We often don’t realize the importance of our health. We work tirelessly, eat junk foods, and never rest. At first, everything seems fine. But gradually our health starts to deteriorate. When things get serious, everything seems lost. this article will provide a comprehensive guide on the top 15 must have features in healthcare apps.
That’s why being healthy is the most crucial thing in life. To maintain good health, you need guidance. You need assistance when you get sick. This is where health care apps come in. These on-demand service apps can provide everything you need to lead a beautiful life.
What Do People Want in a Healthcare Apps?
Developers make healthcare apps with only one objective. That is to guide the users and improve their health in different ways. The methods and strategies can be different. Sometimes they match the expectations of the users while other times they don’t. The users mostly want something that has everything under one roof.
The app has to be simple as most people can have a hard time using a complicated app. The mobile app should meet all user’s needs. They want an app that will give them professional help as quickly as possible.
Top 15 Must-have Features in Healthcare Apps
Healthcare apps are the future of modern-day on-demand service startups. They can save millions of lives. So without further ado, let’s check out the top 15 must-have features in health care apps.
1. Video Conferencing
In this pandemic era, we can’t get out. When you get sick and need assistance from a doctor, you can’t go to a clinic. What can you do in this situation? That’s why video conferencing features are becoming more prominent these days.
This feature allows patients to connect with doctors virtually. They can consult a doctor and have a meeting with them. This is a great feature. People can simply go to the app and talk with a professional. For old patients and patients with mobility issues, this can be extremely helpful
2. Appointment Management
Doctors are incredibly busy. They have to deal with hundreds of patients in a single day. That’s why it’s tough for them to keep track of every single appointment. This is the reason sometimes doctors forget about certain appointments. With such a busy routine, you can’t blame them.
The appointment management feature will alert the doctors of their upcoming appointments. A reminder notification before the patient communication will help doctors stay on time. They can even check the patient’s profile beforehand to get a good grasp of the problem.
Sometimes doctors need to breathe a sigh of relief. Also not every doctor will be an expert in every field. Therefore enabling the cancel appointment feature can be handy in certain situations.
3. Symptoms Checker Feature
Imagine a situation. You live in the outskirts of a town where there are no clinics nearby. You have been suffering from nausea, fever, and cold for seven days. Without consulting a professional you can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong. In this kind of situation, you need an app with symptom checker features.
The patients can type in their symptoms and the app will match the symptoms with the diseases. By doing this, the patients will know the severity of the disease. This feature helps the users feel more at ease.
Also, it’s a great feature for those who can’t have a doctor at all times. Integrating this feature into the healthcare app is pretty straightforward. Software developers have to input all the information about particular diseases.
The app will match symptoms with the disease in the database. Finally, it will show the closest result.
4. Chat or Messaging Feature
In the history of healthcare, there have been cases where the patients don’t want to open themselves to a doctor. They don’t feel comfortable. This is because doctors and patients view each other from a professional standpoint. There is nothing friendly about it. That’s why they can’t communicate well.
The chat or messaging feature adds a friendly vibe to the on-demand services app. The doctors and patients can interact at any time. It creates a good bonding. Also, it can be useful in an emergency. Most on-demand service apps these days have incorporated this feature. Healthcare apps are also keeping up with the trend.
5. Patient Privacy
Each patient has personal information that they don’t want to share with anyone. It should be strictly confidential between the patient and doctor. That’s why the healthcare app needs to protect the patient’s privacy. Before building a healthcare app, app developers need to maintain some regulations. The app needs to comply with HIPAA and FDA regulations.
6. Blockchain Integration
Whenever we hear about blockchain the first thing that comes to our mind is cryptocurrency. It’s a cutting-edge technology that has single-handedly secured all cryptocurrency platforms. We can integrate this feature into healthcare apps as well. It can make on-demand service apps more secure and reliable.
Software developers and tech companies have to ensure their app’s security. Nowadays third parties try to sneak in and take personal information from B2B apps and B2C apps. The blockchain integration feature can be the solution to this problem.
6. An E-prescription Feature
Imagine the regular scenario when you visit a doctor. You go to their clinic and wait in line to see the doctor. After spending hours on end, you finally meet the doctor and describe your symptoms. After hearing the details, the doctor prescribes medicines. Ultimately getting the prescription is the main goal so that you can buy them from the pharmacy. But this can be a rigorous process. What if there was a faster system?
The e-prescription feature allows doctors to create and send prescriptions through the apps. They can also send all the information the patient needs. Therefore, the users don’t have to spend hours waiting in line.
7. Custom Notifications
With our everyday monotonous life, we often forget either we have to visit a doctor or not. The custom notification feature will remind the users of the dates.
Sometimes, we have so many medicines to take, we forget which one to take at what moment. For such confusing times, the notification feature can come in handy. The app will alert you to take the pills.
8. Wearable Devices Feature
This feature is quite advanced than the other features on the list. You need sufficient knowledge about android app development and ios app development. So wearable devices mean health watches, trackers, or hand bands.
We all have seen tv commercials where athletes run or jump wearing some kind of tracker. These wearable devices monitor the health of the wearer.
After connecting the wearable device with the app, it tracks all the activities you perform. It will show in the health dashboard of the app. This is an amazing modern-day feature to keep track of your health. But the bummer is that tech companies need to spend a lot of money.
9. Doctors’ Catalog
We all have used ridesharing apps at some point in our life. They are convenient and easy to use. Uber-like apps are on-demand service apps that connect users to service providers nearby. In most of these apps, the users have the opportunity to select the service provider of their choice.
We can incorporate this feature into health care apps too. There can be a doctors’ catalog where patients can choose the best doctor for themselves. They can choose doctors based on their availability, area of specialization, or qualifications.
9. Geolocation
Your healthcare app should connect users to doctors in the same state or region. You may think why. Well, the doctor in a different state may not know the regulations or norms of your state. Therefore, it can create confusion. That’s why Geolocation is important.
The feature will help patients locate clinics and pharmacies near them. It can also provide addresses and directions. The feature makes it easy for the users to locate the right clinic and doctor for them. To integrate this feature, you need to use real-time order tracking and other systems.
10. Payment System
There is a lot of obscurities when it comes to the payment system of healthcare apps. That’s why healthcare apps should have the feature to pay for bills from the phone. When the healthcare app has multiple payment methods, users won’t have to go anywhere else.
11. Share your progress feature
When we see athletes and actors, we wish we had a body like them. But the truth is getting into shape is not that fun. You have to regularly exercise and maintain your diet at all times. You have to limit what you eat and completely devote yourself. It may sound amazing at first but once you try it you start to feel miserable. That’s why most people get demotivated after working out for some time.
But when you take small steps at a time, the whole process becomes much more fun. You gradually increase your level each day like agile development. “The show your progress” feature lets you monitor every step of your journey. You can see how much you are improving and what parts to improve on.
You can even compare it with your buddies. Everything becomes exciting when there is a bit of competition involved. That’s why this feature of an on-demand services app can be fun and useful at the same time.
12. Search Feature
You go to a healthcare app and start to explore the user interface. You notice the UI/UX design and development of the app are pretty amazing. There is information about everything you need. But there is no search option. This can be a big turnoff for most users.
Well, no matter how much an app offers people love to search for things. That’s why every healthcare app will be incomplete without a handy search feature. The feature is pretty simple. The search box will be in a part of the app. Users will be able to put their queries. Based on the query, the search results will appear. You can also integrate auto-completion and suggestions to make the experience easier.
13. User and Doctor Profile
This feature makes healthcare apps stand out. So every patient has a unique history. They have their own medical experiences and test reports. They can put all the information and credentials into their user profile.
Also, as they use more of the app, the new experiences will add to their profile. The same goes for the doctors. This helps the doctors and patients understand each other better. The doctors will know the medical history of the patients and patients will know the doctor’s expertise.
14. Booking Features
Like transportation booking and ridesharing apps, healthcare apps need booking features too. The doctors won’t always be available to meet the patient’s demands. That’s why the booking feature will help the users check the availability of doctors.
They can pick a suitable time to communicate with them. Without this feature, consulting a doctor would be pretty difficult.
15. Simple User Interface
An intricate user interface will do more harm than good. You never know if the user is a tech freak or a complete beginner. That’s why you should make your app targeting a general audience. It’s best not to incorporate unnecessary features.
Using obscure fonts and vague titles will confuse people. An app with a simple user interface is the best. That’s why you have to focus on the UI/UX design and development aspect.
Final Thoughts
On-demand services apps are everywhere. From ridesharing apps to online shopping, you can find an app for pretty much everything. But the most important app we need at the moment is a good healthcare app. With thousands of people dying every day, people need an app to help them in their time of need. An app with great features can save millions of lives.