to take extra measures to get things in your favour. Choose the best possible development technologies and platforms suited to your telemedicine app. If you are confused about it, the app development company you choose will help you with it. If you are planning to use next-gen techs such as AI and AR/VR, we recommend choosing a good development company like Matellio with experience in these technologies.
The major decisions you would be making on the development end includes:
The Development Platform for Your Telemedicine Mobile App
Android and iPhones are the two most popular mobile OSs, and you have an option to choose either or both for your app to work upon. If you go with old standards, you will have to build to separate apps, each sporting the full cost and development time of an app. The other option is to get a cross-platform app, which can work on multiple platforms and would cost as much as one single Android or iOS app. The two choices explained:
Native applications: Separate apps for each OS and platform you want to target, the costliest way to get your telemedicine app developed. You will have to put in full resources for each app, as the code cannot be reused between platforms. The upside of Native app development is the sheer performance these apps offer, as they are built specifically for the OS they would be run on.
Cross-platform application development: Cross platform app development involves making a single codebase which is then reused to create multiple apps for each platform. These apps might lack a bit on the performance part but are excellent on all other fronts. You can easily get apps for multiple platforms at a much lower cost while also reducing the maintenance and versioning costs for the future.
Emerging Technologies you Can Use
If you are planning to implement out-of-the-box features, you will need to use some next-gen technologies for it. While it may sound like adding a part, it is better-done side by side with the mobile app’s development. You will be needing experts in the said technologies with experience in building telemedicine apps. Few popular next-gen technologies are:
Internet of Things
There would be added capabilities in the app using the internet of things, including continuous monitoring and counter-measures in case of emergencies.
Artificial Intelligence
AI can be used in various ways, including mapping doctors with relevant experience to a particular patient’s condition, to make the chatbot experience multi folds better.
Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality
Gone are the days when the simple video would suffice; AR/VR has taken over. You can use these technologies to offer added features that would help improve interaction in every possible way.
Big Data
Your outreach can highly benefit from Big Data analytics. You will know what users want the most and which doctors your platform lacks in an instant.
Smart Devices Integration
As we mentioned in the features above, integrating smart devices as the Apple Watch can help in various ways.
Step 3: Choosing Team Members for your Telemedicine App’s Development
To build your telemedicine app seamlessly, you will need various individuals acting as a team towards developing a perfect app as their goal. While you hire an app development company, they would build the team for you; if you want your own team, you need to hire individuals, including:
- A Project manager
- App developers
- Next-gen Tech Experts (Optional)
- UI/ UX experts
- QA and testers
- Digital marketers (Optional)
Step 4: The Monetisation Part
There are three choices for monetising your telemedicine app; each can be used separately or in conjunction with the other.
Freemium
You can keep the basic functionality of the app free and can place pay to unlock feature of features like integrating data from smart devices or AR/VR. This strategy is, in our opinion, the best, as a subscription-based app would simply lead to halving your user base for users not willing to pay; they would rather choose other freemium apps over yours.
Subscription
You can offer the app with a subscription to access all features present in the app; while not many people might need it, those who do would pay for it happily. You can add features like sleep tracking, fitness tracking to make the subscription offering more beneficial to premium users. This can go with the freemium version as well, as you can bifurcate your offerings.
Commission
If you base your app completely on the commission base on each consultation, that could limit your userbase. Telemedicine apps limited to only consultations aren’t very popular, and if you do want to do it this way, you will need other features as free offerings. You can also combine it with a subscription to offer discounts to premium users.
Are you Ready to Get your Own Telemedicine Application?
Telemedicine apps are highly popular, and we see them increasing in the coming years. We will implement them directly in your custom mobile app with whichever features you like or have thought of. At Matellio, we are experienced in many next-gen technologies, so if you choose us to develop your mobile app, the sky is the limit. Just send us your requirements to get started, and we will get back to you with a quote in 24 hours.
