Telemedicine is becoming increasingly prevalent in the present. The digital transformation in healthcare was thriving even before the coronavirus outbreak. Telemedicine software solutions are the future of healthcare, and enterprises must embrace evolving technology in this domain in order to remain relevant and boost their ROI. The global telemedicine market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.8% from 2016 to 2023, reaching USD 56738.3 million. #
Building a telemedicine app might be revolutionary for the business and a game-changer for many doctors. Telemedicine offered the potential to ease the difficulties of healthcare delivery while also facilitating access to medical institutions.
In this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know about telemedicine app development.
So let’s begin!
What is Telemedicine?
Telemedicine aka Telehealth is a method of evaluating, diagnosing, and treating patients from remote locations. To put it another way, a patient does not need to be present at the clinic for his or her diagnosis and treatment.
Its main goal is to provide individuals with on-demand access to various medical services while also reducing doctors’ burden.
Telehealth software allows patients to contact a doctor from miles away at any time, while healthcare providers may effortlessly deliver medical facilities and remote care to patients without incurring excessive costs.
Types of Telemedicine
Real-time Interactive Telemedicine
Patients who seek quick medical assistance can receive spontaneous guidance from interactive services. For its consultation, the service only requires a phone and video call. With the use of phone consultations and video conferencing, patients will be able to communicate in real-time.
Simply said, this type of system will allow any doctor to treat patients remotely via video or audio consultation. Mental therapies such as CBT, post-injury monitoring, and nursing advice will benefit from real-time interactive telemedicine apps.
Using real-time Interactive telemedicine medical record evaluations, psychiatric evaluations, and other procedures will be possible.
Remote Patient Monitoring
Remote patient monitoring aka telemonitoring is a procedure that allows healthcare practitioners to keep track of a patient’s vital signs and activities from afar. This sort of telemedicine is widely used to manage high-risk patients, such as those who have recently been discharged from the hospital or those who have cardiac issues or other chronic ailments.
Store & Forward Telemedicine
The use of store-and-forward telemedicine eliminates the necessity for a medical practitioner to visit a patient in person. Instead, once patient information such as medical pictures or biosignals has been obtained, it can be provided to the professional as needed.
Dermatology, radiography, and pathology are among the medical specialties where this approach is popular. Store-and-forward telemedicine, with the right structure and care, can save time and enable doctors to better serve the public while improving the future of telemedicine apps.
Telemedicine App Development Process
Research
A number of steps make up the research phase. It all begins with gathering and analyzing all of the project’s necessary data. It explains how to create a user-friendly telemedicine app, how to compile the appropriate paperwork, who should be employed to develop a telemedicine app, competitor research, target audience identification, and idea productization.
The discovery phase establishes a defined set of objectives for the team and the client to achieve. It establishes a level of confidence between the producers of telemedicine apps and their users.
Regulatory Compliance
HIPAA, HITECH, and the CCPA are just a few of the regulations that your telemedicine app must follow. Since navigating regulatory compliance can be a minefield, you should do your study and make sure you completely comprehend the rules.
Decide on a Platform
Your requirements, as well as your financial and time limits, must be considered while choosing a platform for your application. Conducting comprehensive research will help you figure out which platforms are best for your product. If your target audience prefers Android, you can start with an MVP for Android and subsequently go on to iOS.
It’s usually a good idea to launch your software on both platforms. Despite the fact that it will cost twice as much as a platform-specific plan, you will be able to reach a significantly broader audience.
Determine the Features
The next phase is to determine the features your telemedicine app will require for each user. You should have a precise list of must-have features in your telemedicine app. We’ve outlined some of the most popular and essential telemedicine app features to assist you in figuring out this section.
The following is a list of the most common telemedicine app features:
- Booking appointments
- Video consulting
- In-app Chat
- Bios of medical professionals
- Prescriptions sent to nearby Pharmacies
- EHR integration
- Online Billing
- HIPAA- compliance
- Rating & Reviews
Initiate the Development Process
The development process is the most important and difficult aspect of building a telemedicine platform. It denotes the development of the product’s server-side, APS integration, and the transformation of an appealing Ul design into functional software.
It’s preferable, to begin with, a minimum viable product (MVP) to validate the software concept and launch the app with the smallest possible investment. MVP’s main goal is to build a telemedicine app with enough functionality to entice early adopters and obtain feedback.
Furthermore, once you start producing money, you can reinvest in adding more advanced features.
Testing
The telemedicine platform cannot be deployed without thorough testing. QA engineers perform a variety of tests at this step to ensure that the product meets its functional requirements. They discover and resolve all defects or breakdowns, and assure that the software is secure and compliant with regulations.
They then document the observations in a bug report and send the information along to program developers for further investigation.
Prior to the final customer review, QA engineers test every functionality to ensure it works as intended and meets project specifications.
You must also ensure that your telemedicine app runs properly on a multitude of devices and provides a consistent experience for both patients and physicians.
Deploy and Demonstrate
The next step is to ensure that your app development partner releases it following Google Play Store and Apple App Store standards. Once your app has been accepted into the App Stores, it’s time to give it a test run to confirm it’s functioning efficiently.
Launch
The pilot launch of your telemedicine app in the market is the final phase of the development process. Once your app is up on App Stores, make sure to obtain feedback from both patients and doctors, and make modifications and improvements to your app as appropriate.
Additionally, as telemedicine solutions are sophisticated, they require continual support, therefore it’s best to stick with the dedicated development team.
They can keep the software up to date by adding new features or upgrading existing ones, as well as correcting bugs and ensuring that it runs smoothly.
In addition, system security and compliance with requirements must be monitored regularly.
Cost of Telemedicine App Development
The cost of telemedicine app development depends on various factors such as timeframe, feature complexity, target platforms, API integration, developer technical skills, and so on. You can reach out to professional developers to learn more about the cost of developing a telemedicine app.
They will present you with a full estimate of the resources required. And the essential cost of developing a telemedicine app after analyzing your concept and practicality.
Conclusion
Developing and launching a telemedicine app can be difficult, but the benefits of a telemedicine app can be worthwhile in the current environment. This guide on telemedicine app development, including advice, process, and cost, will give you an idea of how to get your telemedicine app off the ground.
