INTRODUCTION
Every industry is looking to take advantage of the cutting edge of mobile innovation. Progression in technology can be a great help to a person if used strategically. Hence, mobile applications for medical facilities are blessings for individuals searching for treatment. They are also an immense help for patients looking for specialists.
With hard work, resources, manpower, and financing, you build a facility for treating patients and call it a hospital.
Gradually, your hospital earns goodwill in the market due to serving the highest quality healthcare services.
The quality service then increases the manpower in the hospital too in terms of staff, nursing staff, doctors, and experts. More employees are a result of a greater number of patients, which impacts the overall process of the hospital. An increase in employee base along with patients creates a need for a process that will streamline the overall process of the hospital. To do so, one of the tools that can ease this growth process is the hospital mobile app.
Here in this blog, you will learn why a hospital mobile app is so important.
TIPS TO HELP YOU CREATE A GREAT HOSPITAL MOBILE APP
Here are a few tips to help you create the next great hospital mobile app.
1. Do your research. Ask your patients or potential future patients what they would like to see in a mobile app. Create a quick online survey available on your website or include a printed survey in your community publications.
2. Identify your solutions. What questions or problems does a patient have that you could help solve with an app? Here are a few solutions that have been incorporated into other great hospital apps:
- ER Wait Times
- Clinic Wait Time
- Closest Facility
- Facility Locator
- Maps and Directions
- Schedule an Appointment
- Appointment Reminders
- Medication Reminders
- Physician Finder
- Contact a Practitioner (email, phone or text)
- News and Event Alerts
- Imaging and Lab Results
- Secure Location for Your Information (emergency contacts, medication, insurance, providers, allergies, etc.)
3. Be unique. Your hospital app should offer at least one thing that your main website does not offer. If your app can offer solutions that other hospital apps in your service area don’t provide, even better.
4. Consider being service-line specific. You might want to consider developing one main hospital app and other apps that are specific to individual service lines. For example, if you have a fantastic diabetes management program, you could create an app exclusively dedicated to diabetes. If you want to focus attention on your pediatrics program consider an exclusive pediatrics app and include fast access to information on how to treat common childhood ailments, pre-office visit (poison ivy, dog bite, pink eye, mosquito bite, chicken pox, etc.) and a one-click link to the nearest poison control center.
5. Make it easy to use. If your app has too many hoops to jump through, people won’t continue using it. Try to keep clicks to a minimum whenever possible.
6. Go easy on health information. According to the same CPM Marketing Group study, health information ranked a distant third on survey respondents list of desires for a hospital mobile app. There are thousands of websites (including your hospital’s website) that are great places to research health conditions, and people prefer to use a laptop or tablet for research. People typically use their smartphones and mobile apps to simplify their lives, not to perform research.
BEST HOSPITAL APP FEATURES
1. Access to EHR/EMR
Access to electronic health records/ electronic medical records is the most desired feature that very few hospital apps have. It’s hard to implement medical records access due to security concerns and restrictions, but it’s definitely worth it.
An app that allows access to medical records is beneficial both for patients and doctors because it lets them seamlessly exchange information. Different departments can also send lab results and all kinds of documents, which makes communication extremely efficient.
2. Appointments
This feature is second on the list of most desired features in a healthcare app. The ability to book, reschedule, and cancel appointments is crucial for convenient communication between doctors and patients. This feature is present in best medical health apps. Scheduling through a mobile app is convenient, happens in real time and automatically sends notifications.
3. Prescriptions
Prescriptions is the third feature people want to see in a mobile app. Writing prescriptions on paper is outdated – patients want to be able to do everything through a mobile app. Processing medical prescription refills is way faster in a mobile app, as a patient has no need to call the pharmacy or write an email. A few taps on a smartphone and everything’s ready.
4. Video calls and chats
Telemedicine is one of the most promising areas of healthcare. According to Statista, connecting with doctors and nurses is the most attractive uses of medical apps for app companies. As video is becoming a primary means of personal communication, video chats are only going to become more and more popular.
Nothing can really replace in-person communication, but videos are the closest to it when there’s no possibility for a patient to go to the hospital personally.
Adding this feature to your medical health mobile application will certainly be appreciated by patients and doctors and will give you an advantage among other mobile apps.
5. Dashboards
Dashboards are used to manage and track data in a hospital, which includes KPIs and other metrics. This allows you to visualize data and get all the information in one place. Dashboards also measure generated revenue and the effectiveness of different departments in a hospital or clinic.
Dashboards may include overall hospital information and statistics on client satisfaction, performance, and many other metrics.
6. Notifications
Notifications are one of the best capabilities of a mobile app. Notifications can benefit doctors and patients. Doctors can receive notifications about appointments and changes in their schedules and patients can be reminded to take pills, go to the hospital, get a medical procedure, or refill their prescriptions.
7. Integration with wearables
Wearables are used not only for fitness but also for tracking health and life metrics like heart rate and glucose level. You can make tracking patients’ health more effective by allowing your app to connect with wearables. This can also assist in diagnosing diseases.
8. Doctor profiles
This feature allows patients to view the profiles of doctors in a hospital. Patients can learn about a doctor’s professional experience, credentials, and publications and can see photos of them. This increases the loyalty and credibility of your hospital.
9. Location-based services
You can use location-based technologies to show patients the route to your hospital and help them navigate departments and wings. The best solution is to include both outdoor and indoor maps so that patients won’t get lost inside the hospital once they get there. Your app can also help patients find local family doctors.
10. Accessibility
A hospital mobile app without accessibility is like a fitness app without a workout program. Your app should definitely be accessible for people with disabilities, for example poor sight or color blindness. To make your app accessible, you can use standard solutions from Google and Apple. They give healthcare app developers an ability to implement features like Voice Access or Talkback into your hospital app.
REASONS YOUR HOSPITAL NEEDS A MOBILE APP
Conveniently flexible to store records and educational materials
Keeping hospital records physically in a room is all about sitting ducks, where the records are not safe from any security vulnerability. However, this archaic system has a more secure format with mobile app technology, where doctors can keep the healthcare records stay available on the app platform. The records can be stored using Blockchain technology, which further can be accessed by anyone in the field for further consultation or even educational research.
Appointment scheduling
It is a tedious task for patients and hospital staff to check the available appointment slots, book the appointment, or cancel someone’s appointment. This is a time-consuming process. But with a mobile app, this process gets streamlined, where patients get access to schedule their appointment and get regular updates of any changes or cancellation of the appointment scheduled.
Streamlined billing system
In such a busy environment, it is very likely that some payment issues will arise, as not every patient comes with insurance coverage or other billing problems. Standing in queues to pay invoices can irk patients. Providing them an online bill paying platform streamlines the billing system for your hospital front-desk staff as well.
Brings an edge over competitors
One of the most troubling facts is that even hospitals have to deal with competition. Now every hospital tries to help its existing and prospective patients, by integrating app technology in their business model. If you do not offer the latest technology to your patients then they will probably choose your competitors over you.
Hence, a mobile app, inter alia, is an investment for your hospital where you can take care of your patients and offer them convenience.
Reduce Errors in Processes
On carrying out the different business operations within a hospital, there are fair chances for errors. There can be chances where reports get mixed up and may provide incorrect diagnostics. This can be proven fatal for a patient’s health. But with mobile apps, this issue is resolved, as patients can check and download their test results over the app platform. This reduces any chances of prescribing the wrong medication, and even any type of allergy to medication or sensitivity towards any drug can also be mentioned in the details. This enables doctors to prescribe the right and effective medications fitting the patient’s requirements.
A productive management system
For a hospital, there is a different set of duties to be handled daily, and these duties consequently help in running a smooth operation. But while managing various things, the internal organizational processes cannot be ignored. Failing to implement an efficient management system can lead to a lower level of service provided. This issue is well-addressed by the mobile app solution that further helps the hospital to run its management operations effectively and monitor every area for the optimal performace.
Types of hospital apps:
1. ER/Urgent Care Apps – Route patients to the nearest and most cost-effective urgent care choice. Provide directions, travel time, wait times, insurance options, etc.
2. Wayfinding Apps – Help patients find their way around your property. Search for departments, staff members, physicians. Provide location-based push messaging, maps, and more.
3. Pregnancy/Childbirth Apps – Help to educate patients and keep them on schedule for appointments and care with a pregnancy tracker. Provide information for both pre and postnatal care, as well as newborn infant care.
4. General Hospital Apps – A main app for your hospital to spotlight your branding and messaging. This overall app can provide hospital information, services provided, virtual tour, ER wait times, etc. A good starting point.
5. Cancer Care/Outpatient Apps – Engage with outpatients about their condition and increase adherence to their treatment plan. Patients can manage their care team and lab results with their treatment tracker. Also provides engagement with other patients.
6. Physician Referral Apps – Referrals, long a thorn in the side of patients and doctors alike, also can benefit from a mobile app. Provide a quick and easy referral process and strengthen physician relationships at your facility. Request appointments directly from the app.
7. Wellness Apps – Encourage patients to track their own health. Provide a health tracker, exercise class schedules, and health and wellness tips. Even offer a reward program to encourage regular use. Great branding.
CONCLUSION
Lots of qualities persuaded specialists to build a mobile application for their health facility. It offers lucrative advantages in its use for streamlining any complex work. Healthcare mobile apps also enhance administrations and increase efficiency. Hence, it is essential to building a mobile application for your health facility. Remember that a useful mobile app will always give substantial advantages to your business. It also helps you in enhancing your business process. An app is beneficial to not just the patients and the doctors but also the medical staff and the hospital administrators.
About 5280 Software LLC:
5280 Software LLC, located in Austin, Texas is a premier software development firm. We have worked with a variety of clients over the years. Our expert team of developers have helped small to medium sized businesses, startups, as well as enterprise level clients such as RingCentral. If you are looking to build a mobile app, we can deliver flawless apple ios mobile apps as well as android mobile apps. Our mobile app development agency designs apps for smartphones, ipad and android tablets, wearable such as smart watches, and even smart TVs.
The power of a well-designed app to gain new customers is key in today’s market. Our cutting-edge mobile app development solution is what your business or startup needs! Our developers are adroit with any mobile app development platform you need. We help execute your app development to perfection. If you need the best mobile app development companies, you have found them!
We offer a complete solution with the latest technologies to solve your obstacles and scale your customer base. From the start of any project (and at every stage, step, phase, and release) we focus on the client and always ask for feedback while we develop the project. Creating a quality solution for a business or startup is our end goal. Our strategy and processes are based on solid communication with our clients. 5280 Software LLC is one of the top mobile app development companies in the USA. We are far better than other mobile app development companies that charge more money for lower quality.
All projects are built according to a clearly defined scope of work. If you need assistance with scope creation, we offer this as a service. This scope of work will be used in the provided development contract. Make sure whomever you hire for your project provides you a development contract with clearly defined pricing, development timeline, payment schedule, and deliverables. We would like to learn about your project and help refine your scope of work. Our custom website, software, and mobile app development agency is here for you every step of the way.
If you have an idea for a mobile app, please emails us your full name or company name and we will send you a signed NDA. We send NDAs to all potential clients to guarantee your ideas and documents will be kept in confidence. Once an NDA is in place, feel free to book a free discovery call. You can also fill out our app development questionnaire to share the details of your project before your call. We are the leading firm specializing in building solutions for the web, iphones and other smart devices including IOT. Our company can create a custom solution on a variety of platforms using the most current popular programming languages. Weather it is a cross platform hybrid app or a natively programmed solution, we have you covered!
We look forward to speaking with you about your project. Learn why clients around the world trust working with 5280 Software LLC. We support our clients from mockups, sketch, wireframes, and graphic design, development, product launch and ASO when we publish your app, and even code updates at a competitive price point. Feel free to visit us on our social sites Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or send us a LinkedIn connection request to learn about our offers to get answers to your questions. Want to hear firsthand from our previous clients the superior service we offer? Check out our testimonials! Call us today at 888.510.0833 to learn about our mobile app development services!
Let us turn your idea into reality!
