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Healthcare and Medical App Business Plan

While technology has helped progress many industries, the medical and healthcare industries may be the most important. From tracking health to accessing medical help quicker, a variety of new healthcare apps have entered the market over the last two decades. As a result, the amount of investment going into these types of apps have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. However, before an entrepreneur can raise investment, they need to first create a strong medical app business plan.

Although healthcare app business plans are very similar to other types of  app business plans , there are many differences that you must be aware of when writing one. In this post, we will provide several tips for writing a strong business plan for a medical app startup. 

State of Healthcare and mHealth Startups

As of 2018, there were an estimated  318,000 health apps  on the market with over 200 new apps being added each day. This was double the number of health apps that existed in 2015.

With a total projected value of over $28.3 billion and an expectation of reaching $102 billion by 2023; there’s no question why investors are so attracted innovation in this industry.

For startups, these investments are necessary. In a study of 2,400 mobile health stakeholders, the average  cost of development for a mobile health  app (from conception to launch) was around $425,000. There was a large portion of these startups though (36%), that spent less than $25,000 up until launch, and 12% spent over $500,000. In other words, for a startup to be successful in this space, some level of investor capital will be necessary.

However, with so many new startups entering the market, the competition for investment is fierce. Investors want to invest in highly innovative health tech startups that are solving real challenges and have the potential to affect millions of users. 

Types of Healthcare Apps

There are many different types of healthcare apps to provide a variety of solutions. In general, these apps fall into one of the following categories: 

• Clinical & Administrative : These are applications used by healthcare staff to manage records, review charts, keep track of patients, and more.
• Monitoring and Tracking : Software that monitors patients in real-time, such as heart monitoring, blood glucose monitoring and more.
• Locators, Appointments & Reminders : Includes apps that allow patients to search for healthcare providers, set appointments, set reminders to take medicine, and more.
• Lifestyle : Includes apps related to living a healthy lifestyle like fitness apps, nutrition, and food apps, and more.

3 Tips To Writing Your Medical App Business Plan

When writing a medical app business plan, there are several considerations that should be made. These considerations will help to ensure that your business plan stands out among the competition and makes the biggest impact among readers.

Team & Advisors

For any startup, investors want to see a strong team in place. This is even more important in the case of a medical or healthcare startup. With these apps, startups often put themselves in between the user and their health – whether it is offering advice or information, access to medical records, or medication reminders.

Investors know that there are many risks associated with medical software and technology. In many industries, risks can be assumed and mistakes can take place. This flexibility doesn’t exist when someone’s health is on the line.

Because of this, team experience is important. Founding members should have the experience necessary to bring the application to life. If the app is one that needs specialist medical knowledge, investors will probably want to see someone with this experience represented in your medical app business plan.

A strong advisory board can help you fill in the experience gaps of your team. When you write up your team bios in your plan, consider how investors will perceive your team’s experience. Will they see gaps or have reason to be concerned that you are not experienced enough? If so, correct these issues before writing up your plan. 

Acceptance By Medical Professionals

People trust medical professionals, but they don’t always trust brands. An app may say that a specific diet is best for individuals with diabetes, but unless that app is backed by someone trusted in the medical community, it won’t be deemed as credible.

Seek approval by medical influencers and professionals that can add credibility and validation to your concept. Showcase reviews from these individuals in your medical app business plan to better your chances of impressing an investor. 

Tell Your Startup Story

Healthcare apps often have incredible startup stories attached to them, and these stories can help connect with readers. Explain how the idea came about and what inspired you to start your business.

Imagine a remind app for caregivers of the elderly. On it’s own it doesn’t sound extremely exciting. However, when finding out that the founder’s mother had severe dementia and her family built and used the app to more effectively manage her daily medicine – the solution is given more personality.

What is your  brand story ? Figure out the story that strengthens and validates your brand and build your medical app business plan around it!

Putting Your Medical App Business Plan Together

Ready to put together an investor-ready healthcare app business plan? We’d love to help. At ThinkLions, our  business plan writers  have worked with dozens of mHealth companies, helping them raise money from investors around the world. Contact us today and speak with one of our business plan experts.

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Healthcare Mobile App Development in 6 Steps

2020 definitely made history not only in our lives but also in the health apps market. According to CB Insights , every aspect of telemedicine, including health education services, remote patient monitoring (RPM), and remote doctor-patient consultations, got a huge boost (up nearly 300% in investment).

I bet even without these numbers, everyone can say that health is a top priority, especially in light of recent events. As the number of mHealth users is growing, the demand for healthcare mobile app development is inevitable. The market of mobile healthcare applications is predicted to exceed 300 billion U.S. dollars by 2025 . So, if you’re hesitating whether to build a healthcare app, now it's high time. 

Creating a medical startup requires a deep analysis of ideas, trends, and development steps. In this article, I've prepared a detailed plan on the healthcare mobile app development process. I’ll explain what a healthcare app is, spell all the nuances out and give some tips on creating MVP for digital health apps. So, make yourself comfortable and enjoy the read! 

What is a Healthcare App?

mHealth niche is very broad and includes a variety of apps, from professional ones to more basic ones. The purpose of mobile healthcare applications also differs. mHealth apps simplify our lives: they track our health data, ensure remote assistance, give 24/7 access to doctors, share tips on improving our health, and more. Overall, the purpose depends on the app category you choose. 

It's important to mind the categories when looking for healthcare app developers as you need to provide them with input data. Let's take a look at existing categories. 

Professional Healthcare Apps

The name says for itself. Professional healthcare apps involve doctors. All apps used as mediators in communication and treatment processes between the patient and the doctor are called professional. DrChrono , Medscape , Locus Clinician are the great examples of professional mHealth apps. Here's the list of other professional apps types:

• Doctor appointment apps;
• Electronic medical/health records apps;
• Medical reference apps;
• Database apps;
• Health tracking apps;
• Networking apps (for doctors);
• Telemedicine apps.

Healthcare Apps for Patients

This category of app usually doesn't require doctors' involvement, but they provide a lot of useful information for patients. Let’s take BetterMe , NTC , Lifesum , for example. Healthcare apps for patients may include different features, and the list of types vary:

• Medical education apps
• Reminder apps
• Healthy lifestyle apps
• Dieting apps
• Diagnosis apps for preventive purposes
• Fitness apps

So, you have a large pool of choices for your startup idea. I gathered some examples of healthcare mobile app designs that you may take for reference before medical app development. 

Healthcare App Startup Ideas

What can help you to implement your healthcare startup effectively? Right, hard work and visual experience. By hard work I mean you should study the medical industry deeply. It’s great to monitor existing healthcare apps, trends in healthcare and use them to move with the times. So look through design shots for several mHealth apps we created at Uptech. 

Appointment app

Healthcare apps for direct interaction between patients and doctors play a crucial role today. Remote assistance and online communication may save lives. Doctor appointment apps allow patients to find the right doctor at a mutually comfortable time, and set the appointment in one click. 

Reminder app

The goal of this app is straightforward — it reminds people to take drugs on time. If you're not going to build a full-fledged reminder app, I think it is an excellent feature that you can include in the doctor appointment app or any other healthcare app.

Fitness app

These two apps are created for everyone who wants to get healthy habits and monitor a health condition. Fitness apps are on the hype now. In 2020 the number of mHealth app users was 87.4 million , while only 2 years before, it was 62.7 million. It helps monitor the number of steps a user takes, burn calories, track heart rate, consume calories, propose exercises, etc. However, I'd recommend combining these apps with weights, wearable devices like fitness wristbands, and other training equipment.

Benefits of Healthcare App for Doctors and Patients

One of the reasons why medical app development became so popular is that it fulfils the main patients' and doctors' needs. There are a few significant advantages of the healthcare app I'd like to list here.

Benefits for Doctors

• Remote assistance

Mobile healthcare apps allow doctors to monitor patient's health even if they are far away. In addition, doctors can save their time visiting patients personally by contacting them through calls, video chats, or app chats. 

• Effective workload distribution

With the help of mHealth apps, doctors can set up appointments at the most suitable time. They also can manage essential tasks via mobile and web apps.

• Brand awareness

Lack of loyalty and trust hurt no less than a toothache. Having a healthcare app boosts the brand awareness of a clinic or a doctor. When patients are treated in a clinic that has a digital presence, it contributes to trust and loyalty growth. As a result, they are more likely to choose the same clinic next time. 

Benefits for Patients

• Improved treatment process

mHealth apps make it possible to arrange video calls to ensure more comfortable communication between patients and doctors. Doctors have all the tools needed to examine patients properly. They build prescription lists and can control the drug regimen in the app. 

• Cost-efficiency

This one is on the surface, as online appointments cost less than personal appointments.

• Online payment

With the healthcare app, there is no need for cash. Patients simply can schedule an appointment and make a payment in the app. Fast, convenient, and accessible.

The majority of issues can be solved using healthcare apps, so people don't need to leave their houses. They don't need to waste time getting to the hospital or standing in the queue.

6 Steps to Build a Healthcare App

Healthcare mobile app development is not a straightforward process. There are many nuances and differences from other apps you need to consider. Here's the list of detailed steps that will make your thorny path shorter and help you avoid mistakes.

Step 1 –  Do Market Analysis

As clear as it is, your healthcare app will be a waste of time if it is not valuable. Healthcare mobile app development involves market analysis. You need to study your niche, know more about your competitors, what value they bring, what their strong and weak sides are, and how you can stand out. 

Step 2 – Study Your Audience

An important thing here is the user research phase. We at Uptech have worked on professional healthcare apps that aimed to help with health issues like bulimia, anorexia, and mental disorders. While healthcare application development, you should always be ready to face the sensitive problems of people. Conducting interviews, focus groups, or surveys is a challenge as you need to keep the balance: get to the root of the user's problem and keep the ethical balance. 

My recommendation is to ask about the methodology, not personal issues. For example, when I interviewed a person with bulimia I asked the question “How do you create your eating schedule?” instead of “Did you feel hurt that your mother commented on your weight?”

“My recommendation is to ask about the methodology, not personal issues.“

I'd also like to give some tips on interviewing since I know all the angels. 

• Prepare for the interview;
• Explain the context of the interview, its goals, and value;
• Guide the person you take the interview from;
• Don't take the information close to the heart;
• Don't take everything people say for true;

Even the most expensive healthcare app development services won't save your app if it is useless. That is why you must find out all the pain points of your target audience. 

Step 3 – Choose App Type

As I mentioned above, the healthcare app type determines several things: the app's database, functionality, and app goal. You cannot just ask medical app developers to build any app, you need to define key points with a team, like: 

• what kind of app you need;
• how it will work;
• what pains it will solve; 

Step 4 – Create Design

Design completes the lion's share of the app's success, and the mHealth app design should be consistent and intuitive. Its goal is to lead the user to the endpoint smoothly. The design must be user-friendly, and the fewer interaction points it has, the better experience users get. Also, I recommend reducing the cognitive load of your app to the maximum.

Step 5 - Make it HIPAA Compliant

I can't stress it enough, the healthcare topic is a very sensitive one, and healthcare application development isn't simple. If you're planning to build a healthcare app, it's essential to comply with some regulations. 

For example, the USA region will require your app to follow all HIPAA regulations . In Europe, all apps that process personal information must comply with the GDPR . 

The idea of HIPAA is to ensure the protection of personal healthcare information for both parties: patients and healthcare providers. How to make sure that your app follows HIPAA requirements or not? It's a good question to ask, and here's a short checklist that will help you.

Why limit access? Specific user roles have access to users' health data information. Only the treating doctor can see their patient's profile with analysis, progress, diagnosis, etc. 

How to ensure data encryption? Developers must use reliable encryption protocols that duly protect all personal health information. The IT team must collect information in a few copies on different servers to be restored in any crashes or errors and respond to any alerts immediately.

How to find HIPAA-compliant services? All healthcare mobile app development services must be HIPAA compliant. While working on one of the projects, we used Sendbird chat, which is HIPAA compliant. Though we had to customize it to our needs, so it's not an 'on the fly' process. Unfortunately, there's no list with all HIPAA-compliant services. It's a pity, I know, but here's the checklist you may use while choosing the service. 

Note that this is not an exhaustive list of items to make your app complaint. I focused on technical issues mainly, but there're also administrative requirements, like assigning specific roles to people and creating policies. You can check the official guidelines to ensure that you're not breaking the rules. Also, you may collaborate with companies that provide audits on HIPAA to help you become/stay compliant.

Step 6 – Build MVP

Now since you've ensured to use secure services and picked the healthcare app type, the next step should be an MVP development. While building healthcare app MVP, you need to mind the fundamental MVP creation rules: build it fast and make it viable. 

Before healthcare app MVP development, you need to prioritize the vital features , ensure they solve the problem, and iterate constantly. MVP gives you a competitive advantage because you enter the market faster and start gathering feedback from real users sooner than if you build a full-fledged product right away. 

Healthcare App MVP: Features Checklist

It is worth mentioning that healthcare mobile app development is more or less similar. The onboarding, user flow, and functionality are often the same, and that’s the good news because you're able to use ready solutions. Another side is that building a healthcare app MVP can be entirely different since healthcare apps have many types and sub-types, and you need to decide the feature set that suits your app precisely. 

So I won't list features for each app type, but there are a few features many healthcare apps include. 

Bottom Line

Finally, I would like to draw some conclusions from this article. In general, healthcare apps can be divided into 2 categories: professional with doctors involvement and apps for patients where doctors are optional. 

If you have an idea to build a healthcare app, get ready for some challenges with user research and data security. Interviewing your potential customers could be hard as you deal with sensitive topics. Try to follow my advice on asking about methodology, not personal issues, and it will make the research phase smoother. Also, note that your app must be HIPAA-compliant and should comply with all required rules. Otherwise, you risk getting a penalty. 

We at Uptech have extensive expertise in healthcare app development, so we know firsthand how to build your HIPAA-compliant software from the research stage to a ready-to-launch product. If you’re looking for a healthcare app development company or need any tips from professionals for your project? Contact us – we'll be happy to help you.

How much does it cost to develop a healthcare app?

The average price of building a healthcare app for iOS and Android with full backend infrastructure and a design will cost you approximately $150k. Note that the product management, QA, and team communication services are included in the price. 

How do you make an effective medical mobile app?

Collaboration and product mindset are the foundation for making any app effective. A close work of product, design, and development teams makes it possible to create an app that works and fulfills users’ needs. And, of course, product mindset. It helps to make wise business decisions and focus on a customer. 

How long does it take to develop a medical app?

The approximate time of building a healthcare app ranges from 5 to 6 months depending on the details: the features set, design, and specialists engaged in the process. 

How to Develop a Healthcare App: Strategic Guide for 2024

Building a healthcare app while considering HIPAA Compliance requirements is crucial in healthcare app development. The healthcare industry has seen a significant shift towards digitalization, with mobile app development playing a pivotal role in improving patient care, access to health information, and overall healthcare services.

Aloa, an expert in software outsourcing , helps businesses and startups navigate these challenges by providing insights into how to develop a healthcare app that meets the needs of healthcare professionals and patients and complies with the stringent regulations governing health data security and privacy.

This comprehensive guide will walk you through the entire healthcare app development process, from understanding the intricacies of customer discovery to the critical stages of software development.

Afterward, you will clearly understand how to develop a healthcare app, the importance of HIPAA Compliance, and the benefits of creating one that addresses the evolving needs of the healthcare industry. We'll provide valuable resources to help you further explore this exciting and impactful mobile health application development field.

Let's get started!

7 Strategic Steps on How to Develop a Healthcare App

In the healthcare industry, mobile apps are crucial in improving patient care, data accessibility, and overall healthcare services. Let's explore the seven strategic steps on how to develop a healthcare app, ensuring it meets the highest quality, security, and compliance standards.

These steps will provide a roadmap understanding how to develop a healthcare app that addresses the industry's unique needs while adhering to HIPAA Compliance requirements.

Step 1: Define Your Healthcare App's Purpose and Goals

The first and most crucial step on how to develop a healthcare app is defining its purpose and goals. To create a successful healthcare app, you must clearly understand the specific problem or need it aims to address within the healthcare ecosystem. The purpose and goals of your app will guide all subsequent decisions and actions throughout the development process.

• Identify the Problem or Need: Thoroughly research and pinpoint a specific issue in healthcare.
• Define the Target Audience: When considering how to develop a healthcare app, you should start by defining your target audience and their needs. Determine if your app is for healthcare professionals, patients, or both.
• Set Clear Goals: Establish measurable objectives, e.g., reducing wait times or improving patient satisfaction.
• Conduct Market Research: Understand competitors and user preferences.
• Gather User Feedback: User feedback is valuable in refining how to develop a healthcare app over time. Engage stakeholders for valuable input and align with real-world needs.

Defining the purpose and goals of your healthcare app by identifying a specific problem or need, understanding your target audience, setting clear objectives, conducting market research, and actively seeking user feedback. A well-defined purpose and set of goals will be the foundation for the subsequent development stages.

Step 2: Conduct Market Research

Market research is a critical phase that informs the entire development process. Research is a crucial first step when considering how to develop a healthcare app. Start by delving deep into the healthcare landscape to understand the industry's current state comprehensively. Identify emerging trends, market gaps, and potential areas your healthcare app can significantly impact. This research should also encompass a thorough analysis of your competitors, examining their strengths, weaknesses, and the features they offer. By understanding the competitive landscape, you can identify opportunities to differentiate your app and provide unique value to users.

Furthermore, engaging with potential users, including healthcare professionals and patients, is vital. Conduct surveys, interviews, or focus groups to gather insights into their pain points, preferences, and needs. This user-centric approach ensures that your app aligns closely with the expectations of its target audience, increasing the likelihood of adoption and success.

Step 3: Comply with Regulatory Requirements

Compliance with regulatory requirements is crucial when understanding how to develop a healthcare app. Failure to meet these standards can result in legal issues, data breaches, and loss of trust from users. Here are some key aspects to consider:

• Research Applicable Regulations: Identify and research regulations relevant to your healthcare app, such as HIPAA in the United States and GDPR in Europe.
• Secure Data: Implement robust data security measures, including encryption, secure authentication, and access controls.
• Create Privacy Policies: Develop comprehensive privacy policies that inform users about data collection , usage, and sharing, emphasizing obtaining informed consent.
• Ensure User Authentication: Establish secure user authentication and authorization mechanisms, potentially incorporating multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Maintain Audit Trails: For compliance and auditing purposes, keep detailed records of user interactions, especially regarding patient data access and modification.
• Conduct Thorough Testing: Perform comprehensive testing and validation to meet regulatory standards, potentially involving third-party experts for assessments and penetration testing.

Ensuring regulatory compliance is the foundation of a successful healthcare app. By understanding how to develop a healthcare app by adhering to applicable regulations, implementing robust security measures, and documenting compliance efforts, you create a secure and trustworthy platform for healthcare data. Failing to do so can result in legal and reputational consequences.

Step 4: Design User-Centric Interfaces

The design phase of your healthcare app is where user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design come into play. Collaborate closely with UX and UI experts to create an interface that is visually appealing but also intuitive and user-friendly. Focus on creating workflows and navigation that are easy to understand, especially for healthcare professionals who may use the app in high-pressure situations.

Implement features that streamline tasks, such as efficient data entry, appointment scheduling, or prescription management. Additionally, consider accessibility standards to ensure that your app can be used by individuals with disabilities, adhering to guidelines like WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). By prioritizing user-centric design, you can enhance user engagement and satisfaction, making your healthcare app a valuable tool in the healthcare ecosystem.

Partnering with a trusted development partner like Aloa can significantly enhance the success of your healthcare app project. Aloa's expertise and collaboration can provide valuable insights and resources at various stages of development, from planning to deployment.

Step 5: Build a Secure and Scalable Infrastructure

A robust and scalable infrastructure is essential for ensuring the reliability and performance of your healthcare app. Consider the following:

• Secure Hosting: Choose a compliant hosting environment with backups and disaster recovery plans, like HIPAA-compliant cloud services.
• Data Encryption: Implement strong encryption (SSL/TLS) for data at rest and in transit to protect it.
• Access Controls: Establish role-based access controls to limit patient data access, preventing unauthorized entry.
• Scalability Planning: Plan for scalability upfront, using scalable databases, load balancing, and caching for potential user and data growth.
• Security Audits: Security and compliance are critical factors in how to develop a healthcare app successfully. Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability assessments, keeping systems up-to-date with patches.
• Compliance Checks: Periodically perform compliance audits to maintain healthcare data regulatory standards.

The infrastructure you choose forms the backbone of your healthcare app. Selecting a secure hosting environment, implementing strong encryption, and planning for scalability are critical. Regular security audits and compliance assessments help maintain the integrity of your system over time.

Step 6: Develop and Test the App

Development and testing are where your healthcare app comes to life. It's essential to follow best practices in software development and quality assurance :

• Experienced Development Team : Hire experienced developers well-versed in healthcare app development and the programming languages and frameworks you plan to use.
• Agile Development : Consider adopting agile methodologies to facilitate iterative development and continuous improvement based on user feedback.
• Prototyping : Create prototypes or wireframes to visualize the app's functionality and flow before beginning development. This can help clarify requirements and expectations.
• Thorough Testing : Perform comprehensive testing, including unit testing, integration testing, and user acceptance testing—test for functionality, security, performance, and compatibility with different devices and platforms.
• Bug Tracking and Resolution : Establish a system for tracking and prioritizing bugs and issues that arise during testing. Ensure that all identified issues are resolved before the app's release.
• User Training : If your healthcare app targets healthcare professionals, provide training and documentation to help them effectively use the app in their daily workflows. User training can improve adoption rates.

The development and testing phase is where your healthcare app takes shape. Employing an experienced development team, following agile methodologies, and conducting rigorous testing are essential. User training and comprehensive bug tracking contribute to a successful launch without significant disruptions.

Step 7: Launch and Market the App

After the development and testing phases are complete, launching your healthcare app to the public is time. This involves publishing it on popular apps like the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. To ensure a successful launch, create a comprehensive marketing strategy targeting your intended audience, whether healthcare professionals, patients, or both.

Consider collaborating with healthcare institutions or providers to promote your app within their networks. Maintain an ongoing feedback loop with users to gather insights for continuous improvement. Regularly release updates and enhancements to address issues, add new features, and stay competitive in the healthcare app landscape. Marketing and ongoing improvement are crucial to your healthcare app's long-term success and sustainability.

Standard Features of Healthcare Apps

Healthcare apps have become indispensable tools for individuals, healthcare providers, and organizations. Whether aiming to improve personal health or streamline medical processes, understanding how to develop a healthcare app and its standard features is crucial.

Let's explore the critical features for both administrators and users to create a comprehensive healthcare application.

Features for Admins

Admins are pivotal in managing and maintaining healthcare apps, ensuring they operate smoothly while safeguarding sensitive data. Here are ten essential features for administrators:

• User Management: Admins can create, modify, and delete user profiles, ensuring data access is controlled and secure.
• Data Analytics: Access to real-time data analytics enables administrators to monitor app performance and user engagement, making informed decisions.
• Appointment Scheduling: Streamline the scheduling process for patients and healthcare providers, reducing no-shows and optimizing resource allocation.
• Security Protocols: Implement robust security measures, including data encryption, to protect patient data and comply with HIPAA regulations.
• Health Records Management: Enable administrators to manage and update patient records, ensuring accuracy and accessibility for medical professionals.
• Notification System: An efficient notification system helps administrators send reminders, updates, and alerts to users, enhancing communication.
• Role-Based Access Control: Admins can assign different access levels to users based on their roles, enhancing data security.
• Integration Capabilities: Integrating electronic health record (EHR) systems and other healthcare tools streamline data sharing and collaboration.
• Feedback and Reporting: Admins can collect user feedback and generate reports to identify areas for improvement and track app performance.
• Compliance Monitoring: Ensure the app adheres to healthcare regulations, regularly updating policies and procedures as needed.

Features for Users

Users, including patients and individuals striving for personal health improvement, rely on healthcare apps for various purposes. Here are ten key features that enhance the user experience:

• Personal Health Dashboard: Users can access a comprehensive dashboard displaying vital signs, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and other essential health metrics.
• Health Records Access: Conveniently view and manage personal medical records, allowing users to share information with healthcare professionals as needed.
• Appointment Booking: Simplify the process of scheduling medical appointments with healthcare providers or specialists.
• Medication Reminders: Users receive timely medication reminders, ensuring treatment plan adherence.
• Calorie Tracking: For those focusing on nutrition, calorie intake tracking aids in maintaining a healthy diet and achieving weight-related goals.
• Mental Health Support: Access to mental health resources, including mood tracking and stress reduction exercises, promotes overall well-being.
• Telemedicine Integration: Users can engage in virtual doctor's appointments or consultations through video calls, improving accessibility to healthcare services.
• Test Results: Conveniently access and review medical test results, promoting transparency in healthcare management.
• Health Tips and Education: Provide users with a wealth of health-related information, tips, and educational content to empower informed decision-making.
• Community Engagement: Foster a sense of community by allowing users to connect, share experiences, and seek support from peers with similar health goals.

Benefits of Developing a Healthcare App

Understanding how to develop a healthcare app has become increasingly vital. These apps are powerful tools for healthcare organizations, medical professionals, and patients. Let's delve into the significant benefits of building a healthcare app, focusing on how to develop a healthcare app to meet the needs of the target audience and healthcare organizations.

Enhanced Patient Engagement

One of the primary advantages of healthcare apps is their ability to boost patient engagement. Patients can conveniently access their medical information, schedule appointments, and receive real-time updates on their health. This accessibility fosters a sense of involvement in their healthcare journey.

Efficient Data Management

Healthcare applications streamline the management of medical data. They allow for the itye storage and retrieving patient records, medical history, and test results. This saves time and minimizes errors that may occur with manual record-keeping.

Remote Patient Monitoring

Healthcare apps enable remote patient monitoring, a critical feature in today's healthcare landscape. Medical professionals can remotely track patients' vital signs and health metrics, ensuring timely intervention if necessary. This is especially valuable for patients with chronic conditions.

Customized Solutions

Healthcare app development teams can tailor apps to cater to specific pain points and needs within the healthcare industry. Whether telemedicine apps for virtual consultations or hospital apps for efficient workflow management, customization is vital to meeting unique requirements.

Data Privacy and Compliance

Developing healthcare apps involves strict adherence to data privacy regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States. Ensuring compliance with such regulations is essential to safeguarding personal data and maintaining users' trust.

Key Takeaway

Understanding how to develop a healthcare app is crucial in healthcare app development. The process involves meticulous planning, comprehensive market research, and meticulous attention to detail. Developing a healthcare app necessitates a profound understanding of healthcare application development and the nuances of the health app landscape.

To create a healthcare app that stands out in the competitive app store environment, it's imperative to focus on the intricacies of mobile application development. Crafting a minimum viable product (MVP) is the initial step, followed by a relentless pursuit of user experience and functionality excellence.

Incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into medical app development can give users intelligent insights into their health. Mobile devices are the ideal platform for fostering a healthy lifestyle through mobile healthcare applications.

HIPAA Compliance must be at the forefront of healthcare app development, ensuring the utmost security and privacy of sensitive medical data, with HIPAA Compliance as a cornerstone, healthcare app developers can offer free trials and new features to entice users while maintaining the trust and integrity of the health app.

Learning how to develop a healthcare app involves a multifaceted approach encompassing research, design, security, compliance, and ongoing improvement. To delve deeper into how to develop a healthcare app and access valuable resources, don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected] . 

Aloa is your trusted software development partner.

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The Ultimate Business Guide to Healthcare Application Development in 2023

What is Healthcare App Development?

How is healthcare app development different from medical app development, why is healthcare app development essential for businesses, benefits of healthcare app development for medical professionals and patients, types of healthcare mobile app development, healthcare apps for hospitals and medical professionals, healthcare apps for patients and general users, how to develop a healthcare app a step-by-step process, define your app’s idea and goal, conduct market and regulatory research, hire a healthcare app development company, choose the right platform, decide the location for the app launch, select a monetization strategy, pay attention to ui/ux design, develop an mvp, test your app, launch and update, healthcare app development best practices, following all the compliance rules, single-focused purpose, interoperability, selection of feature set, hack-proof cybersecurity, hardware choice, choice of apis and integrations, presence of medical practitioners in the core team, healthcare app development features, telemedicine or telehealth, notifications, user dashboard, payment integration, wearable devices connection, emerging technologies used for healthcare application development, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, custom healthcare app development cost and time, challenges in medical app development, lack of detailed focus in one domain, non-compliance with the law, lack of security, presence of multiple channels and devices, how can appinventiv help you with healthcare app development.

The healthcare industry has grown rapidly in recent years, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Grand View Research , revenue in the global healthcare market is estimated to grow to $385.2 billion in 2030, growing at a CAGR of 12.80% from 2023-2030.

• Ease of healthcare access
• Digital transformation in the healthcare industry
• Higher access to healthcare users
• Better health tracking and monitoring
• Easier and faster delivery of medical services
• Early detection of potential ailments and so on

Owing to the above reasons, mobile healthcare apps, also known as mHealth apps, are an exceptional way to make the lives of patients and doctors easier, thus improving overall patient care.

While mHealth app development is a proven way to improve patient care and satisfaction, 8 out of 10 healthcare apps fail to meet users’ expectations due to reasons such as the lack of strategy, technical guidance, meaningful impact to cover medical challenges, etc.

Well, to help you in your healthcare software application development journey, here is a comprehensive guide that will give you a good insight into medical app development best practices, processes, types, benefits, costs, and so on.

So, without further ado, let’s jump right in and uncover the essential details revolving around mHealth app development. But before we start, here are quick insights into the current healthcare market landscape.

( Also read: How Much Does It Cost To Build a Telehealth App Like Teladoc? )

Healthcare app development is the process of developing an app for mobile devices to help its users successfully track and follow their health issues in real-time. Furthermore, mobile healthcare apps allow users to access a variety of medical information and health facilities with just a few taps on their mobile devices.

For instance, mobile health application development is a big yes for EHR (Electronic Health Records), medical service experience, hospital services, digitized medical insurance claims etc.

While both healthcare and medical app development serve the purpose of wellbeing, there is a fine line difference between both. They significantly differ in their specific goals, regulatory requirements,  target audiences, and the nature of the data they handle. Therefore, understanding these differences is essential before you embark on your mHealth app development journey.

Healthcare App Development:

Healthcare mobile app development aims to provide health-related solutions for all kinds of smartphones and communication devices. For example, apps for

• Physical activity tracking
• Yoga and meditation
• Searching for nearby medical assistance, etc.

Medical App Development

Medical app development involves creating software solutions for mobile devices that doctors can use to regulate their medical operations. For example, apps for:

• Telemedicine
• Remote patient monitoring
• Patient data collection and management
• Chronic disease management, etc.

Here is more;

Healthcare software development or healthcare app development serves different purposes. It can help streamline hundreds of administrative and healthcare management functions, such as allowing individuals to efficiently track and follow their health issues, easily access healthcare information, maintain health records, and so on.

In simple terms, healthcare mobile app development serves the following purposes:

• For doctors and medical professionals – Mobile app for healthcare helps in patient monitoring, early disease detection, staff management, appointment scheduling, etc. Furthermore, it helps medical professionals consult patients via video and audio conferencing, make diagnoses, and prescribe medicines.
• For users – It helps track wellbeing, seek medical recommendations, get at-home delivery of medical services, track their fitness level, measure heart health, and book appointments.

Mobile healthcare apps allow users to access a wide array of medical facilities with a few taps on their smartphones.

You may like to know: How Much Does it Cost to Build an Addiction Recovery App Like I Am Sober?

One of the primary reasons why iOS and android healthcare app development solutions have become so popular for businesses is that they offer countless benefits to general users and medical professionals while facilitating the progress of the healthcare industry. If you create a healthcare app, you will gain limitless benefits that will help automate operational processes and improve the financial performance of medical institutions. Let’s learn how.

(Also read: Exploring the Role of EDI in Modern Healthcare – How It Works And Why It Matters For Businesses ) 

Benefits for Medical Professionals

Developing a healthcare app is often a time-consuming and expensive process, however, it provides its investors and stakeholders with extensive value in:

Built-in Diagnostic Systems

These systems enable the collection and processing of data from embedded and IoT devices integrated with EHR platforms. The doctors can easily analyze and diagnose the condition of remote patients, track progress, and determine treatment.

Accurate Diagnosis

Medical apps facilitate healthcare professionals with early and accurate diagnosis of diseases. With precise and built-in diagnostic systems come better treatment plans, timely healthcare delivery, and effective outcomes. For instance, VisualDx is among the top diagnostic support systems and healthcare apps for personalized guidance.

(Also read: Everything You Need to Know About mHealth Apps ) 

Electronic Health Record (EHR)

With the integration of EHR solutions , healthcare apps can easily track, store, and collect all information related to a patient on a single platform. This saves time, eliminates errors, and allows the exchange of patient data between different healthcare institutions.

For example, Uber incorporates an EHR System to ease medical transportation. This on-demand ride-sharing firm introduced Uber Health, which allows medical experts to book and track rides on behalf of their patients.

Also Read: How to build an EHR system? Features and cost breakdown

Telehealth and Telemedicine

Telehealth is one of the fastest-growing applications in the healthcare industry, and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.0% from 2023 to 2030, from the estimated market size of $83.5 billion in 2022. Today, the use of telemedicine and telehealth software solutions such as SaMD (Software as a medical device) is in high demand, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic and social isolation. It empowers medical professionals to deliver remote healthcare services, communicate online, and offer top-notch medical care faster.

For instance, Doctor-on-demand is one such application that allows healthcare professionals to offer consultations via video or audio calls. It also helps patients to book appointments at their convenience.

Also Read: How to build a medical startup ?

E-Prescribing

E-prescribing apps allow doctors to accurately prescribe medications for patients, adjust dosages to avoid potential side effects, and revoke prescriptions at any time as needed. These platforms play a crucial role in minimizing errors at the pharmacy and optimizing both doctor and patient time. For instance, Medscape is one such app that allows doctors to upload prescriptions in the app itself according to the patient’s requirements.

Improved Communication

Various telehealth applications help doctors connect with patients remotely for significant consultations and discussions.

Less Stress and Burnout

Healthcare mobile app development liberates professionals from repetitive tasks by increasing the reliability of medical systems and processes.

Better Service and Equipment Management

Healthcare software development allows users to monitor medical equipment in real-time and optimize its use accordingly. For instance, a custom healthcare app tracks all active on-premise ventilators.

Also read: How much does it cost to build a healthcare app like myAster?

Benefits for General Users

Healthcare apps have a wide range of use cases that benefit not only medical professionals but also patients. These apps leverage the convenience and accessibility of mobile phones to improve the delivery of medical services and enhance the overall healthcare experience for patients. Here are some remarkable benefits of hospital mobile apps for patients:

High-Quality Patient Care

With advanced healthcare apps for fitness, nutrition, etc., patients can track their disease symptoms, chronic conditions, sleep patterns, heart rate, and overall health using IoT-connected wearable devices or smartphone sensors. The continuous monitoring allows for early detection of health issues and timely intervention, thus improving overall patient care.

Accessible Healthcare Data

A mobile app platform makes healthcare information and medical data easily accessible for better patient monitoring. Now, patients can access healthcare information and news at home or even on the go and share their health data and symptom reports with their healthcare providers. For instance, UpToDate is a mobile healthcare app that tracks workflow, medical news, health kits, and daily achievements of users.

On-Demand Accessible Care

Mobile app development for healthcare makes on-demand medical services easily accessible to every common user. It means medical care, such as drug delivery, sample collection, prescriptions, etc., are delivered faster at patients’ doorstep.

Better Communication

Medical apps enable patients to maintain real-time communication with caregivers. For instance, YouCoMM, a multi-request format platform developed by Appinventiv , allows in-hospital patients to connect with nurses when they need help with basic needs. The app runs on head gestures, voice commands, and many more advanced features that keep medical staff updated on their patient’s situations.

Looking at the above benefits, if you have decided to work on a healthcare application development idea, you should consider different types of healthcare app solutions available in the industry.

mHealth app development brings along various types of applications, contributing to improved healthcare management and enhanced overall wellbeing. Depending on their purpose of use, healthcare apps can be divided into two categories: apps for medical professionals and apps for general users. Let’s discuss each category and its branches in detail.

These healthcare apps are supposed to bring value to medical staff, facilities, doctors and physicians, which is why they are developed in a more complex way with advanced and reliable features. Some common healthcare mobile apps for professionals are:

Telehealth Apps

Mobile app development for healthcare allow doctors schedule appointments and provide medical consultations using in-app messaging and video calls. Telehealth applications are convenient to both doctors and patients since they help avoid physical contact and provide care in the comfort of the home. Some popular examples of telehealth apps are TelaDoc and GoodRx Care. Also Read: How much telemedicine app development costs

Medical Networking Apps

Although medical professionals are quite busy with hospital management and patient services, it’s crucial for them to communicate with other medical experts and share expertise to improve the overall communication process. This communication is done through medical networking apps. Some popular examples of medical apps for networking are Doximity , Sermo, and WeMedUp.

Medical Prescription Apps

Prescription healthcare apps help professionals pick the right drug for their patients, pack it in a list, and manage usage and time. Some of the medical apps even allow printing prescriptions for patients to show in the nearby pharmacy.

Medical Record Apps

Medical record health applications help simplify collecting and updating patients’ medical data. The data records consist of blood pressure, body temperature, medical examinations and diagnosis, prescriptions, appointments, and various criteria to track medical health. Health-e People, developed by Appinventiv and Meditab are two of the most popular medical record apps among physicians.

The healthcare software and applications for patients are designed to assist general users in making their lives easier. With basic medical assistance, these healthcare apps are simple yet valuable in a wide range of wellness aspects. Different types of mobile healthcare application development for patients are:

Mental Health Apps

Mentals health apps target making therapy more accessible, flexible, and efficient for general users. These apps usually assist in fighting anxiety, depression, and insomnia with the help of various pre-recorded sessions, gaming elements, breathing exercises, etc. Some popular mental health app examples are MoodKit, Headspace , and Mindshift.

Health Monitoring Apps

Health monitoring apps help track and manage chronic conditions such as diabetes, blood pressure, and so on. Few well-known health monitoring apps are WebMD , Ada, and The Diary. Soniphi , the first resonant frequency-based personal wellness healthcare app developed by Appinventiv, is another considerable example of a health monitoring app. This wellness system accesses vocal information to create a detailed wellbeing analysis report.

Medical Education Apps

The primary objective of medical education apps is to maintain a reliable database with up-to-date medical information for doctors, students, and medical users. Clinical Sense, MedScape, Prognosis, and Epocrates are good examples of medical education apps.

Health Lifestyle Apps

This mobile healthcare web application development category for patients brings together different applications such as fitness and nutrition apps, self-improvement apps, weight loss apps, mind training apps, pregnancy tracking apps , and many others that help achieve a healthy lifestyle. Some popular health lifestyle apps are HealthPal, MyFitnessPal , Remente, and MoodPath.

The above healthcare software application development types are the primary categories of the vast healthcare digital space. If you want to learn more about different types of medical software, check out the blog 15 Types of Healthcare Software to take your medical business to the next level.

The healthcare mobile app development process involves several steps, best practices, and a definite plan to ensure a successful and user-friendly application that can drive the right result for both patients and healthcare providers. Therefore, before you embark on your app development journey, you must have a clear understanding of what is your app’s goal, what kind of app you want, what features it will have, who will be your target audience, what purposes it will target, and how.

Evaluating these vital considerations, here, we will discover each step of the healthcare mobile app development process.

An important part of the medical or healthcare application development process is to understand your end-users’ needs. Evaluate the problems they are facing and how your application can solve it. At this stage, you should also ponder over the app type. For example, your application can be around diabetes or an anxiety-tracking one.

After understanding your target audience’s needs and pain points; you need to conduct market research to analyze your competitors and identify gaps in the market that your app can fill. It will help you define your app’s features and functionalities, which will further aid you in meeting your end goal.

While conducting market research, you must understand the regulatory compliances applicable in the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry deals with a vast volume of protected health information (PHI), making it essential for you to comply with HIPAA regulations (more details later).

Hiring a reliable mobile healthcare app development company ensures that your app is developed using all the essential technologies and trending features required to make your app successful in the healthcare market. A reputed healthcare app development company has a skilled team of UI/UX designers, developers, testers, project managers, and market specialists who work relentlessly to bring your app idea to life.

After defining your app’s goal, it is time to choose the platforms your application will be deployed on – Android, iOS , or the web. You can also think of adding a home assistant device integration to ensure that your application is only a voice command away. A key thing to note here is that elderly patients generally tend to prefer visiting a website, while their young counterparts are more likely to use apps and voice devices.

The most common approach that entrepreneurs, business heads, and tech heads follow when launching a new app is building it for their nationals. In case you or your board members wish to take an alternate route and launch your application internationally, consider the nation-specific guidelines and user personas , highlighting the creation and deployment of medical apps.

The basic intent behind all types of mobile app development across domains is to earn money. When we talk about how to earn money from an app , the healthcare domain works around two types – a subscription-based model and a freemium model with paid access to premium services. Furthermore, healthcare providers can also opt for in-app advertisements, third-party partnerships, and other monetization models to earn through the medical apps.

UI/UX design plays a crucial role in healthcare mobile application development, determining the success of your medical apps. Generally, older people like simple navigation and bigger fonts, while a younger audience prefers a colorful UI with better functionalities. The design will also depend on whether your audience is healthcare professionals or the general public. In addition to the visual component, it’s important to take care of how the app will look on different-sized screens. So, invest time, money, and resources accordingly to get it right.

Also Read: 7 UX Design Mistakes That Can Deter Your App Success

A key element of success can be creating an MVP instead of a full-fledged application. MVP development is the best approach to ensure that the solution is well-tested and validated before it enters the market. If you present your MVP to investors with your future plan, they can see the demand for your app in the market and get interested in it.

Testing is one of the most integral steps when creating healthcare solutions. Test and iterate everything from user experience and user interface to content. Proper testing will help shorten app development for healthcare costs and time, identify bugs, and greatly improve your reputation as a service provider. While doing in-depth testing of your healthcare app, pay attention to –

• Security for PHI, PII, and several other regulations.
• Functional working of your app, specifically healthcare workflows.
• If your app requires geolocation to function properly, check that the Application Program Interface (API) you are using to enable it is safe.
• If the app interprets the data from multiple inputs, information from different networks, devices, and locations.
• Test in poor connectivity condition.
• Do an in-depth usability testing of your app and so on.

Know The Mobile App Testing Strategies that Appinventiv Follows .

After the final testing and iteration, it is time to launch your app for the end users and track its performance over time. Remember, app development for healthcare is a one-time process, but upgrades and maintenance are an ongoing journey. Therefore, to keep your app competitive in the healthcare industry, keep tracking its performance to ensure timely updates. Remember, constant app maintenance also contributes to healthcare mobile app development costs.

[Also Read: How to Build Software for Medical Devices? Process, Costs, Types, and More ]

Healthcare software development is a challenging and complex process that involves hundreds of sub-processes. You don’t want to begin and hang up in between, which is just going to take more time and expense. To ensure a smooth healthcare app development process, here are a few factors to keep in mind before starting with the development.

The healthcare industry is very strict when it comes to compliance with security and legal protocols. There are a number of legal compliances that you have to adhere to when developing an mHealth application. Some of the most common compliances are – HIPAA , HIMSS, FDC, etc. Before developing your healthcare app, make sure it complies with:

• HIPAA – To ensure the security and privacy of protected health information (PHI), all US healthcare entities must comply with HIPAA guidelines.
• CCPA – This is the law for the foundation of confidentiality in the US, which involves informing the client about what data is being collected and managing the client data report.
• GDPR – It is a personal data protection rule introduced in Europe in 2018. All healthcare apps that collect and store personal data in the European Union must comply with GDPR strictly.
• NIST – This is another collection of standard protocols, tools, and technologies created to protect user data from medical applications in the US.
• HiTech – These protocols focus more on EHR systems data security, quite valid for healthcare and medical apps.
• PIPEDA – If your mHealth app is developed for the Canadian market, it must comply with PIPEDA.

Even if there are a number of healthcare app categories, such as fitness tracking, postoperative care apps, appointment booking apps, etc., operating in the industry, businesses should focus on single-handedly one app category. When companies focus on a single expertise area and do not run behind by giving multiple offerings within one application, they can offer in-depth value to the stakeholders and address their exact pain points in utmost detail.

Passing information from one device to another is the essence of healthcare mobile apps. Therefore, developing a clear line of interoperability that is real-time and 100% secure is one of the most integral hospital app development best practices.

The success of a health solution rides heavily on the healthcare mobile app features. While the selection of features varies significantly depending on app’s type, some elements are commonly present in nearly all types of applications. These elements include but are not limited to:

• Monitoring health
• Scheduling appointments
• In-app payments
• Integration with wearables
• Reporting functionality
• Social integration (if a fitness app)

Health applications have to be absolutely hack-proof , which means they should strictly follow all the measures of cybersecurity to prevent incidents of data breaches and cyber theft. During healthcare mobile application development, it is vital to follow legal compliances like HIPAA or HIMSS, This ensures complete, you already adherence to the security level, ensuring that your app is 100% safe from the malicious attempts of cybercriminals. Furthermore, you can also add a biometric screen lock to enhance your app’s security and prevent data breaches.

The app that you are planning to launch does not necessarily have to function on a smartphone. It can be a wearable app or a desktop version. Either way, it is important to know that there can be multiple hardware choices where you can push your application. Likewise, there can be instances where it would be needed to make two or multiple devices interact with each other. In such a situation, you should choose hardware devices that can co-work.

With so many APIs functioning in the market , it can be difficult to shortlist and go with the one that would make your processes real-time and hack-proof. But once you make the right API and integration choice, your healthcare app can offer the intended service to its complete perfection.

One of the most intricate issues that can cause your mHealth to fail is mistrust, which originates from incomplete or wrong information in the healthcare app. This single problem can easily become a deal-breaker for your mobile app in terms of its legality and success in the market. You can easily resolve this issue by having a medical practitioner in the team who ensures the accuracy and relevancy of the health content.

These are the eight best practices for healthcare mobile app development that would ensure the growth and success of your application.

While there are countless features you can add to your hospital or medical app, adding unnecessary features not only adds to the app development duration and cost but also makes it more intricate for common users. The successful healthcare apps have some essential features in common, which enhance customer experience and redefine the healthcare sector. Let’s shed light on some must-have hospital app features.

According to healthcare experts, 75% of hospital visits are very basic and can be easily managed via a phone call or video conference. This is where Telemedicine comes in. This must-have feature allows patients to connect with their respective doctors in the comfort of their home.

Telehealth trends have already reshaped the healthcare industry to a huge extent by covering the gap between patients and their doctors/caregivers, and its adoption seems to reach greater heights in coming years, making it a crucial technology impacting home healthcare.

Modern healthcare applications must have an electronic health record (EHR) feature, helping doctors update the patient’s record in the hospital’s internal system.

Notifications are an essential hospital app feature, which works as a reminder for doctor’s visits, measuring heart rate, going to sleep, taking medicines, drinking water, etc.

Having a visually appealing and easy-to-use dashboard provides a great user experience. Therefore, make sure to build your hospital app with an intriguing dashboard that streamlines the essential information that patients and doctors can get at a glance.

One of the most important aspects of healthcare mobile application development is to decide on the hospital app features like integration of payment gateway. This ensures that the users have an easy and safe way to pay for their medical services. Integrate various payment modes like debit or credit cards, Paypal,  UPI, etc., to make payment collection easy for healthcare professionals. To ensure the top-notch safety of financial data, you can also consider building a payment gateway from scratch.

No hospital app development can be successful without adding a search feature. A search bar enables users to navigate the app easily and quickly to get the information they need.

With remarkable technological development, IoMT (Internet of Medical Things), a concept of connecting medical devices, applications, and wearables with the Internet, is increasingly becoming a part of our daily lives. From sport-specific FitBits to smartwatches, wearable devices have risen in popularity over the past few years. This growing popularity of wearable devices opens up an array of opportunities for medical professionals to develop a healthcare app with integrations from other devices.

App developers increasingly leverage emerging technologies for healthcare application development. The integration of these technologies helps enhance processes, improve patient care, automate administrative tasks, and drive efficiency. Here is a list of some essential technologies that enhance overall healthcare experiences.

Artificial intelligence in healthcare tops the list with its remarkable use cases and capabilities to analyze patient data and automate rule-based processes. Also, it helps discover drugs, diagnose diseases, design personalized treatment plans, and predict health outcomes. By integrating AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants in app development for healthcare, medical professionals can immediately respond to patient queries, schedule appointments, and do a variety of other tasks.

Cloud computing in healthcare apps brings along certain benefits, such as health data analytics , data security, etc., while allowing users to access information anywhere, anytime. Cloud computing features in healthcare apps make record-sharing easier, streamlining the backend operations and decreasing expenses.

The impact of AR/VR in the healthcare industry is already widespread in multiple areas, and its market is poised to reach $4.64 Billion by 2025. An example of AR and VR in healthcare can be the FitXR BoxVR sports application.

Also Read: How AR/VR Apps are Gamifying Exercise and Workout?

Blockchain in healthcare is a significant mobile app development trend, helpful in managing EMR and EHR data, conducting research, and improving the insurance and hospital billing process. It is why a growing number of hospitals build apps with Blockchain technology to manage patient’s records and perform secure transactions.

These are some of the most essential features that will enhance your healthcare app’s functionality and bring maximum engagement.

Healthcare application development duration and cost vary depending on various factors such as healthcare mobile app features and functionalities, UI/UX design, app security level, app’s platform, location of the app development company, and so on. These are a few of the considerable factors you must evaluate before setting a budget for hospital mobile app development.

On average, the total cost and time to build a healthcare app can range between $50,000-$300,000 and 3-18 months, respectively, depending on the app’s functionalities and other vital factors listed above.

Also Read: How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Doctor Appointment App Like ZocDoc?

While various factors contribute to custom healthcare app development costs and duration, features, and functionalities are the most significant elements contributing to overall development costs. Therefore, to help you make an informed decision, here is a time and cost breakdown based on essential features.

Despite the growing market size of healthcare applications, many medical professionals still think multiple times before starting their healthcare application development journey. Why? There are many challenges causing mobile healthcare solutions to fail. Understanding these challenges will help you give a clear insight into why healthcare businesses fail and develop a cutting-edge solution that would be a huge hit in the market.

Let us discover the reasons why healthcare applications fail to make a lasting impact in the lives of doctors and patients.

When a doctor or patient installs a health app, they often look for the redressal of one issue, not multiple. So, instead of having an application that solves numerous problems on the surface level, a healthcare app that addresses one point in its utmost depth has a higher success rate.

There are multiple compliance bodies responsible for taking care of how the mobile health domain behaves. While being compliant with the industry specific regulations is intimidating, the absence of it can be one of the biggest reasons why healthcare stakeholders don’t believe in the application. The lack of approval by the FDA or a HIPAA-compliant badge in the application’s home screen or the screenshots used in the App Store and Play Store keeps the stakeholders at bay.

Although security is one of the first things that every healthcare organization should consider, there are only a few apps that take the task seriously. There are millions of stories about patients’ data getting hacked or misplaced because of insecure storage infrastructure. The compliance mentioned above solves the issue to some extent, but a mobile app development company should implement all the security measures while developing an application.

With a number of devices entering the market – smartphones, personal assistants, smart TVs, wearables, etc., interoperability has become a key challenge for healthcare application development. It makes it intimidating to ensure that the private medical data flowing in the cloud is not accessible to be hacked.

To overcome these challenges, businesses should partner with an experienced and reliable hospital mobile app development company.

In the dynamic landscape of healthcare, we can’t evade the importance of healthcare mobile application development. It has become a revolutionary way to streamline operations, manage data, enhance patient care, gain competitive advantages, and redefine the healthcare industry. And when it comes to healthcare mobile app development, partnering with Appinventiv can be a strategic choice.

We are a leading healthcare application development company , when it comes to building a health app From clinical management to efficient patient treatment and diagnosis, we provide best-in-class healthcare app solutions to boost healthcare industry elements.

Our suite of services includes

• Telehealth app development
• mPrescription
• Medical insurance apps
• Laboratory management
• Process management
• Lifestyle tracking
• Software integration, and much more

To get an insight into our expertise in developing cutting-edge mobile apps for various domains, including healthcare mobile app development, dig deep into our portfolio and make a confident decision.

Talk to us to digitize your healthcare business now.

Q. How much does it cost to develop a healthcare app?

A. The cost to build a healthcare app would range somewhere between $50,000 to $300,000 or more. The medical app development cost can vary depending on the platforms, technology stack, number of features to be integrated into your app, and other considerable factors. If you want to know the complete steps on how to develop a medical app and the cost to build one, connect with our experts today.

Q. How long does it take to develop a healthcare app?

A. The average time it takes to create a healthcare app can range anywhere from 3-18 months. However, there are various factors that significantly increase or decrease the hospital app development duration.

Q. Which technology is best for healthcare mobile app development?

A. The most common technologies for developing healthcare applications are Python, JAVA, Flutter, Swift, Kotlin, R Programming, etc. However, it’s recommended to seek your development team’s advice while choosing a technology stack. Your healthcare app developers will choose technology based on your app and budget requirements.

Q. Why do healthcare apps fail?

A. Most healthcare apps fail due to misleading information on health diagnosis, lack of techniques in clinical settings, inability to adapt to user behavior, inefficient app security, etc. However, you can overcome such challenges in the initial stages with the help of your development team.

Q. What makes a healthcare app successful?

A. According to healthcare experts, detailed and actionable information on the healthcare app can make it successful. Typically, patients download healthcare apps to track and monitor their wellbeing. Therefore, providing the right information and solutions to the users can make your app a big hit in the market.

Q. Why do healthcare apps need to be HIPAA compliant?

A. If your healthcare app collects, manages, and transfers any protected healthcare information, it is advisable to develop it with HIPAA compliance. This ensures that the medical information is encrypted and will only be accessed for the patient’s diagnosis and research.

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The 2024 Ultimate Guide to App Development for Healthcare

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Healthcare app development is the process by which an app is built for mobile devices with the intent of helping users effectively manage their medical conditions, fitness goals, hospital visits or insurance claims. This includes telemedicine, lab results reviews, prescription & appointment management and more.

As technology advances, the need for mHealth apps is only going to increase .

mHealth (mobile health) refers to the use of mobile phones and other technology in the medical industry. The primary uses of mobile applications are to inform patients and healthcare professionals about preventive healthcare measures, treatment support, tracking the progress being made and assisting in clinical trials.

It’s estimated that the global healthcare mobile app development market will grow and be valued at over $59 billion by 2024 .

On the consumer side, patients LOVE health care apps. In fact, 71% of patients said they would prefer if their doctors used a healthcare mobile app.

On the provider side, the same applies. The use of medical apps has become frequent and widespread; 70% of medical school students reported using at least one medical app regularly, with 50% using their favorite app daily.

The value is there, but are healthcare organizations ready to adopt mobile technologies in their digital transformation initiatives ? The answer isn’t cut and dried. The reality is that building the first healthcare mobile app doesn’t always work out as planned.

Digital Authority Partners works with some of the greatest companies in the healthcare space (Epocrates, Athenahealth, Omron, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, to name just a few).

For every healthcare executive out there interested in developing a mobile app , we put together this guide covering the top 9 considerations you should be aware of BEFORE you sign the dotted line to build your first app.

100+ companies trust us with their mobile app development needs. Watch the video below to learn why.

1. Define a robust digital strategy

     Clarify the type of healthcare mobile app you are building. And why!

Before anything else, you need to define the specific goal for your first health app. Don’t try to do it all. Also, think about who the app is intended for.

Here’s what makes all successful mobile apps out there great. In the user’s mind, a connection is made between a mobile app and a specific use case. Like - I go to Facebook to decompress and see what my friends are up to, Linkedin to read professional news and network updates, Epocrates to get drug information etc.

Bottomline: whatever app you build, make sure you answer this question first. My ideal customer will regularly use this app to do thing one thing.

Product development

Build an exceptional digital experience.

Now, we learn by example. So here’s a few great healthcare mobile apps that perform one function and they do it well.

     Examples of health information management apps

These apps are designed to provide & exchange medical information between doctors and patients. They can also be used to set up & manage appointments with your physician.

Medibabble is designed to help doctors and administration staff communicate with patients who do not speak English. It is pre-loaded with the patient’s medical history and contains simple, clear examination questions in common languages including French, Spanish, Russian and German.

To ensure the information is accurate, each phrase is checked by fluent physicians so non-native patients can receive the correct care.

Lybrate is another information management app that enables doctors and staff to add patients to an appointment list, track payments and record treatments provided. The dashboard also lets physicians to track their team’s efficiency with up-to-date stats on tasks completed by supporting personnel.

     Patient monitoring mobile apps built the right way

Patient monitoring & overall telemedicine services have really picked up in the last five years. A wide variety of healthcare manufacturers & software providers have rushed to enter this increasingly crowded space and create value more hundreds of millions of patients all over the world.

For example, HeartGuide is a wearable blood pressure monitor (full disclosure, Digital Authority Partners worked on this project). The device can track heart data and inform a patient’s of how their behavior impacts the health of their heart. It then syncs to the HeartAdvisor mobile app & Alexa skill to provide real-time health insights to the user.

Common patient monitoring apps also track the user’s location so as soon as they need help, they can receive help as soon as possible.

     Medical resource information apps created with the users’ needs in mind

In a survey of medical school faculty, residents, and students, 75%, 95%, and 55%, respectively, agreed that using a mobile device to quickly access educational resources while on the go had a positive effect on their individual performance.

Examples include drug referencing apps that can inform a patient about the effects and benefits of a particular treatment and medical calculators that can calculate how often a drug needs to be taken.

Epocrates is a mobile healthcare app that delivers current and safe treatment information when patients need it (full disclosure, Digital Authority Partners worked on Epocrates). It can also help check for harmful interactions with up to 30 drugs at a time and provide a communication platform between care teams.

Pepid is another great example of an amazing medical app which works as a clinical decision support app  targeted to ER physicians. One of its best features is the ‘Symptom Checker’ which can help diagnose patients quicker by suggesting possible ailments based on a patient’s symptoms, physical examinations and lab results.

     Make sure you’re super clear on what problem your new healthcare app is solving

If you build a new healthcare app for your business, you need to make sure it’s a problem that people actually want or need to be solved.

For example, only 11% of health systems offer patients proprietary apps that operate with at least one of the three functions that consumers demand most: access to medical records; the ability to book, change and cancel appointments; and the ability to request prescription refills electronically.

So if you work at a hospital and want to build an app - make sure that app solves at least one of the problems highlighted above.

Your app may also want to tackle the problem of getting healthcare to people in remote areas. Rural Health Information Hub shows that long distances can be a large problem in terms of time and cost to access healthcare. With a mobile app, they will be able to get a lot of the information they need through their phones.

Bottomline: don’t build an app for the sake of building an app. Make sure whatever you do has real life applications and that your ideal target users can benefit from it and leverage it as soon as it’s live.

     Make sure you study your competitors - and outperform them

Once you know about the problem your new healthcare app will solve, think about the other players on the market who have comparable or complimentary solutions. Competition can work both for and against your app.

If there is competition, that means that there is demand for the product. On the other hand, the more businesses that compete in the same space, the harder it will be to get your brand noticed.

Nevertheless, you cannot build a great healthcare mobile app unless you closely analyze what your competitors are doing. Use Google to search for keywords that are related to your app idea. Think of what your target audience would search for.

Every business has a unique selling point (USP) that separates it from the rest. For example, your competitors may be the fastest to respond to patient queries or have a larger database of drug information.

Knowing what competitors are using as their USP can help you find out your common target audience is looking for and determine your own.

For example, the Digital Authority Partners’ philosophy towards helping our clients build a new health app is simple. We do our thorough analysis of the market, create a detailed matrix of all competitors’ main features, then determine the list of functionalities a new app should have that will make our clients’ app than any other app in the market . That should be the output of any mobile app competitor analysis you work on.

     Define upfront how you plan to monetize the app

If you look at the highest-grossing games in the App or Play store, they’ll have one thing in common: they’re free to download. Instead, they make their money by advertising and in-app purchases.

You need to take the same approach and avoid the pitfall of charging to download the app. In fact, only 5.76% of apps are paid and that number is falling every quarter.

In the healthcare space, in particular, the most common monetization method is actually subscriptions. If you have built a solid health app which collects data and provides health assistance, tips and tricks, this is the route to go.

But overall, the only one thing we suggest you stay away from is paid apps. Those perform the worst. Most people want to “try out” a new app before buying it, so, even if you want to force all users to pay for your app, offer a free trial. Allow people to download and use your healthcare app for free for one month, then start charging a fee.

     Determine the omni-channel strategy for your app

Will your healthcare app work best on a mobile phone or on a tablet? Will it be built for Android or iOS or both?

Think about what you are building as an ecosystem. Will you have an app AND a website? Can it be voice activated by Siri or the Google Assistant? Would it benefit from in-person interactions by making use of a camera?

We live in an omni-channel world and in simple terms, digital users don’t interact with a company via only one channel. So you need to think upfront what is the perfect blend of touch-points for your app.

This of course depends on a variety of factors.

For example, elderly patients typically prefer websites & tablets while younger users may be more inclined to interact with your product via a mobile app and an Alexa/ Google Home skill. Therefore your ideal target audience should drive your multi touch-point strategy.

Either way - one thing is certain: if you’re going to support multiple touch-points, at least think through this before you build and launch a product. You don’t have to build all these touchpoints at launch (see our next tip below for more details), but you need to make a conscious decision on what path you want to take from the get-go.

     Build an MVP healthcare mobile app and test it

When you start building a mobile app, the first instinct would be to build the best possible app out there. But that shouldn’t be the case. The optimal healthcare mobile app could take years to flesh out.

Do not try and build the entire app in one day. Instead, build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and iterate it. There are multiple reasons for this.

First - there is time. A simple app (aka doesn’t have a ton of functionalities) is faster to build, therefore it is easier to get it done and in the hands of your ideal customers. When you build a mobile product, time is of the essence. You should do your very best to narrow down the core functionality of an app, then make a list of additional features you will schedule, build and launch after the first version of the app goes live.

Second, when you ship a healthcare mobile app quickly, you have the chance to build relationships with customers sooner. Early users are more likely to provide positive and negative feedback on your app and suggest changes or additions to it. So whatever health mobile app you’re building - you want to get user feedback ASAP - and then iterate on it.

Third, when you define a mangable MVP, you can get your product to market quicker which will also help you test your marketing message quicker. Even if your app is brilliant, you may not get traction if your marketing and sales are poor. And even if the app is great, you may need to adjust your branding, positioning and even your core target audience - all of which is a lot easier to do if you go to market fast.

2. Build an app that is outcome-focused

Here is an example of an app that failed .

A company created an app that was meant to cure acne by emitting blue light from the screen of a smartphone. It got more than 10,000 downloads at a nominal fee of $1.99 on the iTunes and Google Play stores. However, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took control and the app was swiftly removed from app stores.

Why? Because there was no proof that the blue light actually cured acne.  When you build your app, the outcome from it must be realistic and plausible.

Mobile healthcare applications designed for doctors and other professionals should aim to save them time and money while increasing accuracy of diagnoses or treatment advice.

Most importantly, patient apps must provide correct and relevant information.

At the end of the day, you need to build products which lives up to the expectation you set forth for your product. And the better you get at clearly highlighting the outcome you want to impact, the better it is for your company - and your customers.

3. Ensure you understand and abide by healthcare regulations

Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries in the US. If your app runs afoul of any regulations, it risks being removed from the marketplace, being shut down permanently, fined by the FDA or you could even be sued by consumers.

Here is an example of a company that failed to comply with regulations.

     Theranos 

Theranos was founded in 2004 with the ambitious goal of revolutionizing blood testing machines. They claimed it would spare patients the pain of traditional blood drawing methods and would test for a variety of potential ailments using just a few drops of blood.

The company quickly found success, raising funds and growing its staff at a remarkable rate. Founder Elizabeth Holmes managed to attract $700 million of investment from savvy international investors, with the promise of changing the world.

However, this success was short-lived and crumbled as quickly as it was formed. In October 2015, the Wall Street Journal published an article that the Theranos’ blood-testing machines didn’t actually work. The article said the company was both faking proficiency testing and using other commercial machines to complete the tests.

Contracts were quickly terminated and lawsuits were filed by the investors. Holmes and former Theranos president and CEO Sunny Balwani were later indicted on charges of criminal fraud.

     How to comply with HIPAA regulations

To be compliant with HIPAA, healthcare mobile app development must follow the HIPAA Privacy Rule and HIPAA Security Rule . Here are extracts from the HHS on both:

     HIPAA privacy rule

The HIPAA Privacy Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals’ medical records and other personal health information and applies to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health care providers that conduct certain health-related transactions electronically.

The law requires appropriate safeguards to protect the privacy of personal health information and sets limits and conditions on the uses and disclosures that may be made of such information without patient authorization.

The Rule also gives patients rights over their health information, including rights to examine and obtain a copy of their health records and to request corrections.

     HIPAA security rule

The HIPAA Security Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals’ electronic personal health information records that are created, received, used, or maintained by a covered entity.

The Security Rule requires appropriate administrative, physical and technical safeguards to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and security of electronic protected health information.

     How to comply with HITECH regulations

All mobile health apps must abide by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which promotes the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology.  

The goal is to strengthen the civil and criminal enforcement of HIPAA rules. It addresses the privacy and security concerns associated with the electronic submission of health information.

You can find more about HITECH here .

     Other regulations

Although there is a review process for new apps for technical reasons by Apple or Android, there isn’t a review of the medical value of the app itself. So healthtech companies must undergo their own due diligence and ensure their app complies with all existing regulations.

4. Validate the idea with both healthcare professionals & patients

Once your app meets target market specifications, regulations and best practices, you should run it past the people that will actually use it through focus groups and surveys.

Think about how your app answers the questions from step 1:

• Does the app solve a specific real problem?
• How big a problem is it?
• Would users be willing to pay while using your app?

It’s not important that professionals or patients like your app at this stage. Instead, you must find out whether or not they will use it.

App founders, including but not limited to the health industry, are concerned that spending time doing market research slows down the business. It’s actually the opposite.

The more market research you conduct, the faster your app will move to launch. Businesses that fail to do enough market research spend too much time and money trying to make their product fit the market.

For example, you won’t have to spend time adding a new feature that your customers are asking for or removing any older features that nobody wants. You’ll be ahead of the game. Save money. And make a better healthcare mobile product.

5. Build an amazing digital experience

Modern customers expect a great user experience but the healthcare industry is traditionally ill-equipped to deliver a flawless digital strategy.

In fact, while 66 of the 100 largest hospitals in the United States offer consumers mobile health apps, only 2% of patients are using them, according to a new report published by Accenture .

Building a great health app is done by hiring a great digital strategy and mobile app development agency. Don’t try to create it in house.

The following tips are key to finding the perfect healthcare mobile app development solution.

     Find an agency that has worked in healthcare

The best development agencies should be able to guide you from the inception of your app to launch and beyond while giving you input based on their experience with previous applications. The best businesses already know what works well because of their collective knowledge which goes well beyond a specific product.

Whereas some healthcare companies are often hesitant about working with healthcare app development partners because they fear these agencies don’t know a specific product well enough, it's more likely the opposite. You know only the app you’re trying to build, but an agency working in the healthcare space has witnessed the birth of hundreds of similar apps. You want to tap into that knowledge versus narrowing it down to just the people you’re working with day in and day out.

     Make great mobile app design a priority

Great developers care about the user experience more than about anything else. Because great agencies look at every new healthcare development project as yet another resume maker –– and the design of an app impacts its overall usability –– a digital partner is only as successful as the product they are building. So as you search for a partner, look at their portfolio for apps that look just as good as they function. 21% of millennials will delete an app from their home screen if it doesn’t look good.

The app store is full of healthcare apps and yours needs to stand out. The mobile app design must be a top priority and it will define how patients or health professionals interact with it.

Often standalone developers will just focus on creating the app completely disregarding the user experience. Find a team that will carry out all the necessary tasks to ensure your app becomes a success.

     Consider if you can work with the agency long-term

App development is not a one-time thing.

It will need to be changed and updated every so often from adding new functionalities to addressing customer feedback. You need to find a partner that you can build a relationship with. Once the app is live and hosted, you need them to stick around.

     Don’t be driven by prices

Finally, don’t just choose a developer because they are quoting you lower than your competitors. You want to build the best product, not the cheapest. You don’t want to end up paying someone to fix another developer’s mistake.

We mean it. If we had a nickel for every mobile app we have to fix because another development team created a sub-par product either on the UX side or the development side...

And that’s not a good thing. It means many of our clients have wasted hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, and built the wrong product.  Always choose the best team you can afford. That will pay off dividends in the long term. Every. Single. Time.

6. Build apps that can be integrated within the healthcare ecosystem

     Connections With EMRs And EHRs

All mHealth apps must connect with EMRs and EHRs.

For reference, the following definitions have been taken from The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology .

“Electronic medical records (EMRs) are a digital version of the paper charts in the clinician’s office. An EMR contains the medical and treatment history of the patients in one practice. EMRs have advantages over paper records. For example, EMRs allow clinicians to:

• Track data over time
• Easily identify which patients are due for preventive screenings or checkups
• Check how their patients are doing on certain parameters—such as blood pressure readings or vaccinations
• Monitor and improve the overall quality of care within the practice

“Electronic health records (EHRs) focus on the total health of the patient, going beyond standard clinical data collected in the provider’s office and inclusive of a broader view on a patient’s care.

“EHRs are designed to reach out beyond the health organization that originally collects and compiles the information. They are built to share information with other health care providers, such as laboratories and specialists, so they contain information from all the clinicians involved in the patient’s care.”

     How can you integrate health apps and EHRs?

WellDoc conducted a study where they interviewed healthcare mobile app development and testing teams, EHR software consultants, hospital IT teams, patients, project managers, and business analysts. These were the results:

• Integration must take into account the professional’s or patient’s day-to-day life and workflow.
• Design should support mobile-integrated therapies (MITs) into a single EHR. Developers must eliminate redundancies between the systems, where app users and EHR users might enter the same data into different fields.
• Multiple environments must be secure, but security must not keep them from interacting with each other.
• Both halves of the integration, especially patient-facing apps, must work natively on as many mobile devices as possible.
• Apps must be able to run even when network connectivity is sparse or intermittent.
• Support teams familiar with the technology must be available to help.
• The two systems must adhere to common standards; for example, the same measuring units.
• The team working on integration must be ready for a more complex process than anticipated.

     Connect with other sources

There are over 700 million iPhone users worldwide . There are also over 25 million Fitbit users worldwide . This presents an opportunity for healthcare mobile app development companies to tap into the data these apps collect.

For example, the Apple Health app records data like the number of steps taken every day and organizes it based on where it comes from:

• Manually entered Health data
• Automatically recorded Health data from an iPhone and Apple Watch
• Health data from Bluetooth devices

Communicating with the Health app provides doctors with an accurate reflection of how active a patient is every day.

But the bottomline is simple: you can build a good product on your own, but what makes a product amazing, is whether that product integrates with other apps and wearables a user may use. For example, I love how my Strava tracking app integrates with MyFitnessPal and my Apple 4 watch. That way, I get to see how my physical activity and calorie intake impact my overall health stats on any given day.

App integrations are typically a phase 2 deliverable for most apps. But the lesson here is to make sure you build a long term app for your healthcare app development cycle which accounts for relevant and useful integrations over time.

7. Stay ahead of the curve with next-gen technologies in healthcare

One of the biggest issues facing the healthcare industry in the US is that current legacy systems are not able to handle the rapid technology advancements being made every year.

As part of your healthcare mobile app development, you need to ensure that your product can adopt new tech stocks over time.

Here are some examples.

     Artificial intelligence in healthcare 

AI in healthcare is huge. And we’ve covered the topic at length in other articles ( here and here ). And this article will give you a great summary of the coolest companies leveraging Artificial Intelligence in a way that is revolutionizing the healthcare industry.  

As Toby Nwazor expertly points out in a recent Entrepreneur article ,  Artificial Intelligence is becoming a commonplace technology in the healthcare field. From digital consultations to personalized medicine, to robot surgeons, we’re no longer talking about if AI is coming to healthcare, but how quickly companies in the health space are catching up with the times, and same with AI in pharma .

One particular field of AI that is useful for the healthcare industry is neural networks. Neural networks are self-learning and trained rather than explicitly programmed. They are already being used as part of drug discovery processes and detecting cancer cells in the body.

So, in the future, healthcare apps may use neural networks to enable patients to self diagnose and recommend treatments, without the need for a doctor.

     Blockchain technology in healthcare

Blockchain technology is most commonly known for its use in cryptocurrency. As defined by Don & Alex Tapscott , the blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.

The blockchain is very secure and immutable i.e. tamperproof. These qualities make it potentially useful for improving the security of patient data on healthcare apps.

But blockchain is also revolutionizing the healthcare space. Take this article from HealthcareWeekly , for example which highlights seven different scenarios in the healthcare space already positively impacted by Blockchain:

• Owning and sharing medical data
• Clinical trials and consent management
• Micropayments & small awards given to patients for adhering to medical treatment plans
• Blockchain solutions that record health products information in the supply chain
• Data security
• Fraud prevention
• Customer payments

Blockchain is an incredible technology and we’ve only scratched the surface of what it can do for healthcare. If you’re curious to learn more, read about the following companies who’ve released healthcare products using blockchain technologies: PatientSphere , Hu-manity and Blackberry .

For a more in-depth discussion about blockchain in healthcare, check out our ' Blockchain in Healthcare: An Executive's Guide ' report.

     Virtual reality comes to healthcare

Virtual reality (VR) uses computer technology to create a simulated environment and places the user inside the experience. 55% of physicians want to use VR to learn about new treatments.   VR could be used as part of an app to take a patient to a place of comfort as a way to reduce stress and treat mental illnesses like anxiety and depression.

Also check this awesome interview I did with David Badri which shows how Johnson and Johnson is leveraging VR to help doctors get better at their job. 

     Internet of Things & healthcare

The Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to provide continuous data about patients that can be analyzed to improve the quality of care. The Apple Watch and the aforementioned HeartGuide are products that sync this data to health apps.

Compatibility with voice communication products like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home could also become part of healthcare mobile app development. They may be able to help patients decide when to take their medication or assisting with compliance for medical studies.

     Immersive 3D video

70% of physicians are interested in watching medical training videos. Furthermore, 46% of patients diagnosed with a chronic condition want to see videos to learn more about their condition and its treatment.

8. Leverage mobile app analytics to measure and improve the overall UX of your healthcare mobile app

Businesses concerned with healthcare mobile app development must continually improve their digital products through mobile app analytics .

59% of US consumers say they expect the healthcare system to offer the same level of service and user experience as companies like Amazon. P eople cannot stand bad user experiences as 71% of all app users churn within 90 days. This is across all industries.

Here are two ways you can increase customer retention and improve the user experience.

     A/B testing

A/B testing allows healthcare product teams to test out multiple user experiences to determine which is the most effective at achieving a specific business goal. Continual A/B testing leads to vastly improved user experiences and better key performance indicators.

For more about A/B testing and its benefits, read this article.

     Mobile app analytics

Mobile app analytics are used to measure a user’s behavior, find where they trip up and attract new customers. Invest in a tool that will help you better understand how customers respond to the experience.

For example, Mixpanel ’s platform can tell if users are coming back after adding or improving the app’s features. Retention then provides insight that helps make a product stickier over time.

Alternatively, Amplitude identifies critical drop-off points in product paths and optimizes marketing and sales funnels.

9. Define how you will market and gain adoption of your app

You’ve had the vision and finished the healthcare mobile app development process. Now you need to get actual user adoption.  Remember, at least 30-35% of your total budget should be reserved for marketing.

Think of the old adage… if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it make a noise? Ultimately, your app needs to “make a noise” by getting people talking and using your app.

Define a marketing strategy to get adoption depending on who you are trying to sell to. B2B businesses selling to hospitals and medical device manufacturers will require different techniques compared to B2C businesses.

However, they will both have the same goals:

• Increase brand awareness
• Attract people to your app

Blog posts, infographics, testimonials and short videos are the best ways to grow your online presence and get a product noticed.  Once people start downloading and using the app, your goals can then shift to keeping them engaged.

Here are some tips to successfully market your healthcare app.

     Use social media

Social media is essential to building an audience and can increase the number of downloads while being cost-effective.

Your app requires a social media profile across all major channels like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Ensure that there is a link to your website and app store download page. Add an interesting app description and screenshots to complete the setup.

Now for the marketing. Facebook and Instagram ads are very powerful in attracting new customers to your new healthcare app. Check out their App Install Ads that will promote your app across multiple channels simultaneously.

If you don’t have a budget for ads, you can use your social media pages to share blog posts and infographic content with followers.

     Create an attractive landing page

A clean and professional landing page builds trust and confidence in the app, especially when it’s optimized for mobiles. Don’t be one of the 50% of businesses that don’t adapt their sites for mobile usage.

In addition, remember that the most important thing about a landing page is the ability of that page to track conversions (via analytics). This is a crucial metric for marketing campaigns.

Ensure the headline grabs the user’s attention along with clear call-to-actions (CTAs). Again, like on the social media pages, add links to your app in the App and Play stores.  The website’s content must also include your app’s keywords. Search Google to find similar keywords an increase your brand’s visibility in search results.

Finally, it may be worth having a video on the landing page that explains what app does and how a user would benefit having it. This can improve  if implemented correctly.

     Traditional marketing

Why do people still knock on doors trying to sell things? Because it works. Visit a medical practice and hand out fliers, postcards or QR codes to patients, doctors and other professional staff to promote your app.

Of course, this is a lot harder to track than the above methods but word of mouth and referral marketing is own of the most powerful marketing tools in your arsenal; word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20% to 50% of all purchasing decisions.

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How To Develop a Healthcare App: Detailed Guide For (2024)

• By: Ahsan Shahid
• Posted on: September 3, 2023
• In Mobile Application

Table Of Contents

The healthcare industry has been rapidly evolving over the past few years with new technologies and advancements. One such technology that has gained immense popularity is healthcare applications. Healthcare apps have become integral to our daily lives, and their demand is only increasing. With the ongoing pandemic, the need for healthcare apps has become even more critical. Developing a health app can be daunting, especially if you are new to this field. However, with the proper guidance and knowledge, preferably from a healthcare app development company , it is possible to create a successful healthcare app that can positively impact people’s lives. This comprehensive guide will walk you through how to develop a health app, covering everything from ideation launch to everything in between. So, let’s dive in!

What Is A Healthcare App And How To Develop a Healthcare App

mHealth niche is extensive and includes a variety of apps, from professional ones to more basic ones. The purpose of mobile healthcare applications also differs. mHealth apps simplify our lives: they track our health data, ensure remote assistance, give 24/7 access to doctors, share tips on improving our health, and more. Overall, the purpose depends on the app category you choose. 

Developing a healthcare app involves a series of well-thought-out steps. Let’s delve into these steps to guide you through the process:

• Identify the Problem: The first and foremost step is identifying the healthcare problem your app aims to solve. Take a close look at the gaps in the healthcare market that your app can address effectively. Understanding the needs of your target audience is key to devising the right solution.
• Define Your Audience: Building a successful healthcare app necessitates a deep understanding of your target audience. Who are the people you are developing this app for? Consider their demographics, unique needs, and goals. The better you comprehend your audience, the more tailored your app can be to meet their specific requirements.
• Feature Selection: Decide on the features your app will offer. Your choice of features should align with the problem you’re addressing and cater to the needs of your target audience. Common features in healthcare apps include appointment scheduling, symptom tracking, medication reminders, and medical records management.
• Prototype or MVP: Before diving into full-scale development, consider creating a prototype or Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This miniature version of your app allows you to test your ideas and gather user feedback. It’s a valuable step to identify areas that may need improvement.
• Assemble Your Development Team: Unless you’re a developer yourself, you’ll need a skilled development team to bring your app to life. Choose a team with a track record in healthcare app development and a clear understanding of your target audience.
• Secure Funding: Building a healthcare app can be a costly endeavor. To cover development, marketing, and ongoing maintenance expenses, securing funding is crucial. Explore options like grants, loans, or crowdfunding to finance your project.
• Marketing and Launch: Once your app is ready, the next challenge is to market it effectively and introduce it to your intended users. Employ various channels such as social media, search engine optimization, and paid advertising to gain visibility.
• Maintenance and Updates: Launching your app is just the beginning. Regular maintenance and updates are essential. This includes addressing bugs, incorporating new features, and ensuring robust security measures.

Here are some additional tips to Make A Healthcare App:

• HIPAA Compliance: Ensure your app adheres to HIPAA regulations to safeguard the privacy and security of patient data.
• User Feedback: Involve users in the development process and continuously seek their feedback. This ensures that your app consistently meets the needs of your audience.
• Security: Develop your app in a secure environment to protect it from potential security breaches.
• Stay Updated: Regularly update your app with the latest security patches to shield users from malware and security threats.

Developing a healthcare app can be a complex journey, but by following these steps and considering these tips, you can enhance your chances of success.

Develop A Healthcare Apps Market Overview

In 2023, a report published by the University of Michigan revealed that more than 450,000 mobile health apps are already on the market.

The statistics contradict your assumption that young people are more likely to use applications to control their health. Almost a third of respondents between the ages of 50 and 80 (28%) said they presently use at least one mobile health app, while 16% indicated they have used them in the past but have yet to be now. 

People may not use health-related applications because they do not necessarily have a condition. Lifestyle and activity tracking are the most frequent reasons a business might create a healthcare application. Older persons reported using or using 34% of the following apps: 17% for sleep, 22% for nutrition, 20% for weight loss, and 20% for exercise. So, if you’d like to develop a healthcare app, please keep it in mind.

In many nations worldwide, the digitalization trend in the healthcare sector is accelerating. You and your business can participate in this expansion. Create a healthcare app that meets the users’ essential demands. Do you have second thoughts? Here are some statistics and information about medical applications that can persuade you otherwise: 

• In 2021, investors funded around $45 billion in the digital health industry.
• A survey by Accenture revealed that approximately 75% of the patients know the importance of health-based applications.
• The global healthcare app market was valued at USD 38.89 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $314.60 billion in 2028 , growing at a CAGR of 34.8% during the forecast period (2021-2028).
• The mHealth (mobile health) app market is expected to grow to $136.64 billion in 2027 at a CAGR of 24.6%.
• The market size of telemedicine was valued at $40,205.68 million in 2020 and is estimated to reach $431,823.81 million by 2030 , growing at a CAGR of 25.90% from 2021 to 2030.

Types of Medical Applications

Learning from the most well-known healthcare app ideas and what characteristics

Lifestyle Tracking Apps

By monitoring significant metrics like heart rate, sleep, physical activity, calorie intake, and other behaviors like women’s menstrual cycles, these apps are made to examine the health and fitness of patients. These include Map My Fitness, Google Fit, Sleep as Android, and more.

Some apps might also provide specialized services for those with particular needs, like pregnant mothers who want to monitor fetal growth and development. Other applications can offer customers a comprehensive diet plan depending on their demands and health problems.

Fitness Apps

Fitness apps offer general and individualized coaching and support for those who desire to be more physically active. In particular, some applications provide tailored workout sessions for those without access to gym equipment. Apps for yoga are included in this group. Some examples include Sorkin, Nike Training Club, and other well-known fitness applications.

Health Counseling Apps

With certain apps, you may schedule counselling sessions with medical professionals, including doctors, therapists, and experts, through chat or video call. When you don’t have instant access to a doctor, several apps, such as MDLIVE, Doctor on Demand, and Talkspace, are excellent for non-emergency conditions and diagnosis.

Also Read: 8 Best Medical Diagnosis Apps for Patients and Doctors in 2024

Meditation Apps

These apps provide users tools to help them improve their general well-being, such as guided meditations, and mindfulness exercises, among other resources. Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer are just a few well-known meditation applications available for download out there.

Building A Health App: Must-Have Features

Building a health app may need several capabilities, even live video conferencing, depending on the function and application. Nevertheless, when you’re learning how to develop a medical app, these features are necessary regardless of whether you’re building a medical app for iOS or Android.

User Profile

Users should be able to create and manage their health profile and restrict the data and details the app may access. Most developers gather basic data during sign-up, like name, contact details, age, height, weight, and the like, to make medical applications more individualized.

Users would be perplexed if you created a healthcare app without a dashboard that allows for patient monitoring. The dashboard provides users with a summary of their medical histories as well as activity reports for the most crucial health variables.

Chat and Messaging

Chat and messaging tools are necessary for medical mobile apps since they facilitate patient and doctor contact. Other types of mobile medical apps can incorporate this function to assist users in connecting with other participants in different support groups in order to encourage one another to achieve their health objectives.

Notification and Reminders

Always keep in mind that healthcare apps are participatory, not passive, when developing them. In other words, they impose certain demands on consumers based on recommendations made by apps. Additionally, it’s crucial to take into account when creating fitness tracker apps. Reminders from the app might assist users remember to use it for their health and fitness needs.

Cloud Integration

Each user should always have access to patient data. Users can upload their health records when needed, such as when a healthcare practitioner requests them, thanks to cloud integration, which allows them to access their data whenever they need to.

Security and privacy

Developers should always keep privacy and security in mind when creating a health mobile app because these apps capture incredibly sensitive and private information. This covers things like data encryption and multiple-factor authentication.

Secure Payment Processing

You need a secure payment processing functionality that hides sensitive consumer data unless your app is fully free. For a better user experience, payment processing should also be quick, fluid, and easy.

Analytics Integration

This is crucial so that you can collect enough information to make your app more effective. Before collecting or sharing any information about users, always get their consent. Every health app, including Google Fit, iOS Health, Samsung Health, and others, gathers and incorporates personal data.

Other elements that are not essential but can still be required, depending on how you want to design a medical app, include:

• Wearable device integration
• Goal setting
• Social sharing integration
• Gamification
• Video tutorials
• Appointment management

Building A Health App: Step-by-Step Guide

The process of creating a mobile app for the healthcare industry is not simple. You must take into account the many nuances and variations from other programs. Here is a list of specific actions that will help you avoid mistakes and shorten your difficult trip.

Step 1 –  Do Market Analysis

This is the essential stage in how to build a medical app. The mobile healthcare app industry is already saturated as is. Therefore, your healthcare app will need to provide value to its users. That means you will need to conduct thorough and extensive market research. Study your niche, know more about your competitors, what value and USPs they are bringing, what their strengths and weaknesses, how you can stand out among the bleak and menial, and most importantly, how you hope to rectify or solve  

Step 2 – Create Design

The success of an app is largely determined by its design, and mHealth apps should have a consistent, user-friendly interface. Its objective is to smoothly guide the user to the endpoint. The design must be user-friendly, and users will have a better experience with it if there are fewer points of interaction. Additionally, we advise minimizing the cognitive load of your app.

Step 3 – Make It HIPAA Compliant

We must emphasize again how delicate the healthcare industry is, and how difficult it is to develop healthcare applications. It’s crucial to follow certain laws if you’re trying to design a healthcare app. 

For instance, the USA area will demand that your software abide by all HIPAA rules. All apps that handle personal data must adhere to the GDPR in Europe. 

The purpose of HIPAA is to guarantee the security of patient and healthcare provider personal health information. How can you tell if your software complies with HIPAA requirements? This quick checklist will assist you in answering the question, which is an excellent one to ask.

Why restrict access? Access to users’ health information is restricted to certain user roles. The profile of their patient, including analysis, progress, diagnosis, etc., is only visible to the treating physician. 

How can data encryption be made sure? Developers must provide trustworthy encryption protocols that properly safeguard any personal health data. In order to restore data in the event of a crash or other error, the IT staff must gather information in multiple copies across many servers and must act swiftly upon any alerts.

Where can I locate services that abide by HIPAA? HIPAA compliance is required for any healthcare mobile app development services . Unfortunately, there isn’t a list of every service that complies with HIPAA. Fortunately, there is a checklist you can use to help you decide which service to choose.

Please take note that this is not a complete list of requirements for making your app compliant. Although we have mostly concentrated on technological difficulties, administrative requirements also exist, such as defining responsibilities for individuals and developing policies. If you want to be sure you’re not breaking any rules, you can use the official guidelines . To assist you in becoming/maintaining compliance, you can also work with businesses who conduct HIPAA audits.

Step 4. Pre-Development

The next step is to create a plan for creating a medical app. Establish the proper specifications and requirements for the app’s construction in terms of features, costs, resources, and staff.

At this point, you should decide what kind of specialists you’ll need, as well as the tools and technologies needed, the technological stack for development, the prerequisites for (government) certifications, the development cost (budget), and so on.

Tip: While choosing technology stack, consider the following frameworks:

Frontend: Angular, Vue, and React; 

Backend: Node.js, Laravel, and Ruby on Rails; 

Mobile app development: React Native, Ionic, and Flutter etc.

Step 5. Development

Building an MVP from the start with the intention of testing and iterating to add more and more features is the goal here. When developing a health app, the project plan from the pre-development phase should serve as the key reference point.

But first, you have a choice between working with an offshore development company or bringing in-house development staff.

At Trango Tech , we create development teams for clients using our own network of programmers and engineers who have all successfully completed our hiring procedure. We can assist you in reducing the time and expense associated with recruiting and recruitment, which will shorten the time needed to launch a product and guarantee effective development from a unified workforce.

Learn All You Need To Know To Choose The Right Mobile App Development Company

Step 6. Quality Assurance

Do not undervalue this phase. You must hire qualified QA engineers if you want to create a secure and dependable healthcare software. No matter how much testing and debugging they conduct, quality assurance testing should still be relied upon to remove any potential blind spots.

Step 7. Product Release and Continuous Support

The app would still need ongoing support when it is deployed. At this point, many businesses decide to let their outsourced development team go and delegate the remaining tasks to the internal staff. This can initially entail constant app iteration to guarantee complete stability.

Building A Health App: Monetization Models

As the need for digital health solutions keeps growing, if you’re an investor looking for a potential new industry to enter, mobile medical application development might be the chance you’ve been hoping for. What are the most promising monetization models for investors to take into account and how do these apps make money?

The simplest method of revenue generation is to charge consumers a one-time fee to download the application. For apps that provide a distinctive or specialized service, like a fitness tracker or symptom checker, this strategy may be effective.

• MyFitnessPal

Freemium Model

The software is free to download and use in this model, but some features or content are behind a paywall. In this manner, health applications can offer a low entry barrier while still bringing in money from users who are prepared to pay for extra benefits. This is especially useful for apps that provide a variety of features and services because it enables customers to test the app before making a purchase.

Subscription Model 

Health apps can create a consistent source of income that can quickly accumulate over time by charging customers a monthly subscription to access premium content or features. This can be effective for apps that provide continuing services, such as fitness apps that offer tailored workout routines or nutrition apps that offer tailored meal plans.

• Peloton Digital

Advertising

Some health apps use in-app advertising to make money. This may consist of banner advertisements, sponsored articles, or unique product recommendations. Advice from Trango Tech: When creating and maintaining healthcare mobile applications, watch out that your users aren’t too irritated by your advertising. These days, it is a widespread issue and one of the main causes for app abandonment.  

Partnerships

Health apps can benefit financially from partnerships with healthcare providers or insurance companies that allow them to offer services and products to users in exchange for a commission or fee for any sales or sign-ups that arise. Health applications can benefit its users and make money through commission or referral fees by collaborating with organizations who are committed to enhancing patient outcomes and lowering healthcare expenses. Additionally, if you’re developing a mobile health application, your partner could also be your investor!

• Doctor on Demand

Building A Health App: Cost To Develop

There are many different intricacies and factors that influence the development of a healthcare application, thus it is impossible to provide a concrete price or even an estimate at this point in time. To be precise, as each app has its own set of requirements, different priorities, and unique features, the criteria are undoubtedly going to vary depending on how to create a medical app.

The typical cost of a basic healthcare app is frequently significantly cheaper, although it can cost up to $80,000 . The price of a complicated app with numerous advanced features can reach up to  $120,000 , and that doesn’t even include the development phase. MVP apps on the other hand are typically less expensive and can go as low as $25,000 due to their streamlined development process.

Learn: How Much To Build A Mobile App Prototype In A Week? Costing, Process, Benefits + More!

However, you can find below a table of important roles needed in building a health app as well as their average monthly rates in different countries:

Hidden Costs

There are frequently unforeseen expenses while developing healthcare applications, and those expenses can add up quickly. These could involve continuing maintenance and updates, unforeseen development costs, and legal fees for compliance and regulatory needs. Not to add the costs associated with marketing, press releases, app store optimization, etc. During the planning budget phase of developing a healthcare mobile app, all of these should be finalized.

Saving Tips

While there are a lot of expenses related to creating a mobile health app, there are also a lot of ways to cut costs and streamline your development procedure. 

• Work with a custom  app development company who has experience in app development for healthcare (such as Trango Tech) and can offer professional guidance on the most efficient and cost-effective development strategies.
• Utilize pre-built components and open-source technology to cut development costs and accelerate time to market.
• Prioritize and concentrate on building the features that will benefit users the most. Instead of attempting to construct the full app at once, test and iterate as you go. This can aid in identifying problems early on and reduce the need for expensive rework later on in the development process.
• Put security and compliance first from the start to avoid future expensive legal problems or security breaches. 
• Take advantage of offshore. Hiring seasoned yet more affordable developers in areas like central Europe may help you save time and money.

Low-Cost Development Traps: Reveal and Avoid

While building a health app on a shoestring budget is undoubtedly feasible, there are a number of potential problems that could result in subpar apps. Some examples of these include relying on untrained or inexpensive developers, cutting corners with security precautions or compliance standards, or overlooking crucial features or functionality. Prioritizing quality and dependability when developing a development strategy for the healthcare application platform is crucial to preventing this. You can help to make sure that your app complies with all pertinent regulations and offers a first-rate user experience by working with a respected development partner who has experience in the healthcare sector. 

You can get in touch with Trango Tech to begin the Discovery Phase, during which we thoroughly investigate the structure and overarching goals of your project. Additionally, we choose technologies that are scalable and have the features you need. Finally, we assess the complexity of the jobs to determine the amount of engineering expertise required to complete the project successfully. Then Trango Tech sets up a queue of iterations, arranges jobs according to importance, and plans the evolution of the project from both the engineering and business perspectives. You’ll have a precise and comprehensive roadmap of building a health app.

Also Read: How to Make a Social Media App

What Are the Benefits of Developing Healthcare Apps?

Here are some of the most common benefits entailed in building a health app for business. 

Patient Engagement Increases

Patients can get quick access to all test results, important information, and medication reminders with the help of these applications. This enables the users to focus on the essential care they require and achieve greater results. In order to keep in constant contact with the healthcare professional, they can also connect with the healthcare worker and schedule appointments whenever they require such assistance. Additionally, people can benefit from additional things like using the app itself to acquire their medication anytime they wish. 

Increased Efficiency

As the software can automate many administrative activities, the efficiency of the staff members can be improved and they can focus on the most vital work at a specific moment. These include making reservations for appointments, requesting refills, and handling payments. The staff will also benefit from this because they won’t have to go through a large amount of data to get the patient’s file details; instead, they can easily acquire the information via the app. 

Better Data Analysis and Collection

The patient’s vital information might be gathered by the healthcare applications during the initial login process. Following that, the application also records information about patient behavior, health outcomes, and other parameters. This information is utilized to identify trends and patterns and can help medical professionals treat patients more effectively. For instance, if a patient is having a problem while taking medication and then experiences another problem, the doctors or consultants can get in touch with the patient and take action before the condition worsens. 

Competitive Advantage

You may find it advantageous as a business owner to think about developing a healthcare app. By including distinctive elements that can serve to increase value and make it easier for the users, it can set itself apart from the competition and draw in new patients. Additionally, it helps your software stand out in a congested market where customers have a lot of options to select from. Additionally, it can increase brand awareness among users, which is good for your company’s long-term development. 

Hassle-Free Payments

The patients made it simpler to pay medical costs by using applications. For patients to transfer payments online, the process has become incredibly simple and secure. Additionally, the app may occasionally offer bonuses and savings to keep users interested..

Challenges in Healthcare App Development 

The creation of a healthcare mobile app might be a laborious task for those with little knowledge. Among those who pose serious issues are: 

A. Security and Privacy Laws

Data security is the most crucial concern to have at first in every industry, partly because of the need to fend off cyberattacks. Other than this, a number of variables can influence, such as how much your user trusts you and is willing to share information. Make sure the software that collects all the information is highly confidential. This is just as crucial as any other financial application. The rights to privacy and security that are guaranteed by law in various nations are also taken into consideration during the development process. 

Starting with the USA, the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulates the personal health data of individuals and organizations to be secure, and everyone has to abide by it. 

2. European Union

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation for the companies who take the residents’ data. The residents can have control of the data in this case. This applies to all companies, whether they are registered in the EU or other countries, that have to follow this rule if they are collecting or processing individual data. 

3. United Kingdom

Here, DPA (Data Protection Act) updates all the data protection laws. It is a law that applies matching or mirrored provisions as GDPR to enhance public understanding or for mutual strength to enhance.

In Canada, the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) regulates the usage of personal information in the course of business. The development process becomes a little arduous due to the legislation requirement, or their party companies also create issues.

B. Complex features

It is challenging for any one person to comprehend every part or function of your application. In order to optimize user engagement, always keep the user experience of your audience in mind while creating the features. This means ensuring that they are straightforward for users to access and streamlining the entire app to make it user-friendly.

C. Big Data Management

With the aid of big data, you may examine the data that has already been gathered about your consumers in order to foresee and predict their future behavior. This is especially helpful in predicting impending epidemics, advancing medical research, and raising everyone’s standard of living in general. The challenging element won’t be gathering the data from within the app. Trango Tech, the top healthcare mobile app development company , will undoubtedly be needed to create and maintain an architecture that can handle the intense volume and load of data.

Use Cases for a Healthcare App

It is preferable to choose the kind of application that satisfies your demands and objectives in order to provide a product that is relevant and in demand. Staying updated on current healthcare tech trends is crucial to developing the best healthcare application.

Currently, there are numerous healthcare app use cases available on the market. These are a few of the more popular ones.

Use Case #1: Telehealth & Telemedicine

Today, there is a huge need for the utilization of telehealth and telemedicine software solutions between a doctor and a patient. These apps have grown in popularity particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic and social isolation. By using these technologies, medical professionals can connect online, provide remote medical services, and provide effective medical treatment more quickly.

Use Case #2: Electronic Health Record (EHR/EMR)

The EHR/EMR solutions enable the tracking, storing, updating, and collection of all patient medical data on a single platform. Time is saved, manual errors are eliminated, and patient data can be shared between institutions thanks to this.

Use Case #3: Health Informational Exchange (HIE) 

It is crucial to monitor vital indicators including body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, and others in order to make a proper diagnosis, maintain patients’ wellbeing, and improve their quality of life. Using simply the authenticating capabilities of a smartphone, the HIE system enables quick and simple measurement of a patient’s vital data. Doctors can readily monitor and evaluate the required data thanks to the system’s speedier data flow.

Use Case #4: Built-in diagnostic systems

The system enables the gathering and analysis of data from embedded and Internet of Things (IoT) devices linked to EHR platforms. The condition of distant patients may be easily seen, assessed, and diagnosed by the doctors, who can also monitor their development and choose the appropriate course of action.

Use Case #5: E-prescribing (eRx)

Utilizing the medical information system within the electronic health ecosystem, the E-prescribing system provides the ability to write, store, and deliver prescriptions. A system like this has advantages including reducing checkout errors and the amount of time a doctor and a patient can save.

Use Case #6: RCM & Medical Billing

The EHR (Electronic Health Record) and PM (Practice Management) services are covered by the medical billing system provided by the RCM (Reliability-Centered Maintenance) solution. It entails that switching between apps is simple and doesn’t require you to sign in to each app separately. Additionally, it implies that you no longer have to check bills and access patient details only in the office. By using this solution, users may stop worrying about IT compliance, data encryption, and pricey hardware purchases.

Q1. What are the necessary features that a healthcare app must have?

A1. The necessary features that a healthcare app must have include secure login, patient registration, appointment scheduling, real-time chat or messaging, electronic health record (EHR) integration, medication tracking, and push notifications for reminders.

Q2. What are the challenges associated with developing a healthcare app?

A2. The challenges associated with developing a healthcare app include regulatory compliance, data security, patient privacy, interoperability, and ensuring that the app meets healthcare industry standards.

Q3. How long does it take to develop a healthcare app?

A3. The time it takes to develop a healthcare app depends on various factors such as the app’s complexity, features, and functionalities. However, on average, it takes around six to nine months to develop a healthcare app.

Q4. What are the costs associated with developing a healthcare app?

A4. The costs associated with developing a healthcare app depend on the app’s complexity and the development team’s rates. On average, it may cost around $50,000 to $150,000 to develop a basic healthcare app, while a more complex app may cost around $200,000 or more.

Q5. What are some essential tools for developing a healthcare app?

A5. Some essential tools for developing a healthcare app include programming languages such as Java, Swift, and Kotlin, app development frameworks like React Native development framework and Flutter, cloud storage solutions like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, and application programming interfaces (APIs) for integrating EHRs and other healthcare data.

In conclusion, developing a health app can be a challenging and daunting task, but with the right approach, it can be a highly rewarding one. By following the steps outlined in this comprehensive guide, you can learn how to create a health app that has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry, forever. Remember to keep your target audience in mind, prioritize user experience, and comply with all regulations and guidelines. Additionally, be prepared to continuously update and improve your app based on user feedback and changing industry trends. With dedication, perseverance, and the right tools, you can create a healthcare app that improves the lives of millions of people worldwide.

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Alan maxwell, business strategist, let's discuss your tech solutions, about the author.

Ahsan Shahid

Meet Ahsan, the wordsmith behind some of the most electrifying pieces on app development. Armed with a keyboard, a cup of coffee, and an insatiable curiosity, Ahsan has spent years exploring the wild and wonderful world of app development. Currently working at Trango Tech, an app development company , Ahsan brings his expertise to the forefront. So buckle up, grab a cup of coffee (or tea, we won't judge), and get ready to dive headfirst into the exciting and ever-changing world of app development with Ahsan as your guide.

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Healthcare Mobile App Development in 2024: The Ultimate Guide

We sincerely hope that you’ve set out to build a healthcare app because you’ve identified a genuine pain point that a medical app can solve . Not because another smarty-pants is heralding the billion-dollar mhealth industry.

Our experience (helping startups in health care and wellness raise over $188M) proves that a healthcare product is successful when its founders are truly passionate about improving people’s lives.

Let’s say you’ve figured out the passion and the industry’s pain points. Do you also know the steps you need to take to develop a healthcare app that will change people’s lives?

Well, if anything, skim through our guide and make sure you’re covering all the bases. We’ll answer the most frequent questions on how to create a medical app.

Table of Contents:

Healthcare Applications Overview

Types of medical apps, top 5 successful healthcare apps, benefits of healthcare apps for doctors and patients, must-have features in a health application.

• Next-Gen Features in Healthcare Application

Monetization Models of a Healthcare Application

• Step #1: Define your target audience.
• Step #2: To build or not to build a healthcare app?
• Step #3: How do Security, APIs, and Agile blend in a medical app?
• Step #4: Why sneaking up on users is a good thing.
• Step #5: Is your healthcare app built to last?

Best Practices for Healthcare Mobile Application Development

How much does it cost to create a healthcare app, trends in mobile health app development, how to choose a healthcare app development company, our experience in developing healthcare applications.

If you are planning to make a medical app, it’s worth knowing what’s happening in the market. 2020 definitely made history as the year of COVID-19. The coronavirus pandemic made quite a splash not only in our lives but also in the health apps market. Every aspect of healthcare that has to do with telemedicine, AI, and remote patient monitoring (RPM) got a huge boost (up nearly 300% in investment, according to CB Insights ).

In 2021, digital healthcare innovations have continued to attract even more capital, with total funding almost doubling from the beginning of 2020 to $34,7 billion. Fastforward to 2022 and 2023 – digital health startups raised $15.3 billion in 2022, and $10.7 billion in 2023, marking the lowest amount of capital invested in the sector since 2019.

Sectors that have managed to reach new record-highs in healthcare funding include:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Telemedicine
• Mental health
• Digital therapeutics

Healthcare executives continue focusing on improving the patient experience by investing in development of telemedicine, EHR interoperability, and patient portals.

The deal market has slowed down in 2022 and 2023, marking a 57% decrease from the peak in 2021. However, the outlook for 2024 and beyond is bright. In BCG’s latest investor survey, 65% reported an optimistic outlook over the next three years, with confidence potentially growing if macroeconomic conditions improve. Additionally, US private equity investors are holding a record $1 trillion in dry powder, indicating that the capital is ready to flow once market confidence returns. This positive sentiment bodes well for sectors like application development in healthcare, where innovation and investment could drive significant growth.

As doctors and patients are looking for new ways to connect while keeping their distance, telehealth apps will continue to dominate the space. I’m sure we’ll see more telemedicine and RPM solutions in the near future, but let’s take a look at what’s happening with healthcare apps in the stores right now.

According to Statista, there were 88,000 mobile health apps in Google Play and Apple’s App Store combined, and some random research into health-related applications claimed 325,000. Fast forward to 2024 , and today there are approximately 54,000 health apps available on the Apple App Store and over 65,300 health apps available on the Google Play Store.

Image credit: Statista

Related: How to Develop a Telehealth App

Read Also Our Guide How to Build a Fitness App

If we look at different mobile medical solutions available today, we’ll see many options gravitating towards three audiences: patients, medical personnel, and the administration. It certainly helps to know these before developing a health app.

Health Apps for Patients

• Appointment scheduling and reminders
• Self-diagnosing
• Habit tracking
• Fitness and wellness
• Social networking
• IoT medical products
• Women’s health

Related: How to Build a Patient Portal App 

Health Apps for Providers

• Remote patient monitoring
• Medicine reference
• Hospital mobile app ERPs
• Clinical communication
• Appointments management

Health Apps for Medical Administration Staff

• Doctor/nurse marketplace
• Inventory management
• Practice management applications

As you can see, whether you want to develop a health app for iOS or Android, there’s plenty to choose from.

Also, read our guide on How to Create an EMR/EHR System .

It seems that any list out there ranking health apps is totally arbitrary. Would you make a list based on top free, paid, grossing, or trending, based on Google Play or Apple’s Store, or maybe consider software review platforms like G2 and Capterra?

Instead, we turned to CB Insights with their Healthcare Smart Money list that shows where top-performing VCs betting on healthcare put their money.

We then discovered this precious list of startups, busy with health application development , ranging by the investment size. And surprise-surprise, the best-funded apps come from those categories highlighted in the heat map by CB Insights. [Update as of June 2024: the top five right now looks like this:  HingeHealth ,  Kry ,  Noom ,  K Health ,  Headspace – 3 top startups are still on this list ].

Without further ado, here’s the list of mobile products that people who professionally invest in mobile health application development bet their money on:

Video appointments with physicians and psychologists.

• over 800,000 patients treated
• 5-star rating from 97% of its patients
• doctors and psychologists speak 25 different languages
• open 24 hours, 7 days a week

KRY helps people take care of their physical and mental health. The application allows users to book a video appointment with one of their doctors or psychologists – at a time and place that’s convenient for the user. They offer drop-in appointments, or users can book one at a specific time.

Related: How to design and develop a doctor’s appointment app

#2. CareZone

Managing medications and doctor’s instructions.

• Always have a medication list with you
• Reminders help you stay on schedule
• Organize important info in one place

CareZone makes it simpler to take care of yourself, an aging parent, and other family members that need your help. The app allows users to take pictures of meds (prescriptions, OTC, and supplements) and the names, dosages, and other details are automatically added. There’s easy access to the list of medications, dosages, and schedules. Definitely a product to look up to if you want to learn how to make a medical app that scales.

#3. Headspace

A meditation solution with $168.2M vs. $116M for Calm — #1 medical app at the moment.

• Hundreds of guided meditations
• Workouts and mindful cardio
• SOS sessions for moments of stress

Headspace helps users get happy, stress less, and sleep well. It’s your guide to everyday mindfulness in just a few minutes a day. Users may choose from hundreds of guided meditations on everything from managing stress and anxiety to sleep, productivity, exercise, and physical health — including short SOS meditations for when they’re on the go.

Related: How to make a mental health app and How to create a meditation app like Headspace

#4. PatientsLikeMe

A social network for people who have the same disease or condition, plus a real-time research platform.

• Find a supportive social circle
• Connect one-on-one to find answers
• Use smart tracking tools to learn how you’re changing over time

#5. Hinge Health

An IoT medical app that comes with a tablet and wearable sensors to give users live feedback during stretches and exercises.

• Complete personalized exercise therapy sessions
• Move at your own pace through levels
• Learn about the best ways of beating persistent pain

Read about our experience in wearable app development

Hinge Health is the pioneer in the area managing chronic musculoskeletal conditions,e.g., back or joint pain. The app and special clap-on sensors provide users with live feedback as they perform stretches and other exercises. The mobile app guides users through 15-minute sessions, and difficulty level gradually increases  as the sensors data indicates the progress.

Check out our article about creating an IoT application

Custom app development for healthcare offers countless advantages to patients and providers and facilitates the progress of healthcare industry as a whole. Let’s go over a few benefits we can get from professional healthcare apps.

Benefits For Doctors

Development of a health app is a time-consuming and often expensive undertaking. How can we prove its value to investors and stakeholders?

• Faster decision making

As a result, doctors get to spend more quality time with patients, and help more patients overall.

• More accurate diagnosing

This means better treatment plans, timely health care delivery, and improved outcomes.

• Less stress and burnout

Software frees doctors from mundane tasks, increases efficiency of the health system. It’s astonishing how removal of paperwork can rise medical professionals’ morale.

• Improved communication between professionals

Telemedicine healthcare application platforms help doctors connect with each other for consultations no matter where they are.

• Better hospital and equipment management

IoT and other technologies allow health organizations to track their equipment in real time and optimize its use accordingly. For example, we can develop a mobile app for hospital to track the location of all on-premise ventilators.

• Reduced cost of healthcare provision

All these benefits add up to reduce the cost of healthcare services.

Benefits For Patients

Now to the benefits that patients get to enjoy as a result of healthcare mobile application development.

• Higher quality care

With all automations available to providers, patients can receive personal health plans, which respect their individual conditions.

• On-demand accessible care

A healthcare mobile app platform makes some healthcare services available as if you wanted to rent on Airbnb or order sushi. That also means that care gets delivered faster, including meds delivery and remote consultations.

• Better control over health data

Patients can export medical records and share them with other institutions. App development healthcare solutions ensure that this process is seamless and secure.

• Secure payments

In-app payments with credit cards are definitely appreciated and can be easily implemented during medical application development.

Finally, e-health solutions give patients more control over their therapy, making them active participants of the process.

One key step in healthcare app development is choosing the right custom mobile app development company to ensure a seamless experience for patients.

To build healthcare applications that people would actually want to use means to include features that engage users and offer them tangible benefits. Of course, the choice of features will depend on whether you want to build a mobile medical solution for glucose tracking, fitness, or, let’s say, for remote patient monitoring.

Still, there are a number of must-have features that every health application needs to be considered a success.

Integrations with Google Fit, HealthKit, and Samsung Health

Most healthcare apps have to deal with patient data. In that regard, services like Google Fit and HealthKit work as data hubs keeping user vitals.

Patient and doctor profiles

All app data should be organized in user profiles that patients and doctors should be able to edit at any point. Doctor profiles must include enough info about a specialist so patients can make their choice easier.

Telemedicine options

Being able to connect with care providers in real time via video calls or messaging has become a necessity if you want to develop a medical app that works at a distance.

Related : HIPAA Compliant Video Conferencing and Messaging

Reminders and notifications

What mobile applications really excel at is keeping you up-to-date on your prescriptions and medicine intake. These notifications can be not only time- but also location-based.

Also Read: E-Prescription App Development Guide

HIPAA compliance

Of course, all PHI data must be kept secure, and the HIPAA rules that every health app must adhere to, make sure you follow suit. Therefore, it’s vital to encrypt data, provide two-factor authentication, use secure connections, and follow many other protocols to keep everybody’s data safe. When considering health mobile app development, ensuring HIPAA compliance is critical to protect sensitive patient information and maintain trust.

Related: The Complete Guide to Building a HIPAA Compliant Application

Next-Gen Features in Healthcare Applications

If we look closer at what technologies drive innovation in modern medical software development, we’d have to admit it’s the same technologies that attract the most funding. By adding the corresponding features to your medical app, you can significantly upgrade user experiences and guarantee higher adoption rates among patients and doctors. What exactly are we talking about?

Artificial intelligence is becoming absolutely instrumental in various medical spheres. Today’s healthcare software, equipped with machine learning algorithms, helps with early diagnosing, identifying health trends, and analyzing massive sets of health data. As a result, doctors can make decisions and adjust patient treatment faster, catering to their unique needs.

What are the most common applications of AI in healthcare apps?

• generative AI
• intelligent chatbots learning about the patient’s condition during a conversation
• medical imagery analysis and patterns identification
• symptom tracking and analyzing apps
• real-time posture detection
• ML algorithms fostering discovery and development of new drugs
• preventive medicine
• patient flow optimization

Related: How to Develop a Machine Learning App: The Ultimate Guide

Also Read: Blockchain in the Medical Field 

Blockchain is another novel technology set to disrupt the medical field. One of the major advantages that blockchain brings to the table is solving the interoperability issue. For example, solutions like Medblock allow healthcare organizations to share patient data securely on a permissioned ledger, which ensures all patient records remain tamper-proof.

• integration with multiple EHR systems
• medicine tracking in supply chains
• decentralized patient portals where each patient owns and controls access to her data

When considering mobile healthcare application development, blockchain’s ability to provide secure, interoperable solutions cannot be overlooked.

The internet of medical things has been a trend for quite some time. However, with the latest technology advancements, more use cases emerge for applying this cutting-edge solution. Modern IoT systems in healthcare go well beyond tracking patients’ vitals. Besides remote patient monitoring, IoT also helps with medical inventory management, assistance during surgeries, and pharmacy management.

• smart medical appliances
• wearables supporting advanced sensors like ECG and EDA
• traceable medicine

Related: How to Develop a Medical IoT App and How to Develop a Remote Patient Monitoring App

Of course, you can’t design a scalable healthcare app without addressing the big data issue. Since AI and IoT assume the generation of vast amounts of data, there needs to be a mechanism to process all this information. Therefore, architecting datasets that handle literally millions of calculations in real time goes hand in hand with implementing ML and IoT functionality in healthcare.

Despite augmented reality and virtual reality often being shrugged off as tech suitable just for games like Pokemon, there are quite a few practical applications for both in medicine. The first thing that comes to mind is therapy sessions with a simulated environment, especially when carried out remotely. AR also helps surgeons to train safely and teach students required skills, or we can use it for indoor navigation in clinics.

Related: AR App Development Guide

How you make money off your custom healthcare solution depends on the product itself. Is it going to be a hospital app for patients, medical mobile software for providers, or an IoT companion app tied to a smart device? Here are some of the monetization options available for these variants.

Also Read: A Complete Guide to App Monetization

Subscription

Nothing gets your accounting happier than scheduled payments coming in from subscribers. Works best not only for mobile apps intended for regular use but also for web solutions. In the b2b world, they call it a SaaS monetization, and it works essentially the same.

Service sales

Onetime purchases of various services that your organization provides.

Ads are a big no

Don’t even think about integrating ads and soliciting a sale to turn them off. You’ll end up annoying customers or spending too much time monitoring the quality and relevance of ads.

Sponsorship

Helpful when your app implies using specific brands of medical equipment or other products.

This monetization model is similar to the b2b SaaS model, but when you sell a license for using your software, you get royalties.

Pay per download

The oldest model in the mobile industry and the least popular these days because you’d either have to maintain a free version with limited functionality or customers won’t be able to try out your software.

Device sales

If you sell smart medical sensors that work with an IoT mobile app, the hardware package usually includes the software price.

Patient data

Finally, pharma companies and other medical research businesses will pay for anonymized patient data and other medical information your solution accumulates.

If you look at the revenue streams, they may come from:

• employers (corporate wellness programs)
• medical research institutions
• insurance companies (or government, if you’re that lucky)

The 5 Steps to Build a Medical App

Step #1: you are building a healthcare app for ….

If you are reading this, chances are you already know your target audience. We’ve discovered that successful medical apps are always built by someone serving in the field: either with a medical or nursing degree or working closely with healthcare providers. You really need industry-specific insights when developing a medical software program.

Also Read: Virtual Nurse App Development Guide

Define your medical app’s audience

Get to know the potential users of your app. Their needs and pet peeves will drive every significant decision you’re about to make when building the healthcare app. Remember, it’s all about their context for using your solution:

• Will users be standing or sitting?
• Will they have both hands free?
• Will they have time to interact, or will a glance suffice?
• Will they face patients when using the app?

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Building The Best mHealth Apps

Choose a suitable platform

These and myriad of other questions will influence the features you’ll build into the health app direct your choice of mobile devices and platforms:

• iOS or Android (Apple and Android healthcare application development have nuances)
• smartphones / tablets / smartwatches / smart speakers
• AI integration by Google / IBM / Microsoft
• AR, VR, or IoT integration

Let’s look at some of the most popular types of healthcare apps out there. The diagram is far from covering the whole spectrum of apps that you can build, of course. Instead, it’ll help you jump-start on your app idea quest and, eventually, will allow you to hone in on your target audience:

And by the way, thinking outside the box is always welcome. Is there a place for a healthcare app game? You bet. There’re plenty on Google Play already! Is there a place for a solution that connects to a smart pillbox and tracks medicine intake? Yes, we developed a similar  product .

Step #2: Here’s how you build a healthcare app without building it

Yes, that’s right. You don’t have to throw yourself into mobile  healthcare app development right after putting together a list of features and requirements. Every line of code is money out of your pocket. Why don’t you spend it on finalizing the concept of your iPhone healthcare app instead of starting medical iPhone app development right away?

You do this by prototyping: fleshing out medical features into clickable screens that look almost identical to a real-life product. The beauty of a clickable prototype is:

• you can experience it on your phone as if working with an actual app
• you can quickly get a prototype in the hands of users for A/B testing
• you can verify with a developer if all features are quite feasible on a selected platform

And all of that without draining your development budget. Despite being ultra-important when building a healthcare app, UX & UI work often accounts for a fraction of the total cost, unlike coding.

It‘s 10x cheaper to fix a design flaw while prototyping than during development.

Joe Tuan, founder, Topflight Apps

Read more about Health App Design

Today, there’s no shortage of interactive tools for rapid prototyping. Some, like Balsamiq or Proto.io, are so easy-to-use that it will be hard to resist the urge to try your hand at putting together a couple of mocks. Others, like Adobe XD or InVision, require design resources with more hands-on expertise in healthcare mobile app development.

Related: Using Figma for Prototyping: The Complete Breakdown

The bottom line is when prototyping, you’re kind of building your healthcare app, and, at the same time, you’re not. Only because at this stage, your users can’t download the product or perform any non-hard-wired action in the prototype.

Step #3: Key things to consider when developing a healthcare app that will stand out

At this point, you already have all the features that your medical app will ship with. And the click-through prototype. You’re fully equipped, and nothing can stop you from plunging headfirst into the development of your healthcare app, right?

Right — in many cases, but not so fast if you’re looking to build an exceptional healthcare experience. We suggest you concentrate on these three points during the development process to ensure you’re building a health app that will make a real impact.

Compliance, Privacy and Security

No, it’s not about the proverbial HIPAA compliance that should be in place whenever patients’ protected health information (PHI) is at play. Depending on the type and functionality of your medical app, you will need to wrap your head around such concepts as:

• Android.os.health documentation
• IEC 62304, ISO27001, SOC2 Type 2, and a few other standards
• MFi Program
• HITECH Act, GDPR, and other data security  regulations

Patient data should always be traveling to and from the app in an encrypted format over a secure connection. Handling PHI according to HIPAA guidelines during a healthcare mobile development project is paramount.

Related: HIPAA Compliant App Development: Everything You Need to Know

APIs & Integrations

To lure in modern power users and newbies, your app will likely integrate with other services. That’s how you leverage the location and proximity data, make use of vitals offered via HealthKit, work with EHR systems, and do a lot of other wonders during mobile medical app development.

Make sure if the corresponding APIs are available for commercial use and whether you are required to open source your code after using them.

Agile & Continuous Delivery

Agile is probably already one of your mantras. Well, it’s the perfect time to start practicing. During medical mobile app development, it’s essential to realize that proceeding by brief, one-week sprints, you’re likely to arrive at the desired destination faster and with fewer iterations. There will be time to test the completed scope and adjust future sprints if necessary.

Related: Agile App Development: The Business Owner’s Guide

Another aspect you should be paying attention to is continuous delivery. The team developing your healthcare app must set up an environment that allows QA engineers and you to test completed features without interfering with the development of the next round of features.

If you opt for healthcare Android app development, you are likely to reach more users. However, if you choose to make the software using React Native or other cross-platform framework, you will release simultaneously to iOS and Android, covering even a bigger audience.

Make the Best Use of Legacy Solutions

Incumbents in the healthcare industry often have to deal with legacy software that they’ve accumulated over years. These can be EHR platforms, old databases, content management systems, CRMs, and other (often outdated) healthcare solutions.

The typical approach when building a novel healthcare application is to pull data from these legacy systems into a new application and ditch the original infrastructure. But what if providers and management staff still work with the existing software?

Not all businesses have budgets to replace their legacy systems at once. The old stuff needs to operate flawlessly as its components are being gradually replaced. If this sounds familiar, an optimal route would be to develop a data hub that would act as a syncing link between the new healthcare app and legacy systems.

With such a hub, legacy software can share all data with the new application without introducing unnecessary hurdles for providers working with old software. A special set of APIs will push any new data from the original solutions to a newly built application, and vice versa. Just remember that such a data hub should be HIPAA compliant.

Step #4: What’s next after you’ve built a healthcare app?

What do you do with an app that’s been built? That’s right — release it to the App Store, Google Play, or distribute it to users on an ad hoc basis if it’s a staff-only medical app. That’s also when the real fun starts. Because as soon as you launch the product, you start thinking about possible future iterations.

Sneak up on users, legit

If you’re siding with a pro development team to build your healthcare app, your mobile product already integrates with some analytics product that gathers usage metrics. All you need is to read and interpret this data to find the potential for enhancements:

• you might want users to stick with the product longer
• you want to enable users to achieve their goals faster
• you might want to increase their spend

Whatever it is you’re trying to achieve — the app usage data coming, e.g., from Firebase or Appsee is a reliable source of insight for future upgrades during the next Android healthcare app development iterations.

Ask for user feedback openly

You can always integrate a customer feedback system if you want to allow users to vent their frustration with the app without leaving a negative review. To enable this functionality, take a closer look at the solutions like UserVoice or UserTesting. And it certainly never hurts to monitor and interact with user reviews you get in app stores.

Watch major OS updates

New features may also come as you update your healthcare app to support the latest OS version. It’s worth noting that even though most OS updates leave existing apps intact, updating your mobile product is always a better idea. This way, you don’t accumulate any technical debt and make use of the latest OS features.

Believe me, you don’t want to know what technical debt is ( reach out directly if you do!). You just don’t want to accumulate this debt and spend a hefty budget on dealing with it later on.

Spy on competition

Today’s App Store monitoring platforms like Sensor Tower or data.ai allow you to stay up to date on your niche competitors, checking their App Store and Google Play rankings. This practice also involves applying a solid App Store Optimization strategy, and it’s way more than picking the right keywords. We have a separate Guide on App Store Optimization for Mobile Apps in 2023 if you’d like to dig deeper.

Step #5: Build an ecosystem around your healthcare app

Now that your app is on track with receiving timely updates and new features (dull people call this a maintenance mode), it’s time to step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Do you see the potential for driving more value for your medical app users by extending to more platforms? Or is there a particular platform (smartwatch anyone?) that just calls for integration?

What if users could see more detailed reports in the cloud-based version of the app — the one they could access via a desktop browser? Does it make sense to come up with a smartwatch version?

At some point, you’re bound to start noticing these opportunities. So go ahead and turn them into growth points by building your healthcare app into an entire ecosystem.

Creating an effective and user-friendly mobile application the healthcare niche is paramount. As medical mobile application development becomes increasingly sophisticated, developers must adhere to best practices to ensure their apps meet the highest standards of functionality, security, and user experience. Here are some key practices to consider:

User-Centric Design

Begin with a comprehensive understanding of your target audience’s needs. Prioritize user-centric design principles to create an intuitive interface that enhances user engagement and satisfaction. This involves conducting thorough user research, usability testing, and iterative design improvements.

Compliance with Regulations

Ensure your app complies with all relevant healthcare regulations and standards, such as HIPAA in the United States or GDPR in Europe. This guarantees the protection of sensitive patient information and builds trust with users. At the same time, you can try and deter storing PHI data in your application to delay HIPAA compliance and lower costs at the start of the project. It’s a safe and easy way to avoid problems with setting up compliant development environment, too, which can be challenging when you’re only starting a project.

Robust Data Security

Implement strong encryption protocols and secure data storage solutions to protect patient data from breaches and unauthorized access. Regularly update security measures to address emerging threats.

Seamless Integration

Facilitate seamless integration of your app with existing healthcare systems like Electronic Health Records (EHR) and other third-party services. This enhances the app’s functionality and provides a more comprehensive tool for healthcare providers and patients.

Scalability

Design your app with scalability in mind. As your user base grows and new features are added, ensure the app can handle increased demand without compromising performance or user experience.

Interoperability

Promote interoperability by ensuring your app communicates effectively with other healthcare apps and systems. This smooth exchange of information can significantly improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery.

Continuous Testing and Feedback

Engage in continuous testing and solicit feedback from users regularly. This helps identify potential issues early and allows for timely improvements, ensuring the app remains reliable and effective.

Focus on Core Features

Prioritize core features that address the primary needs of your users. Avoid overloading the app with unnecessary functionalities, which can complicate the user experience and detract from the main purpose of the app.

Regular Updates and Maintenance

Keep your app up to date with regular updates and maintenance. This includes fixing bugs, improving performance, and adding new features based on user feedback and technological advancements.

Effective Communication Channels

Incorporate effective communication channels within the app, such as chat features or telehealth capabilities. This can greatly enhance patient-provider interactions and streamline the care process.

By adhering to these best practices in medical mobile application development, you can build a robust, secure, and user-friendly app that meets the needs of both healthcare providers and patients, ultimately transforming patient care and operational efficiency.

The cost of mobile app development for healthcare  can vary significantly, from an IoT-enabled $55,000 MVP  (minimum viable product) for a heart rate tracker to a $260,000 telemedicine solution to a $380,000+ full-cycle practice management platform. Of course, the budget for building a healthcare app will always depend on the type of product you want to create.

One question we hear a lot is How to develop a healthcare app and not lose investors’ money?

The framework we often revert to, to help our clients optimize the ROI is rapid prototyping. The sheer fact of having a near-real-life experience with zero code always excites us. We build clickable, interactive prototypes, and then relentlessly test them with the target audience to make sure user journeys make sense.

And after we’ve verified that the solution offers an optimal user experience, we start coding it in the flesh. This approach considerably saves the budget required to create a health app.

If you’re asking how much it will cost to get a healthcare application off the ground using Topflight’s experience, the short answer is at least $60,000. That’s the min cost to engage us in developing a PoC or MVP. I also encourage you to check out our Vision to Traction System that has helped our partners raise millions of dollars using our development services.

As the landscape of healthcare applications development continues to evolve, staying ahead of the trends is crucial for app founders, entrepreneurs, and clinical executives looking to build innovative solutions. Here are some of the most significant trends shaping the future of mobile health app development in 2024:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI and ML are revolutionizing healthcare by providing predictive analytics, personalized medicine, and automated workflows. These technologies can enhance diagnostic accuracy, streamline administrative tasks, and improve patient outcomes. Incorporating AI and ML into your healthcare app can provide a competitive edge by offering advanced capabilities that can analyze vast amounts of data in real-time.

• Predictive Maintenance: AI can anticipate potential equipment failures and maintenance needs, reducing downtime and improving efficiency.
• Virtual Health Assistants: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide 24/7 support, answering patient queries and offering basic medical advice.
• Clinical Decision Support: Machine learning algorithms can assist clinicians by providing evidence-based recommendations and highlighting critical patient information.

Telehealth Integration

The demand for telehealth services has skyrocketed, and it’s now a staple feature in healthcare applications development. Integrating telehealth allows for remote consultations, continuous patient monitoring, and improved access to care, especially for patients in remote or underserved areas. This trend is expected to continue growing, making telehealth a must-have feature in any new healthcare app.

Blockchain for Enhanced Security

Blockchain technology is gaining traction in healthcare for its robust security features. It offers a decentralized way to store and manage patient data, ensuring that information is tamper-proof and secure. Implementing blockchain can enhance data security, improve transparency, and foster trust among users.

• Smart Contracts: Automate processes and enforce contractual agreements without the need for intermediaries.
• Immutable Records: Ensures that patient records are permanent and cannot be altered, providing a reliable audit trail.
• Decentralized Identity Management: Allows patients to control their personal health information and share it selectively with providers.

Wearable Technology Integration

Wearable devices such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, and medical sensors are increasingly being integrated into healthcare apps. These devices collect real-time health data, which can be used for monitoring patient health, conducting remote diagnostics, and encouraging healthier lifestyles. Integrating wearables in your app can provide valuable insights and a more holistic view of patient health.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

AR and VR are being utilized for various healthcare applications, including surgery simulations, patient education, and rehabilitation therapy. These technologies offer immersive experiences that can enhance training, improve patient engagement, and provide innovative treatment options.

• Surgical Planning: Surgeons can use AR to visualize complex procedures and plan surgeries with higher precision.
• Patient Distraction: VR can be used to distract patients during painful procedures or treatments, reducing perceived pain and anxiety. Remote Collaboration: AR-enabled devices can facilitate remote collaboration among healthcare professionals, allowing experts to assist in real-time from different locations.

Personalized Medicine

Personalized medicine, driven by genetic data and individual health profiles, is becoming a significant focus in healthcare apps development. Apps that can tailor treatments and health advice based on individual genetic information are likely to see increased adoption, as they can provide more effective and targeted care.

Interoperability Standards

Ensuring that healthcare apps can seamlessly communicate with other systems and applications is critical. The trend towards adopting interoperability standards, such as FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), is essential for enabling the free flow of information across different platforms, improving care coordination, and reducing errors.

• Data Exchange: Facilitates the exchange of data between different EHR systems, enhancing the continuity of care.
• Standardized APIs: Using standardized APIs ensures that different systems can communicate effectively without custom integration.
• Improved Patient Outcomes: By sharing data effectively, healthcare providers can make more informed decisions, leading to better patient outcomes.

Voice-Activated Interfaces

Voice-activated interfaces are becoming more prevalent in healthcare apps, providing a hands-free way for users to interact with the application. This is particularly useful for clinicians who need to access information quickly without using their hands, and for patients who may find voice commands more accessible than touchscreens.

Focus on Mental Health

With increasing awareness of mental health issues, there is a growing trend towards developing apps focused on mental wellness. These apps offer features such as mood tracking, guided meditation, and virtual therapy sessions. Addressing mental health can differentiate your app and provide much-needed support to users.

• Anonymity: Apps that allow users to seek help anonymously can reduce stigma and encourage more people to seek support.
• AI-driven Insights: Use AI to analyze user inputs and provide personalized mental health advice and resources.
• Community Features: Include forums or chat groups where users can connect with others facing similar challenges, fostering a sense of community and support.

By incorporating these trends into your strategy of app development for the healthcare industry, you can create innovative, secure, and user-friendly apps that meet the needs of both healthcare providers and patients, ensuring your app stands out in a competitive market.

Selecting the right partner for professional healthcare app development is a critical decision that can significantly impact the success of your project. As founders and clinical executives, you need a development company that not only understands technology but also has deep insights into the healthcare industry. Here’s a guide to help you choose the right healthcare app development company:

Industry Experience and Expertise

Look for a company with substantial experience in the healthcare sector. They should have a proven track record of developing successful healthcare apps and a strong portfolio showcasing their work.

• Ensure the company understands the unique challenges and regulations of the healthcare industry, such as HIPAA compliance.
• Review detailed case studies to see how they have solved specific problems for other healthcare clients.
• Seek out feedback from previous clients to gauge their satisfaction with the company’s services and support.

Technical Proficiency

The technical skills of the development team are paramount. Verify that the company is proficient in the latest technologies and platforms relevant to healthcare app development.

• Check their expertise in essential technologies like AI, ML, blockchain, and interoperability standards (e.g., FHIR).
• Assess their ability to incorporate next-gen features and innovative solutions into your app.
• Ensure they can develop apps for both iOS and Android, providing a seamless experience across all devices.

Regulatory Compliance

Compliance with healthcare regulations is non-negotiable. The development company must be well-versed in relevant laws and standards to ensure your app meets all necessary requirements.

• Their development practices should prioritize data security and patient privacy.
• Confirm that they can provide thorough documentation to demonstrate compliance with healthcare regulations.
• The company should stay updated with regulatory changes and adapt the app accordingly.

Customization and Flexibility

Your healthcare app will have unique requirements. The development company should offer customized solutions tailored to your specific needs. They should build scalable solutions that can grow with your user base and evolving requirements.

• Ensure they can develop custom features that set your app apart from competitors.
• An agile approach allows for flexibility and iterative improvements based on feedback during the development process.

Communication and Project Management

Effective communication and robust project management are crucial for a smooth development process.

• The company should maintain clear and consistent communication throughout the project.
• A dedicated project manager or team ensures accountability and focus on your project.
• Regular updates and milestone tracking help you stay informed about the project’s progress.

Post-Launch Support and Maintenance

Ongoing support is vital to address any issues and keep your app up-to-date after launch. The company should be prepared to add new features and enhancements as your app evolves.

• Ensure they offer comprehensive maintenance plans for regular updates and bug fixes.
• Round-the-clock support can be crucial for addressing urgent issues promptly.

Cost and Value

While cost is an important factor, it shouldn’t be the sole criterion. Focus on the value that the development company brings to your project.

• Transparent Pricing: Look for a company that offers transparent pricing without hidden costs.
• ROI: Consider the return on investment (ROI) based on the quality of the app and its potential to meet your business goals.
• Discuss payment terms and schedules to ensure they align with your budget and financial planning.

By carefully evaluating these factors, you can select a mobile medical application development company that aligns with your vision, meets your technical and regulatory requirements, and provides ongoing support to ensure your app’s success.

At Topflight, we’re lucky to have worked on many versatile web and mobile healthcare applications. The entire company was built on the idea to help providers and medical organizations develop top-flight apps that customers would embrace.

Today, we can boast apps from the following healthcare specialties in our portfolio:

• Super-lightweight EHRs for clinics
• Uber for lab testing
• Fitness & wellbeing
• IoT solutions
• Enterprise-grade health applications
• AI-powered healthcare solutions
• AI/AR RPM for physiotherapy
• Uber for medical outstaffing

Having developed numerous mobile and cloud healthcare apps, we know that success comes with engaging user experience and laser-sharp focusing on the customer. That’s why we always start custom developing mobile apps with rapid prototyping.

Also Read: Guide to Cloud Computing in the Medical Field

More steps?

Even though we’ve touched upon many things concerning medical apps development, there’s always something extra that we share only with our clients and partners.

So if you’re looking to start a medical app, join the party by subscribing to our newsletter or  schedule a call to ask more questions about building a healthcare app. It’s free and enlightening!

Related Articles:

• Physiotherapy app development guide
• Pediatrician App Development 
• Mental Health Chatbots
• Guide to Creating a Pharmacy App
• Deep Learning Use Cases in Healthcare
• How to make a women health tracking app
• How to make a hospital management software
• Medication Tracker & Pill Reminder App Development Guide
• How to Collect Healthcare Data for Your Mobile Apps 
• Guide to Computer Vision in Medicine 
• Chatbots in Healthcare

Frequently Asked Questions

Do all healthcare apps need to be hipaa compliant.

No, only mhealth software dealing with PHI needs to comply.

What would you suggest if you could give a single piece of advice to help me create an outstanding healthcare app?

Start with an interactive prototype and make sure you spend enough time testing it with real users from your target audience. This approach will save you a lot of time and effort. In fact, no software project should start with app development, healthcare too.

How can we apply blockchain technology to our medical software?

Right now, the best application of blockchain and smart contracts is when developing EHR platforms.

How do I make sure my application for patients remains competitive?

Use analytics tools like Mixpanel to understand how people use the app and whether they have any issues. You could also rely on proactive solutions for gathering user feedback before they publish it in the App Store.

How long does it take to build a medical app?

I’m sure you’re fully aware, there’s no such thing as an average medical application. Each app is unique. We built healthcare software that required 6 months of development; other solutions took over a year to get ready for the market.

[This blog was originally published on March 2, 2020 but has been refreshed to keep up with more recent updates]

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Medical & Healthcare Apps For Businesses In 2024

“Automation makes population health management feasible, scalable, and sustainable.” Institute of Health Technology Transformation

The current state of healthcare systems needs substantial improvement, especially in the recent outbreak of Covid-19. These days, Coronavirus has infected almost 215M people, with 4.47 M deaths worldwide. It has impacted the world and its economy drastically. New health app ideas are needed to confront the situation and come up with apps for medical services .

The sector has the potential for innovative trends, like IoT, Big Data, and AI. We will talk about the sectors of the best healthcare apps and come up with some popular applications in the market. The article may give you some good health app ideas that we can turn into a robust project.

How many health apps are there in 2023? 

To understand the potential of the industry in terms of business perspectives and investment, consider statistics data. For 2021, the global mHealth market was valued at $38.2 billion . From 2021 to 2028, the market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 34,8%, registering a value of $314.60 billion. The growing penetration of smartphones, 5G technology implementation and the users’ consciousness over health issues provide an unprecedented rise in mobile healthcare technologies.

The rise of mHealth demand increased mobile apps available in the App Store and Google Play market. Thus for Q1 2021, there were 53,979 iOS healthcare apps and 53,054 apps available at Google Play.

The Benefits of Integrating Mobile Apps in Healthcare and Patient Experience

The integration of healthcare services and innovative projects with the best healthcare apps is one of the ways to prevent epidemic situations and address other, no less important medical issues.

Healthcare automation and digitalisation across most of its sectors implies benefits , namely:

• Removal of bureaucracy
• Minimisation of human errors
• Improved medical treatments

Quicker diagnosis and pre-screening processes

• Remote patient monitoring
• Cutting the operational costs
• Improvement of global health

Speeding up the provision of healthcare service

• Access to the medical service in remote
• Unified and secure medical and patient databases.

How much does a medical app cost?

Mobile health application development is related to the most complicated development processes beyond simple programming. It requires regulations, security, and support. With a rough estimation, the average cost of a health mobile app is $425.000. It is the price of an app enhanced with the latest technologies. The price, though, does not include marketing and support services.

There is no universal pricing for app development. The price depends on many factors, and even the less significant element can change the price. The main cost drivers still remain the app complexity, the app’s features, and the dev team’s hourly rate.

There are more important elements to care about with mobile healthcare apps than, for example, interactive UI/UX. More than anything, healthcare apps should be secure, stable, and user-friendly. Here is a rough estimation of app development costs led by an average-rated dev team.

How to Create a Mobile App for Business?

App development needs to follow six-step business planning to make your idea compatible with business perspectives and market demands:

• Developing a business strategy
• Hiring development team
• Budgeting and planning
• Defining app features
• Marketing strategy
• Support and maintenance

WANT TO KNOW HOW MUCH DOES IT COST AN APP?

Find out cost drivers of app development in our blog.

Best Healthcare apps in Medical Services

Medical app development that utilizes the smartphone and functionality of other smart devices provides an advanced value. To develop the software operating on iPhone devices, applying specific tech stacks and following the platform guidelines is necessary. The same applies to the Android operating system.

To build an iOS or Android client app, it is necessary to use Swift and Kotlin programming languages. Applying technologies like Node.js, Python, Ruby, cloud-service platforms of AWS, EC2, S3, and PostgreSQL or MySQL databases is possible for the back-end developments and server setups.

Here are some of the apps popular in the market.

Doctor On Demand - Telehealth app

This app provides care on demand and by appointment. It is an iOS and Android app and is used in various physical and mental healthcare services.

Heal - Doctor house calls

HealpersonalisedWhen is an app to arrange a house call. It also applies to iOS and Android platforms.  

Maven - Woman’s healthcare

Maven is designed for women and families. It is a kind of “digital clinic” where women and their families can turn for physical and mental health issues.

Fitbit - Activity tracker

This app allows us to monitor the state of health, including heartbeats, calories, fitness time, etc.

Healow - Health records management

Healow is the main communication tool between patients and their doctors. It records data and allows access to healthcare records.

MyChart - Patient portal

This app is also used for communication, allowing access to records, online scheduling, and paying the bills.

UpToDate - Educational portal

This app is designed for doctors and students—a powerful platform with vast medical information. Students and practitioners can have access to expert opinions.

Sonosupport - Ultrasound imaging support

This app is designed for ultrasound examinations. With the use of the app, it is possible to get clinical-grade ultrasound diagnostics at home.

Talkspace - Therapy 

The online therapy platform gives access to psychiatrists and therapists for consulting and treatment via smartphone.

First Derm - Dermatology Services

The free app helps users connect to doctors, consult online, and get treatment and prescriptions for non-emergency skin issues. 

Amwell - Insurance coverage

The application provides on-demand doctor visits and accepts health insurances, including United Healthcare, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and more. 

ZocDoc - Appointment scheduling

The application connects patients with different medical institutions to schedule appointments without calling or visiting to set an appointment. 

GoodRx - Prescription discounts

It is a huge prescription database with over 75.000 medications where users can search for information and find the lowest medicine price in the area.

Medisafe - Medication reminder

With the app, the patients will never forget to take their prescriptions. Virtual pillbox sends reminders and notifications for taking medications.

Teladoc - On-demand Care

On-demand Telehealth service is an affordable way to connect to physicians and get virtual care for non-life-threatening cases. 

WebMD - Medical resource

It is one of the largest medical resources and information databases that gives access to care directories, a database of medications, etc.

Generis - DNA & Nutrition

This innovative solution helps users understand their genes. The app provides DNA-based recommendations: food and nutrition, fitness advice, supplement recommendations, etc.

Better Help - Online consulting

It is a quick and cost-efficient way to access mental health professionals. The application is a convenient way to get online help from professional therapists and counselors. 

MDacne - Acne treatment

The application is instant access to dermatologists and gets instant treatment based on the patient's answers, photos and videos. The app has a built-in chat to provide better communication between patients and doctors.

Leafly - One-stop-shop for cannabis information

The application’s main function is to connect doctors and patients, shed light on medical Marijuana properties, and educate users. 

MySugr - Diabetes tracker

The lifesaver helps patients track blood sugar, carbs, estimated HbA1c and bolus within an app. With synchronized and updated data, it is easy to track changes and take actions if necessary.

EyeCare Live - Online consulting

The application is useful to get instant consulting on eye conditions through pictures and videos. Through visuals, the doctor can resolve the condition and advise treatment.

Heal - Physician house calls

The application is aimed at bringing back the traditional doctor’s visits. The holistic view will help doctors observe the lifestyle of a patient that may help in further treatment. 

Factors to Consider When Building a Healthcare Mobile App 

As one of the growing industries witnessing a boom of mobile integration, every new startup is entering a highly competitive market with global players that use the latest mobile and smart tech solutions. To be in line with global players, there are top factors to be considered when building an app.

• Integration of Medical Things

The IoT may be utilized in any health-related area by uniting medical hardware and software. The system uses different sensors and processors to collect data and share it across the network. The technology can connect not only with one device but also it is possible to create a complex ecosystem of interrelated tools and gadgets.

In the upcoming years, the implementation of IoT solutions is expected to grow, which is a subject of healthcare software development. Statista states that in 2020 almost 161 million IoT devices will be delivered and used.

When wearable devices, home medication dispensers, personalized trackers, digital cameras, and other medical equipment are interconnected, it will result in the next-level healthcare service, as stated by Forbes.

Vitals trackings, efficient operations in inventory management, treatments of chronic diseases, telehealth surgeries, built-in emergency response systems, and mood trackers are just a few directions where IoMT software can be implemented.

WANT TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE AN IOT APP?

Check out our blog.

It makes no doubt that the healthcare industry holds and processes huge masses of different information. Big Data allows for effective collecting and elaboration of internal medical documentation and patient data (EHR & EMR).

These operations surely remove bureaucracy among healthcare providers, improve patient diagnostics and care, and add value to medical research and the field of analytics.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Advancements in language processing technology create and apply chatbots, voice recognition systems, voice assistants, etc. It is only the beginning of the story related to machine learning use cases. Automated healthcare operations with the help of ML and AI will bring user experience to the next level.

WANT TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE AN AI APP?

Blogs to get deeper knowledge about AI.

Blockchain technology is widely known due to the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. However, it is a great solution to provide top security and transparency levels within the healthcare industry. The technology removes paperwork and offers fast and secure information sharing.

HOW TO BUILD A BLOCKCHAIN APP?

Get insights into blockchain technology with our blog.

How can Addevice Help you Build a Healthcare Mobile App?

Still not sure about your health app ideas? The team of Addevice is an experienced offshore software provider that designs and develops top-notch healthcare applications based on IoT and AI. We create solutions for fitness and a healthy lifestyle, patient portals, and doctor-on-demand projects. Our team can also integrate and gain data from 100+ medical devices and 3rd party services to build a complex app functionality.

As an example, Addevice has projected and implemented Sentinel hypertension medical care application. The app aims to help patients with hypertension have safe life keeping health data under control. The application provides clinicians with real-time patient data, medication, and symptom management.

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Develop Your Mobile Health App

Transform healthcare experiences with your own mobile health app Our Expertise Covers: ✅ Telemedicine and virtual consultations ✅ Electronic health records integration ✅ Medication tracking and health monitoring features

Table of contents

Mobile health application development is related to the most complicated development processes beyond simple programming. It requires regulations, security, and support. With a rough estimation, the average cost of a health mobile app is $425.000. It is the price of an app enhanced with the latest technologies. The price, though, does not include marketing and support services.   

The rise of mHealth demand increased mobile apps available in the App Store and Google Play market. Thus for Q1 2021, there were 53,979 iOS healthcare apps and 53,054 apps available at Google Play. 

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How to Develop a Healthcare App: The Ultimate Guide

Oleksandra Furman

Tech Researcher

Dmytro Dobrytskyi

Head of Business Development

Get your project estimation!

Rising focus on personal health and wellness, rapid evolution in technology, and the critical need for accessible healthcare are just a few factors that have triggered a surge in healthcare app development. Now that more doctors and patients than ever are on board with using mHealth apps, it might be high time to build a product that meets their needs.

So, why does the mHealth app market look so promising today? How to make a healthcare app and what to consider? What does the tech side of the development look like? And how much does it cost to build a medical app?

Here, we provide extensive answers to each of these questions and share Mind Studios’ experience of creating an app that assists people with chronic illnesses and injuries .

Growth of the healthcare mobile app market

Digitalization has influenced nearly every area of our lives, including healthcare. Today, you can schedule an appointment with your physician, get blood test results, and even have a mental health therapy session all through a mobile application. So, how big is the healthcare app market?

According to a report published on Grand View Research , the value of the global mHealth apps market size reached USD 38.2 billion in 2021 , and is expected to grow at a CAGR (a compound annual growth rate) of 11.8% from 2022 to 2030 . North America is dominating the healthcare app market, accounting for 38.2% of the revenue share in 2021.

What is more, as stated in a report by IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, there are over 350,000 digital health applications available on app stores. This number includes medical as well as general wellness and fitness apps.

The main reasons for the growth of the healthcare app market are:

• Rapid increase of smartphone and internet users
• The prevalence of chronic illnesses that require constant care
• Promotion of mHealth applications by the government and healthcare professionals in certain regions, like the US
• Increasing awareness of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle

Finally, it’s no surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a surge in creating new digital medical tools, including mobile app development for healthcare. So, if you decide to build a healthcare app and choose the right team to do it, you have high chances of succeeding.

Difference between a health app and a medical app

It’s easy to confuse health apps and medical apps since they are often used interchangeably. However, there is a clear difference, so let’s get into it.

Health apps are mobile platforms designed to promote general well-being, fitness, and healthy lifestyle choices, as well as assist users with maintaining them. Such apps offer features that allow people to track and manage aspects of their health, such as physical activity, nutrition, sleep, mental well-being, and so on.

Health apps also often focus on encouraging users to develop healthy habits by enabling progress tracking and providing valuable insights into users’ overall wellness. Examples of such apps include MyFitnessPal, Headspace, and Strava.

Medical apps , on the other hand, usually have a direct connection to medicine and healthcare. They aim to provide users with specific medical information and tools for diagnosis, treatment, or health conditions management.

Medical apps need to comply with legal data privacy and security regulations, as well as adhere to medical guidelines. Medical apps can include products like symptom checkers, medication management apps, telemedicine platforms, medical reference apps, and more. Examples of medical apps include Medscape and Epocrates.

Types of healthcare apps

Depending on the type of services you provide, you need to choose the type of app that will serve your needs best. Here, we’ve collected the 6 most common healthcare app types on the market.

1. Urgent care apps

Also called ER platforms, these apps are aimed at helping people in emergency situations get the help they need. Typically, such apps provide directions to the nearest emergency departments for those with and without medical insurance , as well as show travel and waiting time.

Among the most common features of urgent care apps are:

• GPS tracker
• cost estimate calculator
• contact base of emergency departments
• emergency contacts, like contact numbers of close family members

Additionally, these apps can provide basic instructions that can assist people who are witnessing an emergency situation in providing primary medical assistance to the patient. For instance, they can guide the bystanders through helping a person having a seizure.

Examples : Walk-In Urgent Care, GoHealth Urgent Care

2. General hospital apps

Healthcare apps that are run by general hospitals help to improve their communication with patients and even serve as a promotional tool.

Must-have features of general hospital apps include:

• electronic health record ( EHR ) integration
• doctors’ profiles and their availability
• patients’ profiles where they can receive their lab reports or e-prescriptions
• list of treatments and services the hospital provides
• emergency room waiting time

Additionally, some hospital apps can focus specifically on appointment management . This functionality usually includes calendars where both patients and healthcare professionals can track upcoming visits and medical procedures. Virtual appointments via audio or video calls are also essential in the post-pandemic era.

Keep in mind that hospital app development usually requires partnering up with medical facilities in order to create a truly helpful product that works in real-life environments.

Examples : Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic Express Care

3. Diagnostic and preventive care apps

The focus of these apps is diagnostic medicine, meaning they provide patients with access to personal medical history and medical test results, as well as give an opportunity to schedule new tests. They also can include symptom checkers that help patients determine which tests they need to take and which professionals they should see.

Standard features of diagnostic apps are:

• electronic health record (EHR) integration
• medical test scheduling, costs, and lab results
• symptom checker or AI-powered diagnosis assistant
• appointment management
• guides and useful information on chronic illness management and living a healthy lifestyle

Examples : Symptomate, WebMD

4. Telemedicine apps

Often referred to as doctor-on-demand apps, these platforms are created to provide healthcare services remotely. Usually, it means the doctor and the patient communicate via text, audio, or video channels.

The main features of telemedicine apps are:

• patients’ profile and dashboard
• doctors’ profile with ratings and reviews
• text, audio, or video chats
• e-prescriptions
• payment gateway

Telemedicine apps can also be based on Internet-of-Things technologies. This means the patients can use additional devices for measuring blood pressure, sugar level, and other vital signs that get sent to a doctor for a more effective treatment.

Examples : MDLIVE, Teladoc, Amwell, LiveHealth

5. Healthy lifestyle apps

The number of subcategories for this type of app is countless. Such mobile platforms can help you track your water and calorie intake, the number of steps daily, and the quality of sleep. Some also remind users to have regular medical checkups. The goal is to motivate users to make a habit of healthy living and prevent health problems.

Though the main features depend on the app’s goals, the most common ones include:

• users’ profiles with data like level of activity, weight, medical conditions, etc.
• habit tracking
• push notifications
• guides on proper nutrition or sports activities

Examples : Sleep Cycle, Plant Nanny, Better Me

6. Mental health apps

Helping with managing any mental health condition is what these apps are for. Whether it’s anxiety, depression, or eating disorders — mental health apps provide patients with tools to monitor and enhance their progress.

Typically, mental health apps can have:

• text, audio, or video chat feature for communication with therapists
• therapy session scheduling
• progress trackers
• activities to improve mental health, like meditation tools
• support group chats
• patients’ medical health records

Examples : VOS, Headspace, Talkspace

The list of app types we’ve provided in this section is not exhaustive: it goes on and on. There are women’s health apps, educational apps for patients with chronic illnesses, and addiction management apps. And who knows, maybe you’ve got an idea for healthcare application development that doesn’t match any conventional apps out there! So, if you have trouble defining what app type will suit your needs best, feel free to contact us for a free 45-minute consultation .

Healthcare app features that you definitely need to use

The set of features for a healthcare app depends on the app type and its main function. However, there are features that are crucial for most mHealth apps, be it a telemedicine one, a general hospital app, or an urgent care app. Here is a list of them:

Technology stack for healthcare mobile app development

Discuccing the tech stack is an essential part of answering the ultimate question of how to develop a health app.

Choosing the technology to create a health app directly influences how smoothly it will run in the future and how convenient it will be for the users. Here is what the technology stack for your medical application development would look like if you decided to build it with the Mind Studios team:

What to consider before the healthcare mobile application development

In addition to the features and choice of technologies, there are a few more aspects of healthcare app development to take into account. Here, we share a list of the most crucial ones.

Mobile platform choice

It’s common practice with mobile apps to start with just one mobile platform (iOS or Android) and scale the project along the way. It’s totally acceptable to do so with health apps, like healthy habit trackers or meditation platforms , especially when building an MVP.

However, when it comes to hospital application development, it’s advisable to launch iOS and Android apps simultaneously. The whole point healthcare providers like general hospitals decide to digitalize their medical services is to make healthcare more accessible, and you can’t achieve that by prioritizing one group of patients over another.

Interoperability

Building a healthcare app, especially a medical one, can require integrating it with various medical systems and databases the healthcare provider uses. The interoperability of the app directly impacts how compatible those medical systems and the app will be.

As stated in the IBM article , interoperability in healthcare means timely and secure access, integration and use of electronic health data so that it can be used to optimize health outcomes for individuals and populations.

To put simply, developing a health app with high level of interoperability makes it easier for healthcare professionals to provide medical services: check the patient’s EHRs, order tests, access the results, etc. As a result, this improves the quality and speed of medical care .

So, if you’re making a medical app for both healthcare professionals and their patients, make sure all health systems integrated within your app work as one ecosystem. For this, you will need to use APIs like SMART , the technology that enables building interoperable solutions and syncing them with digital medical systems.

IoT Integration

Tracking daily steps, checking vitals, or monitoring the level of stress requires additional devices like smartwatches and other healthcare tools. IoT (internet of things) integration can help you sync the application with those wristbands.

The main purpose of IoT in healthcare software is to secure remote patient monitoring. To be more specific, it can assist doctors and patients in tracking glucose levels, monitoring heart rate, and even observing how the patient’s depression progresses.

Case in point: IoT has become a helpful tool to those battling Parkinson’s disease thanks to IoT sensors that collect data about the symptoms.

Proper security

Data protection is priority number one when it comes to user-centered healthcare software . In addition to sharing sensitive medical information, your users might also need to make payments through your app. Therefore, if you want to make your customers trust you, it’s best to create a healthcare app that is as secure as possible.

To protect users from data breaches and fraud, consider integrating end-to-end data encryption and multifactor authentication .

In addition, in different countries, there are various legal regulations that protect individuals' personal information, and patients’ data in particular. We cover this issue for those who decide to build healthcare applications in the next section.

Health app regulations to comply with

Developing a medical app, like an ER or a general hospital platform, involves dealing with many responsibilities, including various legal and safety regulations. After all, you will be receiving and storing extremely sensitive information from your users.

Here, we’ve gathered a list of regulations your app might need to comply with depending on the regions you’re planning to target. Following these guidelines will ensure that your app is marketed on app stores, as well as protect you from any legal problems.

• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a regulation in the EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area . It’s considered to be one of the toughest privacy and security laws in the world, and among many types of data, it covers patient health records.
• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is a USA federal law aimed to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed. Apps built for the US market must comply with these regulations (also, learn more about healthcare regulations for AI ).
• PIPEDA (The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) is the Canadian privacy law that regulates how private organizations collect, use, and disclose personal data. Medical records are considered to be under PIPEDA, therefore, organizations can collect, use or disclose them only after obtaining a person’s consent.
• DPA (Data Protection Act) is the UK law that applies generally to any personal data. It controls how personal information can be obtained and processed, as well as guarantees individuals the right to access their own personal data.

Though there are more regulations, some of them overlap . For instance, if your application is compliant with the USA’s HIPAA, it will also comply with HiTECH, another US regulation on EHR data security . Other examples are Canadian PIPEDA and European GDPR, which are also quite similar.

Healthcare Application Development Steps

The whole journey of developing a healthcare application can be narrowed down to 5 main stages that you cannot skip if you want to know how to develop a medical app:

• Step 1: Shape the concept for your app
• Step 2: Choose the monetization model
• Step 3: Create UI/UX design
• Step 4: Build an MVP
• Step 5: Collect feedback and update

Step 1. Shape the concept for your app

Why would users download your app and stick with it? That’s the first question you need to answer before you develop healthcare app. To do so, you will need to:

• Define your prospective users (including their age, location, and average income) and study their needs
• Conduct market research and dive into your competitors’ strong and weak points
• Come up with a list of selling points (like app features and additional services) that can win your target audience over
• Define the goals you want the app to achieve and sync them with your budget

All this will help you define what kind of app you actually want to build and come up with a clear strategy for the project.

Step 2. Choose the monetization model

This aspect is pretty simple for healthcare providers who decided to build a healthcare app as another platform to sell their services: they don't need to monetize the app itself as it's only a convenient extra tool. However, for owners of such apps as meditation or healthy lifestyle platforms, the question is a bit more complicated. Basically, there are four main monetization models to consider:

• Freemium model , which means the app is free to use, but some features are available only through in-app purchases
• Subscription model implies that users get access to all or some features only through subscription (usually a monthly, quarterly, or yearly one)
• In-app ads , meaning the app is free to use, but sometimes the session is interrupted by banner, video or other types of ads
• Paid apps are the ones which users have to buy directly from the app store before downloading it. However, it’s mostly suitable for established businesses.

You can choose just one monetization model or combine several.

Step 3. Create UI/UX design

During this stage, UI/UX designers work out the functionality and the visual concept of the app, and, if needed, work on the branding aspect of the platform. The most time-consuming part of this stage is creating prototypes — visual mockups that demonstrate each screen of the app and how the users are going to interact with them.

Each detail here matters, from font and color scheme choices to the placement of the buttons. For mHealth platforms, the most crucial rules to follow are making the app responsive on all devices and making it as quick and easy as possible for users to achieve their goals.

Step 4. Build an MVP

Typically, healthcare mobile app development projects are complex in terms of the technology involved — and therefore, are fairly expensive. But even if you don’t have sufficient funding to implement all of your ideas yet, it doesn’t mean you can’t get the ball rolling. That’s what an MVP is for.

Building an MVP (minimum viable product) means including the most crucial features that fulfill the main purpose of the app. It allows you to launch and collect initial feedback from users faster. And in the meantime, you can fundraise more money to scale the app along the way. This approach is also less risky money-wise since an MVP costs less and lets you check whether your product is at all viable before going further.

Though our team usually goes for an MLP (minimum lovable product) for the first release, each case is different. You can read more about these two options and decide which one suits your needs and resources best.

Step 5. Collect feedback and update

No matter whether you decide to launch with an MVP or an MLP, you will have to address feedback from users quickly and update the app accordingly. After the developers have deployed the updates, the QA engineers once again test the platform to make sure there aren’t any bugs and the project requirements correspond with the results.

How much does it cost to build a healthcare app

There are two major factors that influence the cost of your future app: the complexity of the platform and the choice of the development team.

To integrate all the essential mHealth features we’ve mentioned before, you will need a team of the following specialists:

• 1 project manager
• 1 product manager or business analyst
• 1 UI/UX designer
• 1 iOS developer
• 1 Android developer
• 1 backend developer
• 1 QA engineer

As for the development team options, you can go with an in-house team or hire an outsourced team . The latter option is less expensive, since you can choose a skilled team from any part of the world that fits your budget. For instance, developers from Eastern Europe statistically charge about three times less than those based in the US, while delivering the same results.

As you now know, there are numerous types of healthcare apps. Here, we’ve estimated the cost of building a medical app where patients can schedule appointments , and have video consultations with doctors. The estimate is based on an average Eastern European rate of $45/hour .

Keep in mind that even after the app launches, it will still require funding for maintenance, regular updating, and marketing.

Choosing a healthcare app development team

Partnering with a skilled and trustworthy healthcare app development team is a huge part of your project’s future success. Here are the main steps to making the right choice.

Step 1. Define your needs

Once you know the goals of your project and the specific requirements it has, it will be easier to visualize the kind of team you need, including their experience, expertise, hourly rates, and more.

Step 2. Conduct research

The most convenient platforms to look for a development team are Clutch and GoodFirms. There, you can set up your requirements, like your budget and team’s location, as well as read reviews and check out the companies’ previous projects. Obviously, it makes sense to primarily look for development companies that already know how to create a health app or at least a general wellness platform.

We also recommend seeking referrals and recommendations from your colleagues, fellow industry professionals, or healthcare organizations that have already developed successful apps.

Step 3. Make a shortlist and conduct interviews

Once you evaluate the portfolios of potential candidates, you can make a list of the most suitable ones and set up interviews to discuss the task and see if you make a good match in terms of values and approach to work. If you have IT experts on your in-house team, you can also request a technical interview with prospective developers for your project.

In case you can’t make up your mind between several candidates, you can contact their previous clients and discuss their experience with the teams.

Step 4. Work out a deal that works for you

Before signing a contract with the best candidate, you need to settle on a number of cooperation details, like communication guidelines, risk mitigation strategies, out-of-scope tasks, non-disclosure agreements, post-launch support conditions, and so on.

Choosing the right healthcare app development team is essential to building a secure healthcare app that meets your business goals. And though they might take some time, all these steps are worth the effort.

Mind Studios' experience in healthcare app development

No matter how overcrowded the app market might seem, there is always a way to build a one-of-a-kind platform that will become a hit. Envol, one of Mind Studios’ major projects , is proof of that.

Envol is a mix of several types of apps , including meditation and wellness apps, as well as performance and habit trackers. Created by Julie and Tim, this app is built specifically for assisting people in healing from chronic illnesses and injuries .

The core of this platform is a unique approach called Envol, which is a combination of holistic practices backed up by medical research. These are the same practices that helped Julie heal from a prolonged illness and leave her life in a wheelchair behind.

When Julie and Tim first came to Mind Studios, they wanted to update an existing app. After we conducted a business analysis and surveyed Envol’s original users, it was decided to build a brand-new platform from scratch.

One of the major tasks we had to solve was migrating the existing users to a new platform while saving all their data, including tracking stats. We even had to move some data manually, but in the end, users got their tracking and other data without loss.

Constant communication with Julie and Tim helped us all stay on the same page throughout the entire development process and achieve the goals that we’d set at the beginning.

Now, after the launch, we continue supporting the app, updating it with new features, and even assisting Julie and Tim with the tech side of their marketing strategy. We know for a fact that Envol has an even brighter future ahead — and we couldn’t be more proud to be a part of it.

Digitalization of healthcare empowers both patients and medical workers: that’s why they are on board with the process, continually increasing the demand for tools connecting them. What is more, app development for healthcare is a perfect tool to boost preventive care, which can have an immensely positive impact on the global population in the long run.

In this article, we’ve covered various types of healthcare apps, from those aimed at popularizing healthy habits to the ones for medical professionals. If you have any questions on how to make a healthcare app that matches your specific needs — our business development team would gladly arrange a free consultation for you.

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Healthcare application development: How to build a medical app

In 2020, the mobile health industry was valued at $56 billion and will grow by another 30% of CAGR by 2030 because of an increase in investment. It is clear - this industry is on a rise and developing a mHealth app can become a goldmine.

However people keep on downloading and using the most popular apps. At the same time, 83% of apps are downloaded fewer than 5,000 times which is 1% of all downloads. This means that many entrepreneurs struggle to find their place in the sun. But what to do about this?

“How to develop a healthcare app?” is not the main question. You need to be able to create a healthcare app that will stand out. This article will give you a big head start.

What is a healthcare app?

Let’s clarify what we mean by the term “healthcare app”.

A healthcare app is software that provides health-related services using communication devices like smartphones. It can address both physical and mental health by tracking a users’ wellbeing, promoting a healthy lifestyle, facilitating doctors/patient interaction, and helping patients manage their own health. Healthcare apps connect mobile gadgets with medical devices, or turn them into ones.

First off, let’s look at the benefits of medical apps.

Benefits of healthcare apps:

• provide valuable information to users (whether it’s general medical knowledge or personal health data)
• improve data collection
• minimize human errors
• increase efficiency
• simplify access to healthcare
• reduce costs (for everyone)
• personalize patient experience increase the quality of service
• monitor health or wellness activities
• improve communication between doctors and patients
• increase loyalty and engagement of customers
• allow medical staff to work remotely

A good healthcare app is great for both patients and doctors. They have become vital for people with busy schedules. This transition to digital health didn’t take place overnight.

According to McKinsey , since the beginning of the pandemic, 70% of interactions in healthcare have been online. Why? Because they are convenient. No more waiting lines and fuss. Moreover, apps can help with a wide range of medical problems.

Categories of healthcare apps

The variety of healthcare apps keeps on expanding. We have separated the apps into 3 groups.

Apps for patients help users improve their health and wellbeing. Apps for hospitals and medical staff (also known as medical apps) optimize the work of medical organizations and doctors. Apps for both facilitate interaction between patients and doctors.

Here are the main categories with examples:

For patients:

• Wellness - This category includes software that monitors the diet, mood, sleep, stress, relaxation, and sport and fitness workouts. It has exercise guides, coaches weight loss, and provides custom workout plan apps. Such apps focus on educating users on healthy lifestyles and activity monitoring. Example: Calm - app for meditation, better sleep, and relaxation; 8fit - workout and meal planner with guidance and recipes.
• Women's Health - Cycle trackers and pregnancy management apps. Example: Pregnancy tracker by BabyCenter - monitors baby development, provides useful articles in addition to a social network for pregnant women.
• Mental Health Services - Apps for psychological help , emotional support, psychological guidance, and also meditation. Example: MindShift CBT - helps with anxiety, perfectionism, and phobias through tasks, journaling, and advice.
• Chronic Disease Management - Focuses on helping people with chronic illness by providing them with useful info and tools. Example: Manage My Pain - documents details on the user's condition.
• ER/Urgent Care - Leads patients to the nearest affordable emergency room and provides directions, time, and insurance options. Example: findERnow - a fast and reliable tool for finding the nearest emergency room.
• Physiotherapy Exercise - Provides a visual overview of the injury and contains a detailed rehabilitation program. Example: Physiotec - helps therapists build and track customized home exercise plans for patients, and has a database for managing physiotherapy and rehabilitation.
• Self-Diagnosing / Symptom Checking - Detect potential issues based on questionnaire results. Example: Symptomate - free and anonymous health assessment.
• Self-Monitoring - Journaling of well being and monitoring vital signs like pulse, blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol levels, hydration, and calorie intake. Example: ProCheck - provides real-life self-monitoring and health analysis.
• Medication Management - Helps patients adhere to prescription regime considering dosage, time intervals, and meals. Example: Medisafe - a “virtual pillbox” that reminds users when to take medications.

For hospitals and medical staff:

• Reference and Education - Resources with information on drugs, medical articles, instructions, and handbooks on diseases. Example: PEPID PEDS - an illustrated booklet that helps physicians and clinical staff check symptoms, conduct treatment, calculate dosage, and educate patients.

Have an idea for a medical eLearning app? We have developed over 50 educational apps, we can help!

• Communication - Connects doctors and lets them consult with other professionals. Example: Medscape consult - lets physicians work together to solve complicated cases.
• Clinical Assistance Apps with EMR and EHR Access \ Medical Record - Developing EHR gives online access to personal health records including charts, images, test results, and symptoms. Example: eClinicalWorks - software for network EHR and automation.
• Hospital CRM - Custom healthcare CRM helps manage doctors and patients, tracks their data, expands the practice, and provides customer support. Example: Castor - processes data from multiple sources for clinical research trials.
• Billing - Automate payments, cut down paperwork and improve efficiency. Example: Kareo Billing - ensures streamlined billing and simplifies paperwork.
• Equipment and Inventory Management - Automates management and tracking of medical supplies. Example: Sortly - tracks equipment and provides details on it.
• Medical Staff Management - Creates schedules, manages resources, and improves efficiency. Example: Dock Health - task management for medical teams.

Want to create your own management system? We can help

• Analytics - Processes all kinds of medical data. Example: DefinitiveHC - provides info on hospital workflow to boost the company’s commercial success.
• Claims Processing - Connects users directly with insurance companies, which saves time. Example: DataGenix - helps clinics and medical staff manage claims.
• Appointment Booking - Software for scheduling visits to a doctor. Example: SimplyBook - developed specifically for healthcare and allows booking from multiple channels.
• General Hospital Apps - Provides general information on the hospital and its staff, and 3D tours. Example: Mayo Clinic - shows doctors’ availability, allows payments, and provides insights on health.
• Doctor On-Demand / Telemedicine - The development of telemedicine apps gives patients the opportunity to contact doctors and attend online consultations. Example: Doxy.me - allows doctors to create personal virtual rooms for online practice with patients.
• e-Prescription - Allows doctors to prescribe medication virtually and connect with a selected pharmacy. Example: eMedicalPractice - offers e-prescribing among other digital services.
• Elderly Care Services and Assisted Living Facilities - Software that provides caregivers with resources to serve patients. Example: Caring Village - simplifies care for aging relatives.
• Medical chatbots - Optimize interaction with patients, answer FAQs, navigate users, book appointments, and much more. Example: One Remission - chatbot that provides cancer patients with valuable information.

Giants in the field of healthcare

When creating an app, usually, we make it as functional as possible. Customers love lots of useful features. Some companies went even further and focused on creating whole ecosystems in the healthcare field.

McKinsey defines two different approaches in app development: superapp and string-of-pearls .

A superapp is a multifunctional system that integrates different services from several providers. that is popular among big-tech players. The superapps originated in Asia, but they have become popular world-wide.

Though superapps have gained in popularity, 64% of entrepreneurs find the string-of-pearls approach more realistic. It is less complex and requires less effort than supperapps. The string-of-pearls approach implies that apps are cooperating with other apps that provide related services and customers can login once to use all of them. Because of legislation like GDPR, and of privacy and data security concerns, this option is popular in European countries.

Examples of superapps

Mayo Clinic - 150-year-old national nonprofit medical center in the USA. The pandemic made the Mayo Clinic quickly adopt virtual care delivery and in-home patient monitoring. Today the clinic offers asynchronous consultations, acute home care, nursing and wound care, and monitoring of chronic diseases.

Alan - a healthtech company from France that is growing rapidly. It specializes in proactive care, insurance, care delivery, and post-care. Alan’s goal is to revolutionize health insurance by improving user experience by giving doctors and patients constant access to their information.

WeDoctor - a Chinese multi-functional platform that provides medical services, online pharmacies, psychological support, real-time pandemic reports, and even cloud-based software for hospitals, and other services 24/7. It connects 270,000 doctors, 222 million patients, and nearly 8000 hospitals across China. It offers an integrated offline and online healthcare experience.

Examples of the string-of-pearls apps

Teladoc - gives patients access to their personal data and connects them with doctors and pharmacies.

Pepid - provides decision support to clinicians, integrates with EHR, e-Prescription, and physician portals.

Appointik - scheduling and medical practice management software with online consultations, billing, and e-Prescription available.

There are a lot of multifunctional apps. But what is the perfect combination of services that makes an app truly appealing and useful for customers? According to McKinsey research, 71% of respondents think that telemedicine to pharmacy is an optimal patient journey.

Wanna build a healthcare and pharmacy app?

Key success factors for healthcare apps

Available services are not the only things that matter while building a healthcare app. Below are several other key factors that McKinsey identified as necessary for an application to succeed in healthcare.

Convenience

The vast majority of respondents, 77%, reported that convenience is the most important factor when using a healthcare app. Your app must have great functionality, and a user-friendly interface. Make it easy and accessible for customers to book an appointment, call a doctor, and access their information online 24/7. Examples of ‘convenience’ features:

• Scheduling - for fast and easy appointment setting
• Chat and communication - to facilitate interaction between patients and doctors
• Telemedicine options (video/audio/text) - for comfortable communication

• Notifications and reminders - to keep users aware of important things (e.g. doctor appointments)
• Geolocation - to show results based on the user’s location
• Dashboards - for admin to see the app performance
• File storage - to store health-related data safely
• Image recognition - for symptom identification

For 60% of respondents, trust is vital in healthcare. This involves aspects like data privacy (which we will discuss separately) and app reliability. Reliability can be achieved with a doctor-on-demand option, competent therapists, and great service. The platform must verify doctors by checking their license, education, and work experience. A free introductory call with a doctor will also build trust. Examples of ‘trust’ features:  

• Ratings and reviews - to see feedback from other users
• Verification for doctors - to check their expertise and eligibility
• Compliance with regulations (e.g. CCPA, HITECH Act, FFDCA, CLIA, IMLCC, etc.) - to show approval from law institutions
• Regular updates - to make sure the software is up to date
• Free trial - to let customers try an app before buying it

Impact on outcomes

This factor is very significant for 53% of respondents. If an app doesn’t improve the patient’s well-being - what’s the point? The end results from your app must be proven and indispensable. Examples of ‘impact’ features:

• Journaling - to document changes and developments
• Monitoring (vital signs, wellbeing) - to track user health state
• Progress tracking - to see progress and if the patient is following the treatment program

End-to-end journey

This is the overall customer experience with an app. Everything from describing the problem to diagnosis, or from treatment to adherence management. Navigation, usability, and design influence how much customers enjoy interacting with the software. Examples of ‘journey’ features:

• Education on platform using - to use a platform effectively
• Ability to find medical help
• Symptom checking - for diagnosis
• Integrations with pharmacies - to order medications
• Integrations with other useful medical apps - for complete experience

Data privacy

Fraud and data leakage in healthcare have catastrophic consequences. The app must be compliant with regulations like HIPAA and others depending on the country. Examples of ‘privacy’ features:

• Authorization - to ensure privacy
• Authentication - to verify user identity
• Automatic log off - to prevent unauthorized access
• Audits and alerts - to control activity within an app
• Data encryption - to make data unavailable to unauthorized people
• Regulation compliant hosting and infrastructure
• Security and privacy options - to let users modify personal settings

Existing customer relationship

Understanding and caring for customers is the secret to customer satisfaction. Personal experience and excellent support can leave a fabulous impression. Examples of ‘customer relationship’ features:

• CRM - to improve overall interaction with customers
• Assessing the quality of care - to ensure a high level of service
• Personalization (search, recommendations) - for superb individual experience
• Support - to help if questions arise
• Social media integration - to simplify access and improve interaction with customers
• Chatbot - to answer customer requests 24/7

Loyalty benefits

It’s not about keeping customers on the hook, it is about motivating them to return to the app because of its benefits. Returning customers spend more on each transaction, recommend the app to others, and try new offers. Rewarding (incentives, premium service, early access) and engaging customers is a key to making them visit the app again and again. Examples of ‘benefits’ features:

• Gamification - to engage and entertain customers
• Reward program - to retain loyal customers

Monetization models

Here are the most common ways to earn money on healthcare apps.

• Freemium - It can be a free trial or free partial functionality while the rest of the content must be paid for. For example, PEPID PEDS offers a 2-week trial after which the pricing starts at $299.95 per year.
• Subscription - Users make regular payments (weekly, monthly, yearly) for services. For example, the Kareo Billing app charges $125 per month.
• In-app ads - Healthcare is a sensitive topic; inappropriate ads can push customers away. Advertisement of related services is much better in this case. For example, MyFitnessPal: Calorie Counter has a free version but it contains ads from other companies.
• Paid apps - Users pay to download the app. This option is the least popular because people don’t like paying for something before they use it. For example, the 7-Minute Workout Challenge app costs $3.99 and offers additional in-app purchases.
• Commissions - Additional fees for provided services. For example, Amwell makes money on revenue from visits on a fee-for-service basis.

The most popular strategy is the subscription. Usually, apps combine several monetization strategies, e.g. subscription with a free trial.

Development steps

What to start with? Here are the main steps on the road to success.

Analyze market needs and set your goals

Who is your target audience and what do they want? Is your offer unique or are there identical apps on the market? Is it legal to provide your services in your location? For example, selling medical marijuana is legal in the District of Columbia, but forbidden in Utah. Be aware that the medical marijuana marketplace is a growing business and its pioneers enjoy success.

Find a development team

If you don’t have your own team, outsource the development to get quality work at a lower price. Search for developers with good ratings and experience with projects similar to yours.

Create an MVP

Start building your software with the essential features. It will show how your business idea does in the wild and if it is worth further investment. Don’t forget to write detailed specifications.

Make it compliant with regulations

Your app must meet the governmental privacy and security standards and regulations. For example:

• for the USA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• for Canada - Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
• for Europe - e-Privacy Directive 2002/58/EC , Data Protection Directive 1995/46/EC .

If you need more information on EMR development and HIPAA compliance you can find it here:

Understanding HIPAA for Mental Health ,

The Ultimate Guide HIPAA Compliance and EMR Systems

Update and improve

Nothing can be perfect at the beginning. After launch, your app may need adjustments, additional features, automatic processes, and bug elimination.

Grow and build an ecosystem around it

As your platform starts attracting more customers and earning money, think about expanding your business. Offer related services and integrate with other systems to provide your users with a seamless, enjoyable experience.

Cost of healthcare app development

Every project is unique. The more complicated the idea is - the more resources it needs. But in general, you will have 2 options - white label and custom development.

White label implies using a pre-written solution which helps save time and money on development. It offers customization to some degree. The cost starts from $5,000.

Custom development means building the app from scratch and thus, having full customization thanks to unique code. This option requires more time and money, but provides you with extra security as a bonus. The cost starts from $10,000 for an MVP.

What follows are ballpark estimations of the cost for different types of healthcare apps based on Greenice rates.

A Doctor on-demand app: from $5,000 for white label / from $10,000 for custom. Software with more complex functionality like a custom chatbot with an AI symptom checker, telemedicine, and integration with an EMR, will cost $40,000 - $60,000.

Custom nursing home/assisted living facility app: $20,000 - $25,000 for MVP.

A marketplace with core features and payment integration: from $5,000 / $10,000.

e-Learning app with courses: from $5,000 / $10,000.

Hospital CRM: from $20,000.

Custom medical chatbot with Amazon Lex technology: from $10,000.

Need an accurate estimation of your project?

Our experience in healthcare application development services

Here are the examples of healthcare apps that we have developed for our clients .

A healthcare job board - We helped develop a job board for US medical professionals and organizations. Healthcare employers can post jobs for free and pay for only qualified candidates they find. The website supports geographic job search and provides a multitude of other filters.

HRMS for a health services agency - We created a Human Resources Management System for recruitment, employee training and management using AWS technologies. This solution helped our client optimize staff management. It can also be used as SaaS.

A chatbot for medical organizations - We developed a chatbot with Amazon Lex and Amazon Connect. The bot helps patients schedule appointments or connects them to an agent. With a symptom checker feature, the bot is able to make a preliminary diagnosis and suggest the proper specialist.

Home service software - We developed a system that coordinates the services of aides, nurses, and other healthcare professionals with the clients’ needs. Its features include scheduling, reporting, invoicing, and patient record management. The system is HIPAA compliant.

CRM for mental health counselors - We developed a custom solution for a mental health center that needed to transition away from manual data processing. Implementation of a custom CRM improved management, simplified administrative work, and secured data. We also added such features as appointment scheduling, modification of treatment plans, integration with EHRs/EMRs, and reports.

Job board website for dentists - We helped to upgrade and maintain a platform for dentists to find long-term or temporary jobs, and to manage their invoices and appointments. At the same time, the website helps dental practices fill their open positions quickly.

Medical app for physical therapy - We built software that allows physiotherapists to create and manage personalized Home Exercise Programs (HEP) as a part of rehabilitation. The main component is an electronic database that manages these programs. We also added a mechanism for tracking patients’ progress.

Assisted living facility for senior care - We created software that automates mundane tasks of caregivers allowing them to pay more attention to patients. We developed features like resident and staff profiles, reports, activity tracking, notifications, messages, and permission management.

If you have questions or want to develop something similar (or even something completely unique) - send us a couple words via contact form. We’ll be happy to help!

Developing a custom healthcare app is a great idea. Such applications are useful for patients, doctors, and hospitals. The main thing customers look for is convenience. Keep in mind that it also requires extensive work to create software that people will actually download, use and pay for. Truly unique apps must offer great functionality. There are no strict rules - development is a creative process and the only limit to your imagination is cost.

Learn how to make a healthcare app using the experience of other successful companies. Let us help you turn your idea into reality.

Ready to develop a fantastic mHealth app? 

Inna Lebedeva is a market researcher and writer at Greenice web development company. She investigates IT niches and writes articles for entrepreneurs who want to launch their business in those niches. Utilizing our experienced Greenice team, and intensive market research, Inna provides in-depth analysis to business owners, enabling them to make informed decisions.

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10 Health App Ideas for 2024 (+ A Healthcare App Case Study by Apptunix)

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The healthcare industry is on the road to success. Did you know that the Healthcare Industry is accountable for one-third of the GDP in the US? With the growing demand for online healthcare services, many business owners seek health app ideas. But why is the demand increasing at such a rate?

Imagine you have an app that allows you to connect with your doctors directly and discuss any symptoms or prescriptions. Why would you take out time to visit the doctor then? This small scenario explains the convenience and ease apps for healthcare are offering.

After the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, people have started preferring online fitness or healthcare apps as they are more convenient for the required services. Moreover, these applications offer outstanding healthcare app development services for:

• Doctor-patient communication
• Doctor-doctor knowledge sharing
• Elimination of paperwork and many more.

Here is a curated list of top 10 health app ideas. Check them and get one developed for your business too!

Health App Ideas: What’s Going On In The Market?

With the market advancing so fast technologically, the healthcare industry is also upgrading. We can see many innovations like healthcare wearable devices, robotic surgery, etc. mHealth applications are the new go-to solutions for most businesses in this industry.

The healthcare app development market was estimated to grow even before the outbreak of Covid-19. The industry is predicted to reach $213.6 billion by 2025. Interesting, right? Let’s catch up on some online healthcare industry market statistics:

• The global digital healthcare market is growing at a CAGR of 28.5% from 2020-to 2026.
• According to research , the mobile app downloads of healthcare applications grow 50% every year.  Also, the number of downloads of healthcare apps surpassed 3.2 billion. 
• According to a report by Accenture , the acquisition rate of digital healthcare solutions is continuously growing. 74% of patients find using such apps convenient and are satisfied with the services.

Now that we have described how the industry is growing, here are some health app ideas for your business.

Top 10 Health App Ideas You Should Go For

Looking at the numbers above, you must have got an answer to  – Why Should You Build A Healthcare App For Your Business? Let’s look at some health app ideas to help you go for the fitness app development.

1. Doctor On-Demand App

Imagine being in a foreign country and having a severe stomach ache. What would you do then? You may plan to have home remedies, but will the resources be available? Some people have no idea, but there is a way users can connect with a certified doctor anywhere and at any time. Yes, we are talking about on-demand doctor applications. 

One of the famous apps for this solution is Doctor On Demand . This platform allows users to get medical facilities and remote care without visiting the hospital. Doctor On Demand will enable patients to set up their profile, check out doctors, take consultations and avail the services they require. 

Doctor On Demand Revenue Model: How Does The App Make Money?

• Featured listings where doctors and physicians will have to pay to get listed in the application.
• The app earns royalty from each doctor-patient transaction
• In-app advertising commissions from third parties.

2. Diet Tracking App

Everybody wants to be fit from fat, and diet tracking app solutions are here to serve users the same. According to Polaris Market research, the global fitness market will grow to $14.7 billion by 2026. This means there is a lot of scope for your diet tracking app. However, the industry leader in this market is MyFitnessPal . 

It is one of the most famous fitness and diet tracking applications that helps users track their daily food intake, nutrients calculations, vitamins, calories, etc. The platform can analyze users’ eating patterns and recommend what is missing and what can be cut back. 

MyFitnessPal Revenue Model: How Does The App Make Money?

• The app earns from sponsorships to display its ads and products
• Subscription plans entice users to get more facilities and advanced features.
• Interested users pay for extra features like more workout sessions and diet plans.
• Affiliate marketing

Also, read – Guide on How to Create A Tracking App Like MyFitnessPal and Earn

3. Medical Record App

A medical record app is a kind of diary application that offers health record facilities to patients to save them for future purposes. Users can access these records anytime and anywhere to share with other doctors. With this, doctors can look at the past health of patients and recommend medicines accordingly.

  One of the most famous apps for medical records is MediSafe . It is simply a medical reminder app. Users are offered personalized reminders for medications and vital drug warnings. The application also offers real-time assistance to patients registered.

MediSafe Revenue Model: How Does The App Earn Money?

• Freemium model to offer advanced functionalities after the user pays.
• Certified content where patients will have access to some part of the medical content help for free.
• Localized advertising campaigns
• Subscription fees

4. E-prescription App

e-Prescriptions work closely with medicine delivery applications. An e-prescription application is known to store patients’ information, and it is also integrated with the systems of doctors and hospitals. This aims to offer the patients and doctors ease to discuss any medical conflicts. 

GoodRx is a well-known e-Prescription application in the US, and it is available on mobile applications and websites. The application offers medical services based on prescriptions, and the best part is that it offers price comparison services of pharmacies for the users to pick the cheaper one. 

GoodRx Revenue Model: How Does This App Make Money?

• Prescription revenues where a discount code is generated for the customers, and once the code has been used several times; the fixed fee is paid back to the platform. 
• Subscriptions (Gold and Kroger Savings)
• Advertisements

5. Online Therapy App

Online therapy applications are developed to allow patients to consult their doctors or therapists easily. The app offers text and calling services to communicate with professionals. Such apps help patients who hesitate in discussing their health issues with doctors in person. 

One of the most promising online therapy apps is Talkspace . It allows patients to connect with doctors and share their problems. Features like scheduled appointments, appointment reminders, connecting with the right therapist, and video and audio text make it different from other therapy apps.

Talkspace Revenue Model: How Does This App Make Money?

• In-app advertising
• In-app purchases
• Freemium Model
• Paid downloads

Also, read – How Consultation App Like Talkspace Works? Know Development Scope

6. On-Demand Physiotherapist App

On-demand physiotherapist applications have brought so much convenience to the market. Using the application, patients can book an appointment with a nearby physiotherapist anywhere and anytime.  Users can pick the one with the best reviews and ratings. Moreover, they can schedule an appointment and make online payments. 

iFit is a physiotherapy software solution that aims to boost the quality of care. It has many features that improve patient satisfaction and boost patient compliance. It also offers accessible patient education and doctor-patient communication. 

iFit Revenue Model: How Does The App Make Money?

• Third-party advertisements
• Subscription model for paid features 
• Commissions from medicine sales

7. VR Meditation App

One of the best health app ideas is a meditation app powered by virtual reality. You can add numerous features to your meditation app to stand out. Some can be calming sound management, background area management, 360-degree recordings, choosing a specific climate, etc. 

The meditation app called Calm started as just an app that has turned into a Unicorn startup. It is an excellent mental fitness application that offers stories, music, and meditations to help users lessen anxiety and sleep better. 

Calm Revenue Model: How Does This App Make Money?

• Subscriptions (Consumer Channels) will come after the 7-day free trial. Users will have two options – an annual subscription plan and an unlimited subscription plan (Calm for Life).
• Calm for Business (B2B Solutions) for the businesses who want to avail the services of this app. 
• Brand Partnerships for various companies to promote their solutions and products on this platform.

8. Health Tracking App

Health tracking apps come in handy for users to track their daily activities. It also offers other services like basic health data collection, including sleep rate, heart rate, weight loss, etc. Market research is a very crucial step in health tracking app development.

Headspace is one of the most famous health tracking apps in the market that allows your friends and family from the phone book to connect on the platform. This platform offers meditation exercises, mindfulness tactics, and health tracking facilities.

Headspace Revenue Model: How Does The App Earn Money?

• Subscription plans can be purchased monthly or annually. 
• Businesses can choose from 3 foundational, guided, and advanced packages to offer mental health facilities to their employees.
• Headspace health is like a digital health subsidiary used to include mindfulness in digital medicines. 

9. Pharmacy Delivery App

Pharmacy delivery applications are on-demand apps that offer delivery services to pharmacies. Using this app, patients can get their medicines delivered to their doorstep without visiting the pharmacy.  This benefits the high-risk individuals who cannot reach the store physically to make the purchase.

  PharmEasy has been the industry leader in pharmacy delivery apps. It is a one-stop solution that offers on-demand medicine delivery services to consumers. It provides online doctor consultation, telehealth, diagnostics, purchasing medicines online, etc.

PharmEasy Revenue Model: How Does The App Make Money?

• The app earns money by displaying sponsored searches of many pharmaceutical entities.
• Attractive discounts are offered to the consumers.
• Commission from customers for the medicines and products sold via the platform
• Delivery charges

10. App for Women’s Well Being

Men and women have distinct health demands as the menstrual cycle plays a crucial role in the physical aspects of women. An app for women’s well-being is one of the most thoughtful health app ideas. You can get an app developed that tracks the menstrual course and indicates the safest fertile days for intercourse and pregnancy management.

One of the best apps for women’s well-being is Clue . It is a tracker app that works as a resource for its users’ health. It delivers health education, generates shareable reports, and sets up reminders and other services. 

Clue Revenue Model: How Does This App Make Money?

• Clue Plus subscription to avail advanced features 
• In-app purchases (premium versions)

How Apptunix Helped a US-Based Client Develop Cure - A Pharmacy App

Now that you can choose the mobile app solution according to your business requirements, let us help you with the development. Apptunix is one of the US’s leading healthcare app development company with 300+ tech experts. We have enough experience in this sector, and the Cure app is the proof.

We helped this business take its business online by providing an on-demand pharmacy store application. The cure app aims to offer ease and convenience to its users by allowing them to order their medicines on the platform and get them delivered to their doorstep. 

We used advanced technologies for this application keeping the features and functionalities in mind. With our solution having a customer app, a pharmacy panel, and an admin panel, the business is all set to skyrocket its revenues.

Want to know more about our expertise in developing the cure app? 

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Wrapping Up

These were the top 10 health app ideas that may help you decide for yourself.

Each of them covers a specific healthcare sector, but as you know, the business world is filled with endless opportunities. You may find out which solution suits you best and reach out to us regarding the same. 

We have developed so many healthcare applications that we are now ready to build custom health apps for any business industry! We offer dedicated expert healthcare app developers who listen to your app requirements and provide a complete mobile app development cycle, including technologies. Contact us today!

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A Guide to Healthcare Mobile App Development

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a boom in the number of mobile medical apps. Statista projects the market — which had a value of $2.4 billion in 2017 — will increase to  $11 billion by 2025 . There’s no denying that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the demand for telemedicine and virtual healthcare services. 

Apart from that, people are becoming more health-conscious, which leads to an increased use of health and fitness apps. In fact,  25% of healthcare mobile app users  in the US use paid apps. 

However, that doesn’t mean all and every healthcare mobile app will sell. The app you create must offer an excellent user experience, comply with regulations (e.g., HIPAA ), and have a solid marketing plan. Let’s learn more about healthcare mobile app development based on these criteria.

The Healthcare Mobile App Landscape

A quick look at the healthcare software market will tell you that you’re up against many competitors. In the Q3 of 2023, the Google Play Store had  54,546 medical health apps , whereas the  Apple App Store had 41,517 .

So, when undergoing healthcare mobile app development, your first concern is the fierce competition. You have to break through the noise by offering something different and innovative. 

Besides competition, you also need to focus on user experience. Your app isn’t a game or a social media platform but a tool that people will use to manage their health. It will understandably warrant more caution and attention to detail. Any bugs or glitches could have serious consequences for your end users. Other important considerations in healthcare mobile app development include: 

Regulatory Compliance and Data Security

When you do or build something in the healthcare industry, you must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Some  entities covered by HIPAA  include medical professionals and providers, health plans, and healthcare organizations. The law also applies to healthcare mobile apps. 

If you’re new to this term, HIPAA is a federal law protecting patient health information from disclosure without their consent or knowledge. It also outlines requirements for handling and securing this type of data. The components of this law include: 

If your in-house development teams have taken on the app development task, you must train them on HIPAA regulations. Similarly, if you outsource your project to dedicated software development services, ensure that the third party and  relevant business associates are HIPAA-compliant. 

Data security is also of utmost importance in custom healthcare software development. You must make provisions for entity authentication and access controls in your app. Some authentication methods proposed by HIPAA are: 

You must ensure the security of the PHI your app’s network transmits. For instance, the HTTPS protocol offers SSL/TLS encryption. Simply put, the health-related information is converted into inane characters and transmitted over the web, making it impossible for anyone to intercept them. You should use a protocol of this type for all app pages containing PHI. 

User-Centric Design and Patient Engagement

Besides compliance, healthcare mobile app developers should focus on user-centric design and patient engagement. Keep in mind that your target audience is already dealing with a stressful situation. You don’t want your app to add to their worries. 

A user-centric design means the app should be tailored for easy use by patients. If it’s for healthcare providers, it must allow easy access to electronic health records (EHRs) and patients’ medical history. Similarly, an app for patients should have a simple interface and use simple language. 

Patient engagement is another crucial aspect of healthcare mobile app development. The goal is to involve patients in their care and promote self-management. The good news is that if your app is user-centric, it will likely drive patient engagement. If people find an app easy to use, they will be more likely to continue using it. 

Types of Healthcare Apps

When we discuss telehealth apps, the first type that comes to mind is the virtual consultation app. Patients can use these apps to connect with healthcare professionals through video conferencing or chat services. However, these are not the only types of healthcare mobile applications. 

For Patients

Much of the mobile app development for healthcare happens to accommodate patients. Healthcare apps help patients manage their health in various ways. Some examples of such apps include: 

For Healthcare Providers

Healthcare providers also use a host of medical apps. Some of the most common types of mobile apps for healthcare providers are: 

For Caregivers

Besides medical organizations and patients, caregivers also benefit from mobile apps designed for their use. For instance, care coordination apps help caregivers monitor their loved one’s health and well-being. These apps also provide educational resources and support material. Similarly, communication apps allow caregivers to stay connected with doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers. 

Steps to Build a Healthcare App

There’s no one-fits-all solution to build a healthcare app. However, here are some standard steps:

• Define the Scope: What type of healthcare app do you want to build? Is it for patients, healthcare providers, or caregivers? How does your app differ from other apps on the market? These are a few questions that you need to answer. 
• Conduct Market Research:  Your market research will tell you about the target audience and their pain points and demographics. You can then use this information to refine your app idea and make it more user-centric. 
• Prioritize Features:  The market research should also help you identify features to include in your healthcare app. If you have a limited budget, stick to the must-have features, such as those highly in demand or the ones that define your unique selling point. You can add more features later to amp up your app’s functionality.
• Perfect UI and UX Design: User-centricity is crucial in mobile app development for healthcare. So, your app should be easy to navigate and visually appealing. 
• Create a Monetization Strategy: Would you like to charge users for downloading your app? Or is it a subscription-based app that generates revenue through in-app purchases? Your choice will affect how you add features and design your app. 
• Develop and Test the App:  Finally, you’re all set to develop the app. You can either do it in-house or get external assistance. If your in-house team lacks in some departments, you can hire freelancers to fill the gap. Alternatively, work with a healthcare mobile app development  company that specializes in creating HIPAA-compliant software . 

Whatever route you choose to go, don’t forget to test the app rigorously before launching it in the market. Once your app is live, ensure regular maintenance. 

Challenges in Healthcare App Development

Developing a healthcare app involves navigating a landscape far more complex than what’s encountered in creating social media platforms or e-commerce applications. This complexity introduces several unique challenges.

Security and Data Privacy: The foremost concern in healthcare app development is ensuring robust security and data privacy. Patients and healthcare providers alike may hesitate to use an app if there are doubts about its ability to safeguard sensitive health data. Ensuring ironclad security is, therefore, not just a feature but a fundamental requirement.

Regulatory Compliance: Adherence to regulatory standards like HIPAA is non-negotiable in healthcare app development. Non-compliance can lead to severe legal repercussions. Furthermore, integrating with existing healthcare systems, such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), adds another layer of complexity, demanding meticulous attention to compliance.

Evolving Healthcare Regulations: Healthcare regulations are continually changing, and your app must be agile enough to adapt to these shifts. This means healthcare app development is an ongoing journey, not a one-time task. It requires constant updates and refinements to stay compliant and relevant.

Addressing these challenges can seem daunting, but partnering with a specialized healthcare mobile app development company like Flatirons can make the process manageable. With our expertise in HIPAA compliance and extensive experience in healthcare app development, we offer end-to-end services – from prototyping and testing to quality assurance and ongoing maintenance. Let Flatirons be your guide through the intricate landscape of healthcare app development, ensuring your app meets all necessary standards and serves its intended purpose effectively.

Simplifying Healthcare Mobile App Development

Transform the complexity of medical app development into a smooth and streamlined process with Flatirons at your side. Our approach to custom healthcare software services is rooted in a commitment to quality and compliance, ensuring that every aspect of your app is meticulously crafted and rigorously tested.

Our in-house team of quality assurance specialists is dedicated to ensuring that your app functions flawlessly, offering a seamless experience to its users. Meanwhile, our skilled project managers efficiently steer the development process, ensuring timely delivery without compromising on quality.

At the heart of our operation are our expert app developers, who boast extensive experience in software development, particularly in the healthcare domain. Their expertise is complemented by a deep commitment to user-centric design – every feature and function of the app is shaped by thorough user research and testing. This user-focused approach guarantees that the final product not only meets but exceeds the needs and expectations of its end users.

Choosing Flatirons means partnering with a team that understands the intricacies of healthcare mobile app development and is equipped to navigate its challenges effectively. Let us help you bring your healthcare app vision to life, delivering a solution that is both impactful and compliant with industry standards.

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Medical Software Business Plan

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AgaMatrix, Inc.

Executive summary executive summary is a brief introduction to your business plan. it describes your business, the problem that it solves, your target market, and financial highlights.">.

Overview AgaMatrix is a development stage venture based in Boston offering proprietary Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology that dramatically improves the functionality and performance of biosensor devices. AgaMatrix’s core DSP algorithms solve a number of immediate problems in the medical devices market by significantly boosting the performance of biosensors without costly specialized hardware and additional chemicals. Initially, AgaMatrix will sell to medical device makers, specifically, home blood glucose monitors and hospital point-of-care blood analyzers. AgaMatrix anticipates achieving positive cash flow by year three with future target healthcare segments to include the large immunoassay and implantable biosensor sectors; as well as other vertical industries that heavily rely on biosensors, such as the military chemical agent detection, environmental air/water quality monitoring, and industrial processing sectors.

Problem – Glucose Monitors Are Burdensome, Painful To Use Many diabetic patients fail to use home blood glucose devices as prescribed because the regimen is too burdensome or too physically painful. Four to seven times a day, a patient must puncture his or her finger to draw blood onto a test strip for insertion into the glucose biosensor. The average compliance rate for testing is less than 1.5 times a day, resulting in the acceleration of complications caused by diabetes, such as blindness, stroke, and heart and kidney failure. In fact, diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in individuals aged 20-74 and better glucose monitoring compliance is the single biggest key to prevention. Device makers have identified the physical pain of using existing devices as the root cause of non-compliance, and they are seeking ways to reduce the sample size required by their devices. AgaMatrix technology will enable less invasive drawing mechanisms to meet the overwhelming demand for less painful alternatives.

Problems in the hospital blood analyzer market are more related to the lack of the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the devices, which results in reduced adoption levels. AgaMatrix’s value proposition to this market is very clear: devices that are more accurate and sensitive will stand a higher chance of being more readily adopted.

A Software Solution for a Hardware Problem Historically, the biosensor device industry has attempted to overcome problems related to accuracy, sensitivity, and robustness by enhancing the chemical (hardware) aspects of the devices, such as the biological and chemical design of their sensors. By contrast, AgaMatrix is pioneering a software approach based on digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms that has a number of distinct practical advantages, including lower cost, easier/faster upgrade capability, and complementarity with respect to a wide variety of chemistry/hardware-based biosensor technologies.

AgaMatrix’s solution, consisting of a suite of software modules, enables new functionality and dramatically improves the performance of biosensor devices. Performance improvements include the ability to leverage increases in signal-to-noise ratio to reduce blood sample requirements. For the professional healthcare market, AgaMatrix offers the ability to improve the overall accuracy and sensitivity of hospital point-of-care analyzers. Boosting accuracy removes a major roadblock hindering widespread adoption of portable blood analyzers in place of conventional laboratory equipment.

Software DSP solutions have been vital to the success of many other industries where physical limitations would have impaired their growth. For example, in the 1980s, makers of CD players relied on oversampling and error-correction algorithms to compensate for low quality hardware filters and to overcome disk-skipping problems. AgaMatrix’s algorithms provide analogous solutions in the biosensor space.

Business Model – Software Licensing and Royalty Fees from Device Makers Initially, AgaMatrix will operate as a technology licensing company, deriving royalty revenue streams based on device makers’ consumables sales (i.e., disposable test strips and cartridges used in the devices). Revenues will be acquired from the sale of the technology to home blood glucose device makers, hospital point-of-care blood analyzer makers, and minimally invasive and implantable blood glucose biosensor developers.

Therasense – an Illustration of How Disruptable the Glucose Market Is Just a few years ago, the blood glucose market was dominated by four major players (numbers represent annual revenues from test strips): Roche ($1.27B), J & J ($1.09B), Bayer ($650M), and Abbot ($450M). These companies have been around since the 1980’s. Therasense (THER) was founded in 1996, rolled out their first product in June 2000, and leveraged their key differentiator (very similar to what AgaMatrix is offering): the ability to reduce blood sample volume to make glucose testing less painful. In the span of less than two years since their product roll-out, they have achieved $200 million in annual revenues, gone public, and now have a market capitalization of over $800 million. Bottom line: this is a market that is very open to new technological entrants, especially when they are able to reduce pain for the user.

Competitive Advantages There are no direct competitors pursuing our highly unique and proprietary approach, developed over the past seven years by our world-class scientific team. AgaMatrix technology will be complementary to potential indirect competition from the in-house laboratories of major medical device makers. The sustainable competitive advantages that AgaMatrix commands include:

• Superior software paradigm, complementary to chemical (hardware) advances in biosensors.
• Expertise developed over the course of seven years of biosensor research.
• Monopolization of the scientific team responsible for the original paradigm innovation.
• Development lead time of at least two years over potential competition.
• Intellectual property strategy involving two core utility patents (filed) and three defensive utility patents.

Customer Traction We have approached two blood glucose monitor makers and one hospital point-of-care device manufacturer as potential customer targets. There are over 20 other major potential target companies we have not yet approached. The following is a summary of the current status of the companies we have reached:

• Strong interest to partner from two blood glucose monitor companies (discussions with Presidents); details are confidential at this point, but we believe we will be able to close a deal by June 2002.
• Strong interest from a leading blood glucose monitor maker (J & J – discussions with Director-level staff) and the leading hospital point-of-care device maker (i-STAT – discussions with Vice President and Director-level staff).

The Team A current team composed of:

• The three leading scientists pioneering the use of digital signal processing to improve biosensor technology, with an aggregate of over 40 years of direct DSP/biosensor research experience.
• Entrepreneurs who have founded, built and run an enterprise software company.
• An expanding board of veteran advisors made up of medical doctors who have healthcare business experience. 
• An additional technical team of three committed to joining the company post-seed financing, composed of engineers from MIT and Tufts, with technical management experience and an aggregate of over 25 years of commercial engineering experience.

Financing AgaMatrix has been self-funded by the principals of the company since its founding. The company recently closed a seed round of $500K from a number of healthcare angel investors and IncTANK, an early stage venture capital fund. A Series A round is expected in four to five months of approximately $1 million. 

• A world-class scientific team consisting of Dr. Sridhar Iyengar (CTO), Dr. Justin Gooding, and Dr. Ian Harding, the engineering team, and an aggressive business team with start-up and management experience.
• Technology applicable to a number of other vertical markets and protected by a rigorous IP strategy.
• External validation from existing relationships with potential customers and advancement to final rounds in a number of national business plan competitions.

1.1 Mission

AgaMatrix develops solutions to power next-generation biological and chemical sensor systems. The value that AgaMatrix delivers to this market is the ability to dramatically improve the accuracy, sensitivity, and robustness of a range of different sensors for the purpose of making medical diagnostic devices more effective. AgaMatrix’s technology enables the development of devices that will be essentially painless to patients and that will meet the demand for better accuracy in medical diagnostics. It is committed to providing software solutions for a critical hardware problem that affects millions of diabetic patients and hospital patients worldwide.

1.2 Objectives

• Develop technology solutions that will increase the adoption and compliance rates of diagnostic medical devices by improving the functionality and performance of biosensors, specifically for home blood glucose monitors and hospital point-of-care blood analyzers.
• Achieve positive cash flow by year three.
• Reach $50 million in annual revenues by year four.
• Expand into other industries that heavily rely on biosensors, including industrial processing, environmental monitoring, and military sectors. 

Company Summary company overview ) is an overview of the most important points about your company—your history, management team, location, mission statement and legal structure.">

AgaMatrix, Inc., which was incorporated in Delaware in 2001, is an early-stage venture offering proprietary Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology that dramatically improves the functionality and performance of biosensor devices. AgaMatrix’s core DSP algorithms solve a number of immediate problems in the medical devices market by significantly boosting the performance of biosensors without costly specialized hardware and additional chemicals. Initially, the company will sell technology solutions to diagnostic medical device makers, specifically, manufacturers of home blood glucose monitors and hospital point-of-care blood analyzers. Future target healthcare segments include the immunoassay and implantable biosensor sectors. Its headquarters are located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

2.1 Start-up Summary

AgaMatrix’s start-up costs amount to $4,900, which covers the initial expenses for opening the first office. These costs include incorporation of the company, design of the company logo and website, purchase of office and IT equipment, and other miscellaneous expenses. The start-up costs are financed by direct owner investment. The assumptions are detailed in the following table and illustration.

2.2 Company Ownership

AgaMatrix is a privately-held Delaware corporation, subchapter C. It was created in 2001. Sonny Vu and Sridhar Iyengar, the company’s founders, own the majority of equity. Members of the board of directors and advisors also hold minority stock positions. All employees of the company are rewarded with stock compensation packages.

AgaMatrix will develop a set of software products that provides critically needed diagnostic functionality to current and next-generation medical biosensors. Optimized for computational efficiency, they are designed to be easily incorporated into a number of leading biosensor platforms. All products that we develop will be powered by our core DSP algorithms with certain features configured and optimized for the relevant applications. Our algorithms will be delivered in a format that is convenient and useful to our customers; as such, each AgaMatrix Product Suite will consist of a core DSP engine supplemented with integration tools, application-specific expansion modules, and professional services. Since our initial product focus is OEM technology, we will work closely with our customers and partners in the development and deployment of our products. The core DSP algorithms will be encoded as a platform technology in modular components that can be rapidly configured as needed for various customers’ applications.

Initially, we are marketing one product for the glucose biosensor market and one product for the hospital POC market:

Suite Name: AccuMatrix

• Target Customer: Smaller Home Glucose Biosensor Manufacturers
• Why Needed: These customers need a method of suppressing interference from other known chemicals in the blood (vitamin C, Tylenol, and uric acid) that can react at the biosensor and give erroneous readings. They need to be able to suppress these interferences without the use of chemical mediators or expensive membranes.

Suite Name: PosiMatrix

• Target Customer: Hospital Point-of-Care Manufacturers
• Why Needed: These customers need a method of alerting the user when unknown chemicals in the blood interfere with the biosensor and give false positives. E.g., the FDA regularly approves new anesthetic gases that are used in surgery; however, the POC makers cannot keep up with these new “unknown” chemicals that may be present in the patient’s blood and can interfere with the device. For one POC maker, it is “medically imperative” for them to avoid reporting false readings; thus, they need a method of identifying when the reading is corrupted by unknown chemical interference so that they may indicate to the user that the reading is not valid.

The core DSP algorithm engine contains all the needed functionality. Using a Configuration Tool, we can rapidly integrate the appropriate Data Modules that are appropriate for the target customer. These Modules contain a library of information that is needed to configure and optimize the core algorithms for the chemicals that are relevant to the customer’s device. Once configured, the algorithms will be delivered in the appropriate software or ASIC-design version for the target device and can be deployed with our Integration Tools by our Professional Services Deployment Team or by the customer’s engineering team. The basic components of each AgaMatrix Suite will include the following:

Core Engine Core DSP technology software and firmware code base will consist of a major portion of the algorithms that AgaMatrix develops. These algorithms will be activated as needed for each customer’s requirements by the Configuration Tools.

Data Modules These are libraries that contain empirical data needed to optimize the core DSP engine for the detection of different chemicals in various operating environments. The Configuration Tools will in part use the data from these Data Modules to customize the software for customers’ various products. We will initially offer the following 2 modules:

• Blood Glucose Data Module: Library of empirical information of the standard chemicals that are commonly encountered in blood glucose measurements. This data is used to optimize the core algorithms for detection of glucose and suppression of common interfering chemicals.
• Point-of-Care Data Module(s): Library of empirical information of the standard chemicals that are commonly encountered in various blood chemistry measurements routinely performed by point-of-care devices. This data is used to optimize the core algorithms for detection of each of the relevant chemicals and suppression of common interfering chemicals.
• Implantables Data Module: Library of empirical information on quantities that are relevant to implantable glucose sensors. This data is used to optimize the core algorithms to correct for sensor deterioration (fouling) effects and suppress signals from interfering chemicals while boosting the signal from glucose.
• Immunoassay Data Module(s): Library of empirical information of the standard chemicals that are commonly encountered in relevant immunoassays. Immunoassay Data Modules will be developed for each immunoassay that is of interest to the customer. This data is used to optimize the core algorithms for detection of the relevant chemicals for the given immunoassay.

Configuration Tools Configuration tools are the front-end interface of the software. This set of tools will allow for the rapid optimization and configuration of the core algorithms for various functionalities and chemicals. These tools are used to select which Data Modules and algorithms are needed for the customer’s application and generate the end product, which can be delivered either as software/firmware for the target device or be delivered in the form of an ASIC design.

Code Integration Tools This set of tools facilitates the integration and customization of software and firmware code base into customers’ products. These tools may be used by our Professional Services Deployment Team when integrating the product into the customers’ end-device, or they may be used by the customer’s in-house engineering teams themselves. Initially, we will include:

• Software Integration Tools: Tools that facilitate the integration of our technology onto microprocessor-based devices.
• Firmware Integration Tools: Tools that facilitate the integration of our technology onto firmware-based devices.

Technology and Development Tutorials These are in-depth, easy-to-use online tutorials consisting of scientific and engineering guides to help quickly bring a development and integration team up to speed on AgaMatrix’s DSP technology. The tutorials will consist of code examples, customization, and integration tutorials.

Professional Support Services Package A set of professional services, including software/firmware development and QA/QC testing, designed to assist in supporting the use and maintenance of the AgaMatrix Product Suites for customers and partners.

Based on initial discussions with potential customers, we believe that we can deliver our product in a format that will be readily usable by their development and integration teams. We will use established processes analogous to those used in the deployment of enterprise software solutions where a Deployment Team will assist the customer in the integration of our product into their devices, as indicated by the professional services component of our product offering.

Market Analysis Summary how to do a market analysis for your business plan.">

Medical diagnostics has the greatest existing opportunity from an industry size perspective as well as the degree of match between existing needs and AgaMatrix’s technology capability. The sub-segments in this market that the AgaMatrix product line is addressing in the short term (within the next two to three years) are the large, high-margin consumer blood glucose monitor market and the now quickly growing hospital point-of-care device market, i.e., customers are makers of these devices. Even by a conservative estimate, the value proposed by AgaMatrix to the glucose market alone would be enough to sustain a viable standalone venture. However, given the minimal incremental effort that would be needed, we will deliver the product to both sub-markets for the benefit of augmenting and diversifying our revenue streams.

The market that we are concerned with consists of advancing medical devices and technologies that allow healthcare professionals and home users to acquire medical diagnostic data such as blood glucose levels (e.g., for diabetics) and various other blood chemistry data (e.g., for emergency care situations) instantly, easily, cheaply, and accurately without having to send blood samples to centralized lab facilities which have longer turnaround times and are more costly. The conclusion that this market should be the company’s initial focus is substantiated by the fact that it has all the relevant characteristics of a market we found to be desirable. These characteristics are discussed below:

• Large existing, robust, high-growth market.
• Converging market forces sustaining industry growth.
• Clear, immediate need for benefits provided by technology.
• Technology delivered would be strongly positioned to participate in emerging trends.

In the medium and long term (three to four years from now), AgaMatrix aims to address needs in the emerging electrochemical immunoassay and implantable biosensor markets.

The Home Blood Glucose Monitoring is the largest, immediately addressable market, over $4.1 billion in size today and growing 13% CAGR. Based on preliminary discussions with several potential customers, AgaMatrix believes that a significant portion of this market can eventually be captured. We expect device makers to pass on the modest costs of AgaMatrix’s technology through the high margins currently enjoyed by the consumable reagents (test strips) they sell. While AgaMatrix technology does not directly improve the test strips themselves, potential customers will incorporate the cost of such technology as part of the total solution cost; development costs of their test devices are already paid for in this way. Diabetics generally are not price sensitive to test strips since insurance usually covers the costs of the strips.

4.1 Market Segmentation

Home Blood Glucose Monitors AgaMatrix will initially target home blood glucose monitoring device makers. One primary dimension along which these device makers compete is the reduction of pain and discomfort from testing that involves pricking fingers to extract blood. By improving device sensitivity, AgaMatrix allows blood glucose device OEMs to reduce the required blood sample size enabling the use of less painful blood extraction mechanisms, a major competitive advantage for such devices according to customer surveys. In one foreseeable application, diabetics would be able to painlessly extract a small amount of blood using automated AgaMatrix-enabled microneedles to test blood glucose levels.

Hospital Point-of-Care Blood Analyzers AgaMatrix will also initially target the hospital blood analyzer market ($300 million in 2001, 25% CAGR) by providing increased accuracy and increased types of tests for these devices. Based on a bottom-up analysis of end user (physicians) and device maker surveys, we believe market penetration for these players has been hindered by the relatively low accuracy (when compared to tests done by centralized labs) and by the limited number of available tests. Physicians are thus forced to wait several hours for results from blood sent to centralized labs, and only use portable blood analyzers in acute emergency situations.

AgaMatrix solves the problem of low accuracy for portable hospital blood analyzers, allowing physicians to use portable analyzers in more situations, thus increasing quality of care, increasing patient turnover, and reducing hospital costs. Our technology could also help boost the yield on current cartridge products, eliminate future cartridge production steps, and provide a broader menu of tests on portable devices, delivering a suite of offerings comparable to traditional large and expensive lab equipment analyzers.

With almost all of the major players trying to develop an “artificial pancreas,” commercializing implantable glucose biosensors that can regulate an implanted insulin pump has been the Holy Grail for the industry. The artificial pancreas allows diabetics to lead a near normal lifestyle without the constant pain and inconvenience of finger pricking and insulin injections. One of the key challenges in the development of implantable sensors is eliminating the use of toxic chemicals currently needed to correct for cross-sensitivity effects that reduce the accuracy of the sensor. AgaMatrix’s technology minimizes these effects without having to use toxic chemicals, thus eliminating a key barrier to the development of complete implantable glucose monitoring and insulin pump systems. Such breakthroughs could lead to adoption of implantable devices on the order of today’s cardiac pacemaker. These large players have expressed initial interest in using AgaMatrix’s technology in these next-generation implantable devices.

Electrochemical Immunoassays Immunoassays are tests that measure biological and chemical species associated with the body’s immune system. Currently, the majority of immunoassays are performed via color-changing tests strips (for simple non-critical applications like home pregnancy tests), or via time-consuming laboratory procedures for more critical tests (like cardiac markers). In hospitals and clinical labs alone, millions of these immunoassays are performed daily. These laboratory assays are based on complicated optical and radioactive detection instrumentation. Leaders in the industry are developing electrochemical immunoassays because electrochemical technologies are generally recognized to be more cost effective, robust, and possibly faster than optical methods given the fact that no complicated sample pre-treatment processes are needed. One of the main challenges to commercializing this new technology is achieving the low detection levels needed for such measurements. AgaMatrix’s technology can be eventually embedded in these devices to overcome the sensitivity issues that currently hinder their commercialization.

4.2 Industry Analysis

The medical diagnostics industry is prone to disruptions because of technological innovations. We have found the following current industry needs are immediately addressable by AgaMatrix’s technology based on a survey of potential customers in the blood glucose and Hospital point-of-care (POC) market:

Near future market needs prompted by emerging trends

We have also identified a number of needs for which AgaMatrix is aligned to be a major technology provider. For the sake of conservatism and maintaining a focused company positioning in the healthcare arena, we are not pursuing available applications in environmental monitoring, industrial processing, and military biological/chemical warfare agent detection. Instead, we consider our primary expansion markets to be other segments in the healthcare market including the immunoassay and implantable/minimally invasive biosensor markets, with some initial penetration into the latter in Y2 and Y3.

4.2.1 Competition and Buying Patterns

Based on a prior art search and our cross-disciplinary technology expertise, we believe we are the only solution provider of our kind to medical device manufacturers. However, AgaMatrix indirectly competes against other biosensor-enhancing technologies. Rival technologies include advances in physical designs such as improvements in chemical reagents used in these devices and the integration of permselective membranes that are intended to materially filter out interfering chemicals from contacting the sensor. We have identified the research efforts of the following companies as potential competition due to their efforts to solve the same problems, albeit through very different approaches.

Strategy and Implementation Summary

AgaMatrix’s strategy will be built upon sustainable advantages from superior software technology, in-house expertise, monopolization of a scientific team, and development lead time over competitors. In addition, the company will deploy a strong intellectual property strategy of defensive and offensive patents to create an IP minefield to make litigation for competitors as costly as possible. Coupled with an aggressive marketing and sales strategy, AgaMatrix is positioned to be the leading provider of technology that enables biosensor devices used in medical and other life science applications.

5.1 Competitive Edge

Advantage #1: Superior and Complementary Software Paradigm Potential indirect competition could lie within R&D departments of medical device OEMs who are striving to create both incrementally higher-performing biosensors for existing products. The R&D teams are also striving to make revolutionary advances which enable implantable biosensors such as blood glucose monitors. However, based on secondary market research and on first-hand conversations with potential customers/partners, the observed historical trend in this industry has been to approach chemical problems with chemical experts. We believe that our multi-disciplinary software approach fills a missing piece in the development of these devices.

From a technological standpoint, our software-based solutions achieve the same goals of interference suppression as rival chemical solutions; however, because we obviate the need for these chemicals, most of which are toxic, products deployed with AgaMatrix technology will be suited for in vivo applications, such as some minimally invasive and implantable glucose monitors. Furthermore, our technology can simultaneously monitor multiple chemicals, both the target analyte and any interfering chemicals, engendering low-cost multi-analyte sensors which are not readily viable with current chemical-based sensor enhancements.

From a marketing standpoint, our products have the advantage of being software-based, engendering many of the potential benefits that other software-based products traditionally enjoy. One of the principle advantages that end users would have is the ability to upgrade the software as new, better algorithms are developed, a benefit that cannot be as easily realized with other physical and chemical technological advances. From a cost-saving standpoint, many of the permselective membranes that are currently designed to be used in biosensor devices are too expensive to be used in all applications. As such, our software solutions would provide a cost benefit advantage to our customers.

Regardless of other traditional technology advances in sensor design, our DSP technologies will ultimately prove to be complementary. Our noise-filtering algorithms will increase the signal-to-noise ratio enabling greater sensitivity and lowering detection limits. In many applications, membrane filters are not fully effective; as such, our interference suppression algorithms can compensate for the limitations of such membranes. Additionally, rival empirical improvements cannot address other limitations of these devices, such as sensor deterioration, where our technology may be applied to auto-correct for such sources of error.

Advantage #2: In-House Expertise As is the case with chemical and life science research, one of the most resource-intensive aspects of the development time lies in optimizing empirical protocols and avoiding unforeseen pitfalls; most of the knowledge comes from “hands-on” experience, not only theoretical background. Furthermore, expertise in multi-disciplinary areas as ours requires specialized knowledge. AgaMatrix’s scientific team has been involved in biosensor research for an aggregate of over 40 years. The foundational research for our current technology was initiated seven years ago, and our scientists have developed and optimized many of the techniques that are vital to the continuing development and validation of AgaMatrix’s products. To date, we have developed the groundbreaking technology approach, the experimental protocols, the validation mechanisms, and the core algorithms. Our extensive in-house expertise in working on bridging biosensor systems and DSP technologies represents a significant barrier to any potential competitor.

Advantage #3: Monopolization of Scientific Team The technology that AgaMatrix is built upon has been inspired by research performed throughout the past decade at the University of Cambridge. The original scientific team that achieved these breakthroughs boasts inimitable credentials and has remained intact to form the current AgaMatrix R&D team. In the ensuing years, AgaMatrix has developed new technologies and is moving towards its commercialization. We believe that our virtual monopoly on the intellectual resources that have been responsible for the technological advances that AgaMatrix owns represents a significant competitive advantage over potential competitors. As is the case with any empirical endeavor, much of the in-house expertise comes in the form of a close working knowledge of the practical aspects of technology development. With the current R&D team already experienced in the relevant technologies, and having worked together in the past, much of this knowledge has already been acquired.

Advantage #4: Development Lead Time Over Potential Competition In sharp contrast to the typical chemistry-based approach, AgaMatrix’s technology is based upon a multi-disciplinary core competency. Our competitive capabilities are derived from a unique confluence of electrical engineering and life science disciplines, a roadblock for potential competitors entrenched in traditional “wet chemistry” research paradigms.

5.2 Marketing Strategy

Presenting compelling value through superior technology Because of AgaMatrix’s revolutionary, proprietary technology, we are positioned to be the market leader in biosensor enhancing solutions. AgaMatrix offers a novel approach that clearly provides significant value to our customer and ultimately the end user. The AgaMatrix solution delivers value in two ways: by improving the performance of their product against competing products and by increasing customers’ market share and revenue. Communicating this value to the device manufacturers, as well as branding our technology to defend market share, is the fundamental philosophy behind our marketing strategy.

Becoming a competitive standard The core AgaMatrix technology is a unique approach to improving biosensors systems in a way that substantially increases performance and adds value to the end user. In a competitive marketplace, we will present our technology to medical device makers as an industry standard that they must adopt to be able to compete. Examples of this kind of standard-setting technology include the adoption of Windows platforms on PCs and auto-focus and red-eye reduction capabilities on cameras. Specific selling points include elimination of cross-interference, improvement in accuracy, improvement in signal to noise ratio, improvement in device robustness, reduction in sample requirements, and increase in market acceptance of product. The value proposition will differ depending on the needs of each customer.

Marketing to end users by marketing the end product AgaMatrix will market to end users through partnership with the device makers; to add value, our technology must increase their bottom line profit. AgaMatrix can do this if end users appreciate the advantages AgaMatrix enhancements bring and if they require our products for a healthcare “standard of care.” The desire for end users, such as doctors and patients, to use the best and most effective technology for diagnosis and treatment of health problems will drive demand for AgaMatrix-enabled devices. Therefore, AgaMatrix will develop a marketing plan with our partners to increase the awareness of the clinical advantages of our devices. The AgaMatrix-enabled label will become a moral imperative to clinicians in the same way that advanced digital imaging technology is used by radiologists and cardiovascular specialists.

In summary, AgaMatrix will market both to the device makers we sell to and end customers, who will drive demand.  Because device makers are concerned about increasing their bottom line through value-add to their products as well as through production cost reductions, AgaMatrix will sell to them on the basis of value rather than on any other consumer-based premise. End users, such as healthcare professionals and customers, demand standard of care. Therefore, AgaMatrix will co-market its brand as a necessary technology for healthcare diagnostics.

5.3 Sales Strategy

Phase 1: Sales to medical device manufacturer partners In the first stage of bringing AgaMatrix technology to market, the company will approach and partner with medical device manufacturers. Such partnerships have the added advantages of product development that is supported by the partner’s engineering, finance, marketing, and management.

Phase 2: Becoming the “competitive standard” With a base of customers who can vouch for the product value, AgaMatrix aims to become the competitive standard that all players must adopt. Specific marketing tactics in this stage include: increasing market awareness through trade shows (e.g., Medical Device Expo, SensorExpo) and technical conferences, advertising in trade journals and publications (e.g., Sensor Magazine, Medical Device and Diagnostics Magazine), and retaining “Thought Leaders” from industry and academia who will corroborate our claims.

Phase 3: Branding for mind share and market domination AgaMatrix will brand its proprietary DSP technology to associate enhanced solutions with our identity. A consistent, strong, and clearly defined brand will add yet another barrier to entry and market penetration. Increased awareness of the advantages we deliver will give rise to increased demand for the end product.

5.3.1 Sales Forecast

The sales forecast is based on a royalties pricing model.  However, a revenue model based on licensing fees is also described and provided for comparison purposes, below.

Charging on a royalty-based per-use fee, AgaMatrix will initially sell OEM technology solutions to manufacturers of biosensor-based medical devices that will enhance their products’ performance.  Because AgaMatrix technology is software-based and is optimized for minimal hardware requirements, it can be easily integrated into existing sensor devices, boosting functionality on a cost-effective basis.  By embedding our technology within their devices, OEMs will realize substantial gains (20% to over 100%) in performance dimensions such as accuracy, sensitivity, and robustness.  Technology OEM royalty-based business models are not new in this business.  Our ability to quickly provide performance upgrades in the form of easy-to-integrate software/firmware updates provides a number of technical and sales advantages over the existing development paradigm, which relies on “wet” chemistry approaches. 

5.3.2 Pricing Model and Revenues

The primary value proposition that AgaMatrix presents to medical device manufacturers is increased revenues through increased market share from product advantages over other competing devices and from premium pricing for increased functionality and performance of their products.  Because the new product offering from the manufacturer contains “best of” technology and is in the healthcare space, they can charge a premium for their product, which will translate into revenues to AgaMatrix.  Another value proposition which a potential customer (i-STAT) actually brought to our attention is that our technology could very likely reduce production costs for them by allowing them to eliminate the need to use costly membranes in their products.

The pricing for our product can be either “value-added” pricing on the price of the medical device or based on device usage, depending on the revenue model used by our customers.  In the case of the blood glucose market, revenues are driven not by the device, but rather by recurring revenues from consumable test strips.  For example, the test strips that LifeScan sells retail for approximately $0.70 each.  These test strips are supposed to be used three to four times a day, although the pain associated with testing has reduced compliance to about 1.5 tests per day per patient.  AgaMatrix will share in the revenues this model generates.  For example, every time a test strip is analyzed by the device that LifeScan sells, AgaMatrix technology will be utilized to provide a more accurate reading.  Therefore, AgaMatrix will enter into a royalty-based fee agreement with device manufacturers, such as those in glucose monitoring, where consumables generate revenue.  Preliminary conversations with Hypoguard indicate a general willingness to this type of pricing model.

Another example of how our royalty will work could be through the partnership with Company X.  Company X manufactures and sells a point-of-care device for approximately $5,000.  Test cartridges are priced at around $3.40 each and can perform 5-6 different tests once.  For Company X, our product would solve an existing problem with the performance and reliability of their cartridges.  Cartridges would be priced approximately $4.00 – $5.00.  Company X manufactures these cartridges for $0.12-$0.16 each and should be amenable to sharing the increased margins.  For cases in which consumables are not used, premium pricing of about +20% will be used depending on the added value that can be delivered to the end user.  The following table summarizes a conservative revenue forecast based on royalties.

An alternative pricing model would be to charge an annual licensing fee for each device enabling AgaMatrix technology.  The value proposition to customers is the same: devices enabled with AgaMatrix technology will be more accurate and therefore require smaller blood samples and result in less pain, which will increase device and test strip sales. Pricing structures and terms of the company’s software modules and services will ultimately be determined by negotiations with customers. The most likely scenario will be a hybrid pricing model of flat licensing fees on devices and royalties on test strip sales. The following table summarizes a conservative revenue forecast based on a licensing structure.

5.4 Intellectual Property Strategy

With a fully developed IP strategy consisting of core utility patents (currently filed as provisional applications) and defensive utility patents to be filed imminently, and based on our technological leadership, we believe that it would be far more beneficial for potential customers to purchase our technology than to develop it in-house.

5.5 Milestones

The following tables summarize the company’s developmental goals (month-to-month for Y1). Product Milestones are listed separately, below.

5.5.1 Year 2 and 3 Milestones

• Business Milestones
• Secure two major paying POC customers
• Secure another small paying glucose customer
• Secure one major glucose beta customer
• Operational Milestones
• Move to larger office 
• Hire 6 scientists, 8 engineers
• Hire product management and operations staff

Year 3 Milestones

• Secure one major paying glucose customer
• Secure one major implantable beta
• Expand to other POC players

5.5.2 Product Milestones

The following table summarizes the product development vision. Future products will all contain updated core DSP algorithm software, associated tools, and documentation of performance results, ensuring that we maximally leverage our existing technology base as productization evolves.

5.5.3 Summary of Current Accounts

Web Plan Summary

AgaMatrix’s website will be a dynamic marketing tool for the company that serves the needs of business development, sales, and recruiting. The company site will provide information about AgaMatrix’s products and services for target customers and potential business partners, such as marketing collateral, technical white papers, and new product updates. As the company grows,  its recruiting needs can be addressed by posting career opportunities and FAQs about the company. AgaMatrix.com will also communicate company news to create and maintain positive public relations with the community and investors. The goal will be to implement a functional and professionally designed website that can be adapted to meet the company’s growing needs.

6.1 Development Requirements

Creation of future versions of the AgaMatrix website will continue to be outsourced to Nathan Bailey, a professional graphics designer with over 15 years of experience. The contractor will work with the marketing department to conceptualize the company’s logo and overall design. It will be maintained in-house and major site redesigning will be made through a contractor. 

Management Summary management summary will include information about who's on your team and why they're the right people for the job, as well as your future hiring plans.">

The following are the current members of the AgaMatrix Team. Once a permanent CEO is on board, Sonny will transfer to a Director of Product Management role.

Sonny Vu, Chief Executive Officer and Founder Sonny brings management and entrepreneurial experience from having worked in several of Microsoft’s product groups and having launched and built FireSpout, an enterprise software company. At Microsoft, he worked in a number of product development groups, including the natural language group responsible for shipping linguistic technologies to over 16 applications in 22 languages. While at FireSpout, Sonny created the original technology vision, recruited the technical teams, developed and managed the technology development and various operational processes, and developed the intellectual property strategy. Originally a mathematician by training, Sonny was a Ph.D. candidate at MIT prior to working in the software industry.

Dr. Sridhar Iyengar, Chief Technology Officer and Founder With 10 years of research and engineering experience in DSP and mathematical modeling of chemical systems, Sridhar drives and directs the implementation of AgaMatrix’s technology vision. He is the leading expert in the core DSP/electrochemistry interdisciplinary approach used by AgaMatrix. Combining his background in electrical engineering and biological sciences, Sridhar conceived and pioneered the concept of using a DSP approach to enhance biosensor performance. His work in the years following his breakthrough Ph.D. research is the cornerstone for AgaMatrix’s intellectual property with two key patents filed under his name and another three defensive patents to be filed during the summer of 2002. Sridhar obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar.

Craig Bolon, Vice President of Engineering With more than 35 years of management and technical experience in software and hardware engineering, Craig is responsible for executing AgaMatrix’s product development initiatives. He brings his leadership experiences from being a hands-on development engineer, team leader, general manager, engineering director, and entrepreneur. Craig has a proven track record of delivering on-time, on-budget projects while working on commercial product development in software and instrumentation for organizations such as Schlumberger, Polaroid, Betagen, Exxon, and MIT. His commercial product development work has spanned the fields of molecular biology, chemical analysis, electronic imaging, speech recognition, and mechanical design software. Craig has invented key technologies and holds a number of software and hardware patents. He holds a degree in particle physics from MIT.

Dr. Paul J. Kelly, Advisor Paul is the founder and former CEO of Gemini Genomics plc, until its merger in 2001. A physician who specialized in endocrinology, he has more than 25 years of experience in medicine, and research in clinical and commercial settings. He has published extensively in over 90 publications, has an issued patent, and has held faculty appointments at the University of New South Wales and St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia. After launching Gemini Genomics in Cambridge, England, Paul went on to list the company on NASDAQ, in the most successful IPO of 2000 in the UK. He has served on national governmental advisory bodies, as well as on the boards of public and private companies, and non-profit institutions. Paul graduated in Medicine from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and received his Doctor of Medicine degree for his thesis in the genetics of osteoporosis also from the University of New South Wales. He is a Fellow of the Australasian College of Physicians.

7.1 Personnel Plan

The personnel table assumes steady growth in employees over the next year. We expect head count to reach 14 employees by end of year one. We are in the process of implementing a strong benefits policy (with fully-paid medical, dental, and life insurance, plus a profit sharing and 401K plan). Employees generally earn competitive salaries and receive generous equity packages.

Financial Plan investor-ready personnel plan .">

The following subtopics highlight the financial plan for AgaMatrix.

8.1 Break-even Analysis

The break-even analysis demonstrates that AgaMatrix will have a sales level running comfortably above break-even starting in year two. Depending on which pricing model is used – either royalties, licensing, or both – average revenue could vary significantly, but the table shows a fair estimate given our revenue projections.   

The business will have very few fixed costs – most laboratory equipment can be leased, as will the real estate for our offices. All costs are expected to be variable for modeling purposes, giving the company flexibility to adapt as needs and environmental conditions may change. Because AgaMatrix technology is software-based and is optimized for minimal hardware requirements, it can be easily distributed and integrated into biosensor devices with advantages of economies of scale. As volume increases, average variable costs will significantly decrease.

8.2 Important Assumptions

The financial plan depends on important assumptions, most of which are shown in the following table. The key underlying assumptions are:

• We assume a slow-growth economy, without major recession.
• We assume of course that there are no unforeseen changes in technology to make our products immediately obsolete.
• We assume access to equity capital and financing sufficient to maintain our financial plan as shown in the tables.

Financial projections are predicated upon targeting the life sciences vertical exclusively. Within the life sciences market, blood glucose will drive the majority of revenue. However, the point-of-care testing market will contribute modest revenue in the near term, accompanied by a substantial contribution from the implantable market in the medium and long term.

8.3 Projected Profit and Loss

Gross and operating margins

Gross margins will be approximately 85% on the core product offering, which will be delivered in the form of software. Such margins are typical in the software industry; we have not modeled in support revenue streams for our products, assuming this will be handled entirely by our OEM customers. In year one, we expect a loss, as we grow the business from a small base by conserving cash. Beginning in year two (post-institutional funding), as we ramp up the business more aggressively, operating expenses as a percent of revenue will fall as we hire a critical mass of personnel for marketing, sales, and research and development. By the end of the forecast horizon, operating margins will once again exceed 30%.

Profit potential and durability

AgaMatrix is expected to be net income positive beginning in its second full year of operations. Profitability is expected to grow rapidly following year two, once the business is able to leverage the investment from the year two ramp-up. AgaMatrix has the potential to be an enduring standalone business, supported by a diversified revenue stream within the life sciences vertical (blood glucose, point-of-care testing and minimally invasive/implantable devices), with the opportunity to expand into other sub-segments in the healthcare sector and new verticals for long-term growth.

8.4 Projected Cash Flow

The financial outlook is positive as the company rolls out and meets its milestones. After financing, cash flow will be negative for year one. By year two, AgaMatrix expects to be cash flow positive.

8.5 Projected Balance Sheet

Our projected balance sheet shows an increase in net worth. The monthly projections for the first year are in the appendix. Net worth is negative initially because the company does not expect to secure its first paying customer until end of year one.  

8.6 Financial Risks and Contingencies

We have identified several critical risks and assumptions that must be addressed to ensure AgaMatrix’s success. 

Market Risks

Risk #1: Corporate R&D labs of our customers/partners may develop competing DSP-based technologies to enhance their own electrochemical sensors based products.

See section 4 for a detailed discussion of competition and AgaMatrix’s sustainable competitive advantages.

Risk #2: Other technologies may be developed to improve sensor performance.

Other technology solutions designed to improve sensor performance have been generally hardware-based introducing additional costs and at times toxic chemicals.  For example, MEMS-based infrared sensors, being developed as an alternative to electrochemical sensors, are expected to be much more costly despite increased performance.  Similarly, mediators such as ferrocene are used to deliver accurate readings, but are toxic and less effective than AgaMatrix’s solution.  AgaMatrix software-based solution improves performance while being cost effective and safe.

Risk #3: As a pioneer in electrochemical applications for DSP algorithms, AgaMatrix may not be able to convince customers to adopt such a revolutionary solution.

Developers of blood glucose monitors and portable blood analyzers have never considered using a software-based approach to solving their accuracy and cross-interference problems.  There is thus a psychological barrier that we believe can be overcome through a simple, concrete demonstration of low-cost performance gains which we can provide.

Risk #4: There may not be enough computing power and memory on blood glucose monitoring devices and portable blood analyzers to support AgaMatrix’s software.

The algorithms have been optimized for computational speed and are designed for use on devices with very little CPU resources.  Initial customer feed back shows that AgaMatrix’s algorithms can be incorporated in next-generation ASICS designs for blood glucose monitoring devices, as well as into current microprocessor-powered portable blood analyzers.

Risk #5: Implantable blood glucose sensors may be prolonged from the marketplace indefinitely.

Although most blood glucose monitoring device companies are trying to develop implantable sensors, other technical and marketing issues may prevent the eventual adoption of the artificial pancreas.  AgaMatrix’s technology will accelerate the development of the artificial pancreas by not requiring toxic mediators.  However, AgaMatrix cannot solely depend on this market’s development, and has thus chosen to focus on existing markets to drive short to medium term revenue.

Risk #6: AgaMatrix must prove out the technology on blood samples.

Despite a high confidence in the technology, we must still create experimental data sets created from tests using actual blood samples.  These data sets will be shown to customers as proof of the technology’s effectiveness.  AgaMatrix is confident that after initial funding, lab space and equipment can be quickly secured to produce these data sets.

Risk #7: AgaMatrix may face regulatory delays from FDA approval.

We will work with our customers to ensure that the technologies that are deployed into their devices will incur minimal regulatory risks thereby complying with the FDA’s less onerous regulations for a “derivative device” (compared to the approval process for a completely new device).

Risk #8: AgaMatrix needs to determine customer willingness to pay and secure concrete deals with customers.

Several conversations with potential customers have already reached the level of discussing potential pricing structures so we believe there is some genuine interest.

Risk #9: Each OEM customer will require a custom-built version of the AgaMatrix software.

The software suite will be designed to be a modular and scalable platform technology.  We will construct a set of configuration and integration tools designed to translate our core technology into suitable deployment formats. 

Risk #10: University of Cambridge may have claims to AgaMatrix’s technologies.

The technology is based on 3rd generation algorithms that AgaMatrix alone has been developing for two years.  1st and 2nd generation technologies were developed at the University of Cambridge and validated the proof of concept of using a DSP approach to solving many of the outstanding problems in biosensors. Our 3rd generation technology is fundamentally different from the earlier technologies and has overcome a number of critical limitations, on both the theoretical and empirical sides, that prevent commercialization.  AgaMatrix owns all rights to these 3rd generation technologies.  The 1st and 2nd generation technologies, while illustrative of the concept, do not pose any commercial threat due to fundamental technological limitations

Financial Risks

Risk #1: Working Capital Management – We expect to be running a significant working capital deficit because of the time it will take to establish payment schedules (e.g. quarterly royalties from partners) and receive payments from large OEM vendors while, as an early-stage company, we will simultaneously have to make payments on our supplies on a short-term basis.  Managing the cash conversion cycle will be critical to ensuring liquidity and solvency.

Risk #2: Seasonal, Cyclical, or Highly Volatile Cash Flows – at this time, we expect there to be volatility in our cash flows based primarily on the new product introduction cycles of major medical devices manufacturers.  Therefore our revenue and cash flow streams will not be smooth throughout the year, but will be stronger during times of new product introduction. By targeting three different market segments early on (blood glucose, point-of-care, and implantable devices) we aim to mitigate this risk.

Risk #3: Concentration of Customers – The blood glucose market and portable blood analyzer markets are dominated by an oligopoly of a handful of companies.  It may be difficult to diversify our customer base sufficiently to prevent large swings in our revenue and cash flow based upon the actions of a small number of customers. To diminish this risk, we will initially target smaller players who will move more quickly and provide us with greater leverage when we go to negotiate with larger customers.

8.7 Business Ratios

Business ratios for the years of this plan are shown below. Industry profile ratios based on the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code 7373 or NAICS code 541512, Computer Systems Design Services, are shown for comparison.

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Executive Summary

Business overview.

Riverside Medical is a family medical clinic located in San Francisco, California. Our goal is to provide easy access to quality healthcare, especially for members of the community who have low to moderate incomes. Our clinic provides a wide range of general and preventative healthcare services, including check-ups, minor surgeries, and gynecology. Anyone of any age or group is welcome to visit our clinic to get the healthcare that they need.

Our medical practitioners and supporting staff are well-trained and have a passion for helping improve the health and well-being of our clients. We serve our patients not just with our knowledge and skills but also with our hearts. Our clinic was founded by Samantha Parker, who has been a licensed doctor for nearly 20 years. Her experience and compassion will guide us throughout our mission.

Product Offering

Riverside Medical will provide extensive general care for all ages, creating a complete healthcare solution. Some of the services included in our care include the following:

• Primary care: annual checkups, preventative screenings, health counseling, diagnosis and treatment of common conditions
• Gynecology: PAP tests, annual well-woman exam, and family planning
• Pediatrics: infant care, annual physicals, and immunizations
• Minor procedures: stitches, casts/splints, skin biopsies, cyst removals, and growth lacerations
• Health and wellness: weight loss strategies, nutrition guidance, hormone balance, and preventive and routine services

The costs will depend upon the materials used, the physician’s time, and the amount designated for each procedure. Medical bills will be billed either directly to the patient or to their insurance provider.

Customer Focus

Riverside Medical will primarily serve the community living and working within the San Francisco bay area. The city is diverse and growing and includes people of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Everyone is welcome to visit our clinic to receive the health care they need.

Management Team

Riverside Medical’s most valuable asset is the expertise and experience of its founder, Samantha Parker. Samantha has been a licensed family doctor for 20 years now. She spent the most recent portion of her career on medical mission trips, where she learned that many people are not privileged to have access to quality medical services. Samantha will be responsible for ensuring the general health of her patients and creating a viable and profitable business medical practice.

Riverside Medical will also employ nurses, expert medical staff, and administrative assistants that also have a passion for healthcare.

Success Factors

Riverside Medical will be able to achieve success by offering the following competitive advantages:

• Location: Riverside Medical’s location is near the center of town. It’s visible from the street with many people walking to and from work on a daily basis, giving them a direct look at our clinic, most of which are part of our target market.
• Patient-oriented service: Riverside Medical will have a staff that prioritizes the needs of the patients and educates them on the proper way how to take care of themselves.
• Management: Samantha Parker has a genuine passion for helping the community, and because of her previous experience, she is fully equipped and overqualified to open this practice. Her unique qualifications will serve customers in a much more sophisticated manner than our competitors.
• Relationships: Having lived in the community for 25 years, Samantha Parker knows many of the local leaders, newspapers, and other influences. Furthermore, she will be able to draw from her ties to previous patients from her work at other clinics to establish a starting clientele.

Financial Highlights

Riverside Medical is seeking a total funding of $800,000 of debt capital to open its clinic. The capital will be used for funding capital expenditures and location build-out, acquiring basic medical supplies and equipment, hiring initial employees, marketing expenses, and working capital.

Specifically, these funds will be used as follows:

• Clinic design/build: $100,000
• Medical supplies and equipment: $150,000
• Six months of overhead expenses (rent, salaries, utilities): $450,000
• Marketing: $50,000
• Working capital: $50,000

The following graph below outlines the pro forma financial projections for Riverside Medical.

Company Overview

Who is riverside medical, riverside medical history.

Samantha Parker started the clinic with the goal of providing easy access to good quality health service, especially to those members of the community with low to moderate income. After years of planning, she finally started to build Riverside Medical in 2022. She gathered a group of professionals to fund the project and was able to incorporate and register Riverside Medical with their funding support.

Since its incorporation, Riverside Medical has achieved the following milestones:

• Found clinic space and signed Letter of Intent to lease it
• Developed the company’s name, logo, and website
• Hired a contractor for the office build-out
• Determined equipment and fixture requirements
• Began recruiting key employees with previous healthcare experience
• Drafted marketing campaigns to promote the clinic

Riverside Medical Services

Industry analysis.

The global healthcare market is one of the largest and highest-valued industries in the world. According to Global Newswire, the global healthcare services market is currently valued at $7548.52 billion and is expected to reach $10414.36 billion in 2026. This growth is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

The biggest drivers of industry growth throughout the next decade will be a continual increase in illnesses and diseases as well as a quickly aging population. With more people aging and needing daily/frequent care, hospitals and medical clinics are bound to be in even more demand than they already are.

One obstacle for the industry is the rising cost of care. Though this results in greater profits, more and more Americans cannot afford basic medical care. Therefore, they are opting out of procedures they believe are unnecessary or unimportant.

Despite the challenges of the next decade, the industry is still expected to see substantial growth and expansion.

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market.

Riverside Medical will serve the residents of the San Francisco bay area as well as those who work in the area.

The population of the area experiences a large income gap between the highest earners and the lowest earners. Therefore, it is hard for middle and lower-class families to find quality care that is affordable. As a result, they are in need of the services that we offer and are looking for accessible medical care.

The precise demographics of San Francisco are as follows:

Customer Segmentation

Our clinic is a general family practice and will treat patients of all ages, incomes, physical abilities, races, and ethnicities. As such, there is no need to create marketing materials targeted at only one or two of these groups, but we can appeal to all with a similar message.

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

Riverside Medical will face competition from other companies with similar business profiles. A description of each competitor company is below.

City Medical

Founded in 2008, City Medical is a membership-based, primary-care practice in the heart of the city. City Medical offers a wide range of primary care services for patients who subscribe to the practice for an annual fee. Patients enjoy personalized care, including office visits, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of common health problems. The patient membership fee covers the services listed below, and most care is received in-office. However, some additional services, such as lab testing and vaccinations, are billed separately. Furthermore, though the annual fee is convenient for some, it is too high for many families, so many are priced out of care at this facility.

Bay Doctors

Bay Doctors is a primary care practice that provides highly personalized medical care in the office or patients’ homes. Bay Doctors includes a team of dedicated healthcare professionals with dual residency in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. The practice offers same-day/next-day appointments, telemedicine, office visits, and home visits. Some of the medical care services they provide are primary care, urgent care, emergency care, gynecology, pediatrics, and minor procedures.

Community Care

Established in 1949, Community Care is a non-profit regional healthcare provider serving the city and surrounding suburbs. This facility offers a wide variety of medical services, including 24-hour emergency care, telemedicine, primary care, and more. In addition to their medical care, they have a wide variety of fundraising activities to raise money to operate the hospital and help families cover the costs of their care.

Competitive Advantage

Riverside Medical enjoys several advantages over its competitors. These advantages include:

Marketing Plan

Brand & value proposition.

The Riverside Medical brand will focus on the company’s unique value proposition:

• Client-focused healthcare services, where the company’s interests are aligned with the customer
• Service built on long-term relationships
• Big-hospital expertise in a small-clinic environment

Promotions Strategy

The promotions strategy for Riverside Medical is as follows:

Riverside Medical understands that the best promotion comes from satisfied customers. The company will encourage its patients to refer their friends and family by providing healthcare benefits for every new client produced. This strategy will increase in effectiveness after the business has already been established.

Direct Mail

The company will use a direct mail campaign to promote its brand and draw clients, as well. The campaign will blanket specific neighborhoods with simple, effective mail advertisements that highlight the credentials and credibility of Riverside Medical.

Website/SEO

Riverside Medical will invest heavily in developing a professional website that displays all of the clinic’s services and procedures. The website will also provide information about each doctor and medical staff member. The clinic will also invest heavily in SEO so the brand’s website will appear at the top of search engine results.

Social Media

Riverside Medical will invest heavily in a social media advertising campaign. The marketing manager will create the company’s social media accounts and invest in ads on all social media platforms. It will use targeted marketing to appeal to the target demographics.

Riverside Medical’s pricing will be lower than big hospitals. Over time, client testimonials will help to maintain our client base and attract new patients. Furthermore, we will be able to provide discounts and incentives for lower-income families by connecting with foundations and charities from people who are interested in helping.

Operations Plan

The following will be the operations plan for Riverside Medical.

Operation Functions:

• Samantha Parker is the founder of Riverside Medical and will operate as the sole doctor until she increases her patient list and hires more medical staff. As the clinic grows, she will operate as the CEO and take charge of all the operations and executive aspects of the business.
• Samantha is assisted by Elizabeth O’Reilly. Elizabeth has experience working as a receptionist at a fast-paced hospital and will act as the receptionist/administrative assistant for the clinic. She will be in charge of the administrative and marketing aspects of the business.
• Samantha is in the process of hiring doctors, nurses, and other medical staff to help with her growing patient list.

Milestones:

The following are a series of path steps that will lead to the vision of long-term success. Riverside Medical expects to achieve the following milestones in the following twelve months:

3/202X Finalize lease agreement

5/202X Design and build out Riverside Medical location

7/202X Hire and train initial staff

9/202X Kickoff of promotional campaign

11/202X Reach break-even

1/202X Reach 1000 patients

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

Riverside Medical’s revenues will come primarily from medical services rendered. The clinic will either bill the patients directly or their insurance providers.

The major cost drivers for the clinic will include labor expenses, lease costs, equipment purchasing and upkeep, and ongoing marketing costs.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Key assumptions.

Below are the key assumptions required to achieve the revenue and cost numbers in the financials and to pay off the startup business loan.

• Year 1: 120
• Year 2: 150
• Year 3: 200
• Year 4: 275
• Year 5: 400
• Annual lease: $50,000

Financial Projections

Income statement.

Balance Sheet

Cash Flow Statement

Healthcare Business Plan FAQs

What is a healthcare business plan.

A healthcare business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your healthcare business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections.

You can easily complete your Healthcare business plan using our Healthcare Business Plan Template here .

What are the Main Types of Healthcare Businesses?

There are a number of different kinds of healthcare businesses , some examples include: Nursing care, Physical home health care, or Home health care aides:

How Do You Get Funding for Your Healthcare Business Plan?

Healthcare businesses are often funded through small business loans. Personal savings, credit card financing and angel investors are also popular forms of funding.

What are the Steps To Start a Healthcare Business?

Starting a healthcare business can be an exciting endeavor. Having a clear roadmap of the steps to start a business will help you stay focused on your goals and get started faster.

1. Develop A Healthcare Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed healthcare business plan that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include potential market size and target customers, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast. 

2. Choose Your Legal Structure - It's important to select an appropriate legal entity for your healthcare business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your healthcare business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Healthcare Business - Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your healthcare business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws.

4. Identify Financing Options - It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to start your healthcare business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms.

5. Choose a Location - Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations.

6. Hire Employees - There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events.

7. Acquire Necessary Healthcare Equipment & Supplies - In order to start your healthcare business, you'll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation. 

8. Market & Promote Your Business - Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to start promoting and marketing your healthcare business. This includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising.

Other Helpful Business Plan Templates

Nonprofit Business Plan Template Non-Emergency Medical Transportation Business Plan Template Medical Practice Business Plan Template Home Health Care Business Plan Template

Mobile App Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Mobile App Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 5,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their mobile app development company. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a mobile app business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Mobile App Business Plan Template here >

What is a Mobile App Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your mobile app as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for an App Company

If you’re looking to launch a mobile app or grow your existing mobile app you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your mobile app in order to improve your chances of success. Your business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Source of Funding for Mobile App Companies

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a mobile app are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, angel investors and venture capitalists. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable. But they will want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

The second most common form of funding for a mobile app is angel investors. Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding, or, like a bank, they will give you a loan.

Venture capitalists will also fund a mobile app and will take equity in return for their funding, VC funding generally comes after you’ve received initial proof of the mobile app concept or traction with your app.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

How to write a business plan for a mobile app development company.

A comprehensive business plan for an app company should include the 10 sections as follows:

Executive Summary

• Company Overview

Industry Analysis

Customer analysis, competitive analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, management team, financial plan.

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of app business you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have a mobile app that you would like to grow, or do you already have several successful app businesses?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the mobile app industry. Discuss the type of mobile app you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target audience. Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Analysis

In your company overview, you will provide a detailed description of your mobile app business.

For example, you might operate one of the following types:

• Business app : this type of mobile app generally helps increase productivity and/or decrease costs.
• Entertainment app : this type of mobile app includes news, social networking, music, video, etc.
• Lifestyle app : this type of mobile app includes things like fitness, shopping, dating, etc.
• Education app : this type of app must have the primary objective of advancing a user’s knowledge and overall breadth in a particular subject.
• Utility app : this type of app includes things like scanners, trackers, health-related apps, cell service providers, etc.
• Travel app : this type of app aids in planning and booking trips.
• Other app : there are a limitless number of areas in which a successful app could be created

In addition to the business description, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What is your company history?
• What is your mission statement?
• What is your business idea or app idea?
• What is your business model or monetization strategy (i.e., freemium, subscription, in-app purchases, affiliate marketing, crowdfunding, paid apps, sponsored content, etc.)?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include sales goals you’ve reached, new store openings, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of your app development business.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the mobile app industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards quiz apps, it would be helpful to ensure your plan incorporates gamification into your app.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section:

• How big is the app industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your mobile app? You can calculate this figure by multiplying the size of your target customer market by the amount they might spend per year on your app.

The customer analysis section must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: business operations managers, college students, sports enthusiasts, soccer moms, techies, teens, baby boomers, etc.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of mobile app you operate. Clearly, baby boomers would want different pricing and product options, and would respond to different user engagement strategies than teens.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the business types (if B2B), ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

Finish Your Mobile App Business Plan in 1 Day!

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With Growthink’s Ultimate Mobile App Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other app businesses in your niche.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to achieve similar results to what your app offers.

With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other app development companies with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be mobile app businesses offering the same type of service or activity that yours does.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What products do they offer?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide superior features?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For an app business, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product : in the product section, you should reiterate the type of mobile app that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific features of your app.

Price : Document how you will price your app and if there will be different pricing levels (e.g., free, entry, premium) and what those levels will be.

Place : Place refers to your distribution method. Document how customers can download your app (e.g., from your website, the Apple App Store, Google Play, etc.).

Promotions : the final part of your mobile app marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your app(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Social media marketing strategy
• Advertising in magazines, newspapers and/or trade journals
• Reaching out to local bloggers and websites
• Pay per click advertising

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your mobile app such as writing code, building upgrades, fixing bugs, providing customer service, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect your 10,000th app install, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch a new location.

To demonstrate your mobile app’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in app development business. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory team. An advisory team would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in mobile apps and/or successfully running small businesses.

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you have 100 downloads per week or 200? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $100,000 on building out your mobile application, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $100.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in an app startup or growing mobile app company:

• Cost of equipment like computers, data warehousing, etc.
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff and independent contractors
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your store design blueprint or location lease.

Free Business Plan Template for a Mobile App Business

You can download our mobile app business plan PDF template . Our sample mobile app business plan would also be a helpful resource for writing your own business plan.

Mobile App Business Plan Summary

Putting together a business plan for a mobile app will improve your company’s chances of success. The process of developing your plan will help you better understand your target audience, your competition, and your business strategy. You will also develop the marketing strategies needed to better attract and serve your target market, an operations plan to focus your efforts, and financial projections that give you business goals to strive for and keep your company focused.

Growthink’s Ultimate Mobile App Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Mobile App Business Plan.  

Additional Resources for a Mobile App Startup

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Mobile App business plan?

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.   Click here to see how Growthink’s professional business planning advisors can create your business plan for you.

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• For Agencies
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Top 12 Healthcare Business Ideas for 2024-2025

• Medical Waste Management
• Medical Billing Services
• Insurance Fraud Detector
• Medical Tourism
• VR and Metaverse Apps for Mental Health
• Genetic Testing and Counseling
• Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
• AI-Driven Solutions for Diagnostics and Patient Care
• Drug Rehabilitation Facility
• Alternative Medical Services
• Scrubs and Uniforms for Healthcare Staff
• Telemedicine Platforms
• Hinge Health
• Teladoc Health

Final Thoughts

Share it on:.

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, 2024 presents a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs to make their mark. The global health crisis has highlighted the importance of innovative solutions and accelerated the adoption of new technologies and approaches. As the emphasis on wellness and preventative care rises, the stage is set for groundbreaking ideas to help you make your mark in the industry.

From AI-powered diagnostics to personalized medicine, the possibilities are endless. This article explores 12 cutting-edge healthcare business ideas with the potential to shape the future of patient care and transform the way we approach well-being.

12 Promising Healthcare Business Ideas to Explore

If you are now thinking about how to start a healthcare startup and be able to pitch a business idea to investors , here are some profitable areas to explore.

1. Medical Waste Management

One of the best startup ideas is within medical waste management, a sector that is an often overlooked aspect of the healthcare industry. Innovative medical waste startups can help healthcare facilities follow regulations and maintain a safer environment. This solution can help ease the burden of waste management at various stages, in the following ways:

• Waste collection process: Providing smart, sensor-equipped containers that automatically notify the company when they need to be emptied.
• Transportation of waste to treatment facilities: A fleet of specialized vehicles equipped with advanced GPS tracking and temperature control systems to ensure timely pickups and prevent overflow.
• Waste treatment stage: Plasma gasification or ozone sterilization to render the waste non-infectious and reduce its volume.
• Proper waste disposal: Partner with licensed and regulated waste management facilities and carefully track waste from collection to disposal.
• Compliance support: Providing training for healthcare staff, maintaining detailed documentation, and staying up-to-date with the latest regulations.

2. Medical Billing Services

Medical billing outsourcing is a thriving healthcare segment, predicted to reach $44.43 billion by 2032 . Because the rise in patient insurance claims is one of the best future business ideas for healthcare, hospitals actively search for digital solutions as they face the hassle of insurance claims.

These solutions can help reduce the burden on hospitals by handling medical claims for insurance companies.

3. Insurance Fraud Detector

Blockchain technology changes how healthcare professionals maintain data security and simplifies regulatory compliance.

One of healthcare insurance providers' most crucial tasks is tracking and managing the data and providing customer support. The regulations do not permit insurance companies to share patients' data, making it impossible to unify data and sync between insurance providers.

This gap leads to an increase in the number of healthcare frauds. This is where using blockchain in healthcare can help create innovative solutions. It is one of the best digital healthcare startup ideas for entrepreneurs interested in developing IT (Information Technology) solutions.

Blockchain can enable the detection of insurance fraud using smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement directly written into lines of code. They can automatically verify and process claims, cross-checking them against patient data stored on the blockchain. Any discrepancies or attempts at fraud can be flagged and investigated, reducing the potential for fraudulent claims.

4. Medical Tourism

The global market is more accessible today than ever. Healthcare businesses can enter the worldwide market by offering medical tourism. Providing cutting-edge medical care, specialist therapies, or reasonable healthcare services can attract people.

It is one of the best online healthcare business ideas that allows patients to find a hospital facility. You can partner with doctors in different countries and cities to feature on your app to provide better patient care.

With a medical tourism app, patients can easily plan a trip on the app. They can find locations, book flight or train tickets, book the nearest hotels, and pay online.

5. VR and Metaverse Apps for Mental Health

Virtual reality (VR) and the Metaverse present groundbreaking opportunities for healthcare startup ideas in the mental wellness space. With these immersive technologies, businesses can create innovative therapeutic experiences that go beyond the physical world. You can work with healthcare mobile app development companies to build VR and Metaverse-based mental well-being solutions.

Through such a platform, healthcare startups can tap into business possibilities such as:

• Providing exposure therapy, mindfulness exercises, or guided relaxation scenarios in a safe, controlled virtual environment.
• Assisting patients in anxiety control, stress reduction, and other forms of treatment.
• Setting up virtual clinics, support groups, and remote consultations in a shared virtual space.

By integrating VR and the Metaverse into their offerings, healthcare startups can provide patients with an innovative and engaging way to receive mental health care, potentially improving accessibility and efficacy.

6. Genetic Testing and Counseling

Genetic testing is another growing trend, making it one of the promising medical business ideas.

Startups can help people understand their health risks and inherited conditions. With digital solutions, you can make genetic tests accessible and affordable. It can also offer counseling to help people make smart choices about their health.

These testing and counseling solutions help individuals to predict future health issues. Teaming up with doctors and researchers, they can develop medicinal solutions matching a person's genes.

7. Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)

RPM helps doctors track patients' health from different locations. Build a startup to offer solutions like IoMT/ IoT in the healthcare industry (Internet of Medical Things/Internet of Things). With this tech, develop wearable devices, mobile health apps, and connected medical devices.

This healthcare startup idea will help collect real-time data online. Healthcare providers can monitor vital signs, symptoms, and medication adherence. For instance, RMP apps connected with the blood glucose meter can help examine patients' self-reported data.

Use different healthcare niche business ideas like this to offer cutting-edge remote solutions.

8. AI-Driven Solutions for Diagnostics and Patient Care

AI in healthcare can revolutionize the way medical data from patients is analyzed. Machine-learning algorithms offer healthcare professionals near-accurate analyzing power. This is where your AI healthcare startup can come in - with intelligent applications that provide tailored recommendations based on patients' health profiles.

These AI-powered applications can:

• Detect diseases by analyzing medical reports for anomalies
• Assist healthcare staff in the early detection of conditions like skin cancer and diabetic retinopathy
• Provide AI-driven solutions like virtual nursing assistants and image analysis tools
• Generate personalized treatment plans

The global AI-powered diagnostic market reached $1.33 billion in 2024 and is expected to touch the $5.57 billion mark by 2029, presenting profitable business ideas in the healthcare industry. Your startup can help a large group of patients and physicians, making a real difference.

9. Drug Rehabilitation Facility

A drug rehabilitation facility helps patients who wish to recover from substance abuse. These healthcare-related business ideas combine medical, psychological, and social methods to help individuals. It offers services to guide them towards a drug-free life.

Offer structured programs that include detoxification, counseling, therapy, and support groups. The objective is to help people develop coping mechanisms and adopt a holistic lifestyle.

10. Alternative Medical Services

Alternative medicine is one of the top innovative ideas for the healthcare business. One can think of offering complementary therapies and treatments beyond conventional Western medicine. These services can range from chiropractic adjustments to naturopathy, Ayurveda, etc.

Alternative medical services can also cover dietary interventions and other holistic wellness plans.

Many people seek a more thorough and individualized approach to their well-being. In fact, statistics reveal that the global alternative healthcare market reached $144.68 billion in 2023 and will grow at a CAGR of 25.3% from 2024 to 2030.

You can cater to this growing market by including alternative medical services.

11. Scrubs and Uniforms for Healthcare Staff

Since the 20th century, doctors have started wearing blue and green uniforms instead of universal white ones. Today, scrubs and uniforms come in all sizes and colors. The global hospital scrub and uniform market recorded $193.13 million in 2022 and is expected to reach $290.23 million by 2030.

Entrepreneurs can use this opportunity to redesign and modernize medical scrubs and uniforms, using innovative materials to help staff and medical professionals.

Your products can offer antibacterial qualities, moisture-absorbing features, and ergonomic designs. These solutions can improve comfort and hygiene and offer better functionality.

For example, FIGS is a healthcare apparel startup that is contributing to this area. It designs scrubs with flattering fits and hard-wearing fabrics. The brand is growing steadily, proving it capitalized on one of the best startup ideas in healthcare.

12. Telemedicine Platforms

Telemedicine or e-health apps use video calls, secure chat channels, and virtual consultations. They allow patients to connect with doctors, specialists, and other professionals.

This is one of the top healthcare IT business startup ideas to enhance patient convenience, since the need for phsyical visits is reduced. It also helps healthcare professionals improve their services and goes beyond in-person visitations.

These business ideas for healthcare professionals can be a game changer. In rural areas with limited healthcare access, you can offer a solution to help doctors save time.

What Are Some Examples of Successful Healthcare Startups and Their Business Models?

Here are some medical business examples with a healthcare startup business model for each to start your venture.

1. Hinge Health

The startup offers chronic pain care through innovative digital health solutions. Their digital solutions provide personalized treatment plans, support groups, and virtual appointments.

They use Enso® (predictive analysis through deep learning) and computer vision. These technologies help enhance member-centric experiences.

They serve healthcare businesses, employers, and patients with flexible pricing plans. The focus is to improve patient outcomes and modernize healthcare systems.

2. Teladoc Health

Teladoc Health is an e-health platform for remote patient care. It connects patients and doctors using digital and IoMT and offers virtual consultations, medical advice, and medications.

You can reach licensed doctors, therapists, and dermatologists using their app from anywhere.

The platform offers these services through subscriptions and fees. They partner with insurers, medical professionals, and other healthcare employees. It addresses the accessibility gaps and provides fast medical treatment.

3. Guardtime

Guardtime used one of the best healthcare business ideas to solve security issues in healthcare. Using blockchain technology, the company ensures and maintains data traceability.

The technology also helps with security and reduces manipulation, providing a platform for protecting sensitive patient data. The company offers services through a subscription-based model, consulting fees, and licensing agreements.

4. BetterHelp

BetterHelp is a platform for mental health patients to reach trained therapists online. It has options for video, phone, and text-based treatment channels. BetterHelp covers the time and geography gaps to improve mental health services.

Betterhelp is, again, a subscription-based platform. It addresses the growing demand for mental health care. Therapists not employed by BetterHelp get paid for their time. The platform makes professional mental health advice accessible, reducing the stigma around therapy.

The opportunities are vast, whether through AI-powered diagnostics, telemedicine platforms, or blockchain solutions for medical record sharing. Use these medical startup ideas and examples to find inspiration and turn their vision into reality. Carefully prepare a business plan with in-depth market research and develop a unique value proposition.

Further, respect the conservative market and strict compliance to ensure success. Reach out to the best startup accelerators to pitch your ideas. It will help you secure funding and guidance to tackle these challenges.

Non-compliance with industry standards is one of the top reasons healthcare startups fail. So, choose the best healthcare business ideas and plan well to avoid obstacles.

The revolution is already underway. The question is: will you be a part of it?

Get connected with top notch app development company, for free.

Frequently asked questions, what are some promising areas for healthcare startups to explore.

Many promising areas are there for healthcare startups to focus on. Some of them are:

• Telemedicine: An app or website where patients can talk to doctors online. 
• Mental Health Tech: Apps and programs to help mental health patients manage stress, depression, etc. Modern online medical business ideas increasingly focus on the mental health segment.
• Personalized Medicine: It uses AI and genomic data for tailored treatment plans. 
• Local Healthcare Delivery: Covering the last mile to deliver healthcare services and products. 

What are some key factors to consider when developing a business plan for a healthcare startup?

Creating a business plan for a healthcare startup is the same as for any other business. Careful planning and market analysis are essential to come with great medical field business ideas.  

Here are key considerations every healthcare startup owner must follow:

• Respect HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance and all other regulations.
• Prepare for a lengthy sales cycle.
• Ensure unification of health-related data.
• Create a clear executive summary and company description.
• Perform market and competitor analysis.
• Legal counsel and an evidence-based research product are needed to handle market conservatism.
• Adopt a lean mentality to avoid wasteful tasks and activities.
• Look for the right partnerships and supporters.

How can I navigate regulatory challenges and compliance requirements in the healthcare industry?

The first step is to understand all the healthcare regulatory and compliance standards. Research your startup niche and find all the valuable resources on these standards.   Follow them and create a broad compliance plan to avoid any risks and roadblocks in the future. Here are a few strategies you can adopt to always adhere to these laws.   

• Regular staff training and education.
• Work with compliance and regulatory experts.
• Use technological solutions like automation tools for compliance.
• Creating a single source of truth for all healthcare records.
• Documenting compliance covering procedures, protocols, and key steps.  

What are some strategies for securing funding and investment for my healthcare startup?

While the healthcare market has immense potential, raising funds in this regulated market takes time and effort. Here are a few ways to secure funding for healthcare business plan ideas. 

• Hook investors with a brand story.
• Present proof of concept.
• Prepare your pitch deck. 
• Focus on the impact. 

What role does technology play in driving innovation in healthcare startups?

Technology drives innovation in healthcare startups. Going digital helps enable advancements in diagnostics, treatment, and patient care.  From IoMT to 5G and AI, new technologies are helping the healthcare industry. It gives professionals better tools to improve efficiency and reduce human efforts.   New-age startups use these technologies to make healthcare more accessible and affordable for patients. This ensures informed decision-making about diagnosis and provides the right treatment when needed.

By Sakshi Kaushik

Content Writer

Sakshi Kaushik is a wordsmith extraordinaire who transforms complex technical jargon into captivating, must-read articles. Armed with a Masters in Economics, Sakshi dissects intricate topics with the precision of a seasoned expert. Her insights have graced prestigious platforms like Hackernoon, Ecowiser, and Medium, captivating readers and tech aficionados alike. With a career spanning influential companies like Teleperformance, Finex, and SparxIT Solutions, Sakshi is well-versed in navigating both the keyboard and the boardroom.

In addition to her extensive experience, Sakshi holds HubSpot certifications in Digital Advertising and Content Marketing, and has earned further credentials from UpGrad, Coursera, and Great Learning. Dedicated to sharing her expertise with mobile app developers and tech enthusiasts, Sakshi's passion shines through her writing. When she's not crafting compelling content, she enjoys diving into thrilling novels and exploring diverse worlds.

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The future of healthcare: Value creation through next-generation business models

The healthcare industry in the United States has experienced steady growth over the past decade while simultaneously promoting quality, efficiency, and access to care. Between 2012 and 2019, profit pools (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA) grew at a compound average growth rate of roughly 5 percent. This growth was aided in part by incremental healthcare spending that resulted from the 2010 Affordable Care Act. In 2020, subsidies for qualified individual purchasers on the marketplaces and expansion of Medicaid coverage resulted in roughly $130 billion 1 Federal Subsidies for Health Insurance Coverage for People Under Age 65: CBO and JCT’s March 2020 Projections, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC, September 29, 2020, cbo.gov. 2 Includes adults made eligible for Medicaid by the ACA and marketplace-related coverage and the Basic Health Program. of incremental healthcare spending by the federal government.

The next three years are expected to be less positive for the economics of the healthcare industry, as profit pools are more likely to be flat. COVID-19 has led to the potential for economic headwinds and a rebalancing of system funds. Current unemployment rates (6.9 percent as of October 2020) 3 The employment situation—October 2020 , US Department of Labor, November 6, 2020, bls.gov. indicate some individuals may move from employer-sponsored insurance to other options. It is expected that roughly between $70 billion and $100 billion in funding may leave the healthcare system by 2022, compared with the expected trajectory pre-COVID-19. The outflow is driven by coverage shifts out of employer-sponsored insurance, product buy-downs, and Medicaid rate pressures from states, partially offset by increased federal spending in the form of subsidies and cost sharing in the Individual market and in Medicaid funding.

Underlying this broader outlook are chances to innovate (Exhibit 1). 4 Smit S, Hirt M, Buehler K, Lund S, Greenberg E, and Govindarajan A, “ Safeguarding our lives and our livelihoods: The imperative of our time ,” March 23, 2020, McKinsey.com. Innovation may drive outpaced growth in three categories: segments that are anticipated to rebound from poor performance over recent years, segments that benefit from shifting care patterns that result directly from COVID-19, and segments where growth was expected pre-COVID-19 and remain largely unaffected by the pandemic. For the payer vertical, we estimate profit pools in Medicaid will likely increase by more than 10 percent per annum from 2019 to 2022 as a result of increased enrollment and normalized margins following historical lows. In the provider vertical, the rapid acceleration in the use of telehealth and other virtual care options spurred by COVID-19 could continue. 5 Bestsennyy O, Gilbert G, Harris A, and Rost J, “ Telehealth: A quarter-trillion-dollar post-COVID-19 reality? ” May 29, 2020, McKinsey.com. Growth is expected across a range of sub-segments in the services and technology vertical, as specialized players are able to provide services at scale (for example, software and platforms and data and analytics). Specialty pharmacy is another area where strong growth in profit pools is likely, with between 5 and 10 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) expected in infusion services and hospital-owned specialty pharmacy sub-segments.

Strategies that align to attractive and growing profit pools, while important, may be insufficient to achieve the growth that incumbents have come to expect. For example, in 2019, 34 percent of all revenue in the healthcare system was linked to a profit pool that grew at greater than 5 percent per year (from 2017 to 2019). In contrast, we estimate that only 13 percent of revenue in 2022 will be linked to profit pools growing at that rate between 2019 and 2022. This estimate reflects that profit pools are growing more slowly due to factors that include lower membership growth, margin pressure, and lower revenue growth. This relative scarcity in opportunity could lead to increased competition in attractive sub-segments with the potential for profits to be spread thinly across organizations. Developing new and innovative business models will become important to achieve the level of EBITDA growth observed in recent years and deliver better care for individuals. The good news is that there is significant opportunity, and need, for innovation in healthcare.

New and innovative business models across verticals can generate greater value and deliver better care for individuals

Glimpse into profit pool analyses and select sub-segments.

Within the context of these overarching observations, the projections for specific sub-segments are nuanced and tightly connected to the specific dynamics each sub-segment is currently facing:

• Payer—Small Group: Small group has historically seen membership declines and we expect this trend to continue and/or accelerate in the event of an economic downturn. Membership declines will increase competition and put pressure on incumbent market leaders to both maintain share and margin as membership declines, but fixed costs remain.
• Payer—Medicare Advantage: Historic profit pool growth in the Medicare Advantage space has been driven by enrollment gains that result from demographic trends and a long-term trend of seniors moving from traditional Medicare fee-for-service programs to Medicare Advantage plans that have increasingly offered attractive ancillary benefits (for example, dental benefits, gym memberships). Going forward, we expect Medicare members to be relatively insulated from the effects of an economic downturn that will impact employers and individuals in other payer segments.
• Provider—General acute care hospitals: Cancelation of elective procedures due to COVID-19 is expected to lead to volume and revenue reductions in 2019 and 2020. Though volume is expected to recover partially by 2022, growth will likely be slowed due to the accelerated shift from hospitals to virtual care and other non-acute settings. Payer mix shifts from employer-sponsored to Medicaid and uninsured populations in 2020 and 2021 are also likely to exert downward pressure on hospital revenue and EBITDA, possibly driving cost-optimization measures through 2022.
• Provider—Independent labs: COVID-19 testing is expected to drive higher than average utilization growth in independent labs through 2020 and 2021, with more typical utilization returning by 2022. However, labs may experience pressure on revenue and EBITDA growth as the payer mix shifts to lower-margin segments, offsetting some of the gains attributed to utilization.
• Provider—Virtual office visits: Telehealth has helped expand access to care at a time when the pandemic has restricted patients’ ability to see providers in person. Consumer adoption and stickiness, along with providers’ push to scale-up telehealth offerings, are expected to lead to more than 100 percent growth per annum in the segment from 2019 to 2022, going beyond traditional “tele-urgent” to more comprehensive virtual care.
• HST—Medical financing: The medical financing segment may be negatively impacted in 2020 due to COVID-19, as many elective services for which financing is used have been deferred. However, a quick bounce-back is expected as more patients lacking healthcare coverage may need financing in 2021, and as providers may use medical financing as a lever to improve cash reserves.
• HST—Wearables: Looking ahead, the wearables segment is expected to see a slight dip in 2020 due to COVID-19, but is expected to rebound in 2021 and 2022 given consumer interest in personal wellness and for tracking health indicators.
• Pharma services—Pharmacy benefit management: The growth is expected to return to baseline expectations by 2022 after an initial decline in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19-driven decrease in prescription volume.

New and innovative business models are beginning to show promise in delivering better care and generating higher returns. The existence of these models and their initial successes are reflective of what we have observed in the market in recent years: leading organizations in the healthcare industry are not content to simply play in attractive segments and markets, but instead are proactively and fundamentally reshaping how the industry operates and how care is delivered. While the recipe across verticals varies, common among these new business models are greater alignment of incentives typically involving risk bearing, better integration of care, and use of data and advanced analytics.

Payers—Next-generation managed care models

For payers, the new and innovative business models that are generating superior returns are those that incorporate care delivery and advanced analytics to better serve individuals with increasingly complex healthcare needs (Exhibit 2). As chronic disease and other long-term conditions require more continuous management supported by providers (for example, behavioral health conditions), these next-generation managed care models have garnered notice. Nine of the top ten payers have made acquisitions in the care delivery space. Such models intend to reorient the traditional payer model away from an operational focus on financing healthcare and pricing risk, and toward more integrated managed care models that better align incentives and provide higher-quality, better experience, lower-cost, and more accessible care. Payers that deployed next-generation managed care models generate 0.5 percentage points of EBITDA margin above average expectations after normalizing for payer scale, geographical footprint, and segment mix, according to our research.

The evidence for the effectiveness of these next-generation care models goes beyond the financial analysis of returns. We observe that these models are being deployed in those geographies that have the greatest opportunity to positively impact individuals. Those markets with 1) a critical mass of disease burden, 2) presence of compressible costs (the opportunity for care to be redirected to lower-cost settings), and 3) a market structure conducive to shifting to higher-value sites of care, offer substantial ways to improve outcomes and reduce costs. (Exhibit 3).

Currently, a handful of payers—often large national players with access to capital and geographic breadth that enables acquisition of at-scale providers and technologies—have begun to pursue such models. Smaller payers may find it more difficult to make outright acquisitions, given capital constraints and geographic limitations. M&A activity across the care delivery landscape is leaving smaller and more localized assets available for integration and partnership. Payers may need to increasingly turn toward strategic partnerships and alliances to create value and integrate a range of offerings that address all drivers of health.

Providers—reimagining care delivery beyond the hospital

For health systems, through an investment lens, the ownership and integration of alternative sites of care beyond the hospital has demonstrated superior financial returns. Between 2013 and 2018, the number of transactions executed by health systems for outpatient assets increased by 31 percent, for physician practices by 23 percent, and for post-acute care assets by 13 percent. At the same time, the number of hospital-focused deals declined by 6 percent. In addition, private equity investors and payers are becoming more active dealmakers in these non-acute settings. 6 CapitalIQ, Dealogic, and Irving Levin Associates. 7 In 2018, around 40 percent of all post-acute and outpatient deals were completed by an acquirer other than a traditional provider.

As investment is focused on alternative sites of care, we observe that health systems pursuing diversified business models that encompass a greater range of care delivery assets (for example, physician practices, ambulatory surgery centers, and urgent care centers) are generating returns above expectations (Exhibit 4). By offering diverse settings to receive care, many of these systems have been able to lower costs, enhance coordination, and improve patient experience while maintaining or enhancing the quality of the services provided. Consistent with prior research, 8 Singhal S, Latko B, and Pardo Martin C, “ The future of healthcare: Finding the opportunities that lie beneath the uncertainty ,” January 31, 2018, McKinsey.com. systems with high market share tend to outperform peers with lower market share, potentially because systems with greater share have greater ability not only to ensure referral integrity but also to leverage economies of scale that drive efficiency.

The extent of this outperformance, however, varies by market type. For players with top quartile share, the difference in outperformance between acute-focused players and diverse players is less meaningful. Contrastingly, for bottom quartile players, the increase in value provided by presence beyond the acute setting is more significant. While there may be disadvantages for smaller and sub-scale providers, opportunities exist for these players—as well as new entrants and attackers—to succeed by integrating offerings across the care continuum.

These new models and entrants and their non-acute, technology-enabled, and multichannel offerings can offer a different vision of care delivery. Consumer adoption of telehealth has skyrocketed, from 11 percent of US consumers using telehealth in 2019 to 46 percent now using telehealth to replace canceled healthcare visits. Pre-COVID-19, the total annual revenues of US telehealth players were an estimated $3 billion; with the acceleration of consumer and provider adoption and the extension of telehealth beyond virtual urgent care, up to $250 billion of current US healthcare spend could be virtualized. 9 Bestsennyy O, Gilbert G, Harris A, and Rost J, “ Telehealth: A quarter-trillion-dollar post-COVID-19 reality? ” May 29, 2020, McKinsey.com. These early indications suggest that the market may be shifting toward a model of innovative tech-enabled care, one that unlocks value by integrating digital and non-acute settings into a comprehensive, coordinated, and lower-cost offering. While functional care coordination is currently still at the early stages, the potential of technology and other alternative settings raises the question of the role of existing acute-focused providers in a more integrated and digital world.

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Healthcare services and technology—innovation and integration across the value chain.

Growth in the healthcare services and technology vertical has been material, as players are bringing technology-enabled services to help improve patient care and boost efficiency. Healthcare services and technology companies are serving nearly all segments of the healthcare ecosystem. These efforts include working with payers and providers to better enable the link between actions and outcomes, to engage with consumers, and to provide real-time and convenient access to health information. Since 2014, a large number and value of deals have been completed: more than 580 deals, or $83 billion in aggregate value. 10 Includes deals over $10 million in value. 11 Analysis from PitchBook Data, Inc. and McKinsey Healthcare Services and Technology domain profit pools model. Venture capital and private equity have fueled much of the innovation in the space: more than 80 percent 12 Includes deals over $10 million in value. of deal volume has come from these institutional investors, while more traditional strategic players have focused on scaling such innovations and integrating them into their core.

Driven by this investment, multiple new models, players, and approaches are emerging across various sub-segments of the technology and services space, driving both innovation (measured by the number of venture capital deals as a percent of total deals) and integration (measured by strategic dollars invested as a percent of total dollars) with traditional payers and providers (Exhibit 5). In some sub-segments, such as data and analytics, utilization management, provider enablement, network management, and clinical information systems, there has been a high rate of both innovation and integration. For instance, in the data and analytics sub-segment, areas such as behavioral health and social determinants of health have driven innovation, while payer and provider investment in at-scale data and analytics platforms has driven deeper integration with existing core platforms. Other sub-segments, such as patient engagement and population health management, have exhibited high innovation but lower integration.

Traditional players have an opportunity to integrate innovative new technologies and offerings to transform and modernize their existing business models. Simultaneously, new (and often non-traditional) players are well positioned to continue to drive innovation across multiple sub-segments and through combinations of capabilities (roll-ups).

Pharmacy value chain—emerging shifts in delivery and management of care

The profit pools within the pharmacy services vertical are shifting from traditional dispensing to specialty pharmacy. Profits earned by retail dispensers (excluding specialty pharmacy) are expected to decline by 0.5 percent per year through 2022, in the face of intensifying competition and the maturing generic market. New modalities of care, new care settings, and new distribution systems are emerging, though many innovations remain in early stages of development.

Specialty pharmacy continues to be an area of outpaced growth. By 2023, specialty pharmacy is expected to account for 44 percent of pharmacy industry prescription revenues, up from 24 percent in 2013. 13 Fein AJ, The 2019 economic report on U.S. pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers , Drug Channels Institute, 2019, drugchannelsinstitute.com. In response, both incumbents and non-traditional players are seeking opportunities to both capture a rapidly growing portion of the pharmacy value chain and deliver better experience to patients. Health systems, for instance, are increasingly entering the specialty space. Between 2015 and 2018 the share of provider-owned pharmacy locations with specialty pharmacy accreditation more than doubled, from 11 percent in 2015 to 27 percent in 2018, creating an opportunity to directly provide more integrated, holistic care to patients.

Challenges emerge for the US healthcare system as COVID-19 cases rise

A new wave of modalities of care and pharmaceutical innovation are being driven by cell and gene therapies. Global sales are forecasted to grow at more than 40 percent per annum from 2019 to 2024. 14 Evaluate Pharma, February 2020. These new therapies can be potentially curative and often serve patients with high unmet needs, but also pose challenges: 15 Capra E, Smith J, and Yang G, “ Gene therapy coming of age: Opportunities and challenges to getting ahead ,” October 2, 2019, McKinsey.com. upfront costs are high (often in the range of $500,000 to $2,000,000 per treatment), benefits are realized over time, and treatment is complex, with unique infrastructure and supply chain requirements. In response, both traditional healthcare players (payers, manufacturers) and policy makers (for example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) 16 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Medicaid program; establishing minimum standards in Medicaid state drug utilization review (DUR) and supporting value-based purchasing (VBP) for drugs covered in Medicaid, revising Medicaid drug rebate and third party liability (TPL) requirements,” Federal Register , June 19, 2020, Volume 85, Number 119, p. 37286, govinfo.gov. are considering innovative models that include value-based arrangements (outcomes-based pricing, annuity pricing, subscription pricing) to support flexibility around these new modalities.

Innovations also are accelerating in pharmaceutical distribution and delivery. Non-traditional players have entered the direct-to-consumer pharmacy space to improve efficiency and reimagine customer experience, including non-healthcare players such as Amazon (through its acquisition of PillPack in 2018) and, increasingly, traditional healthcare players as well, such as UnitedHealth Group (through its acquisition of DivvyDose in September 2020). COVID-19 has further accelerated innovation in patient experience and new models of drug delivery, with growth in tele-prescribing, 17 McKinsey COVID-19 Consumer Survey conducted June 8, 2020 and July 14, 2020. a continued shift toward delivery of pharmaceutical care at home, and the emergence of digital tools to help manage pharmaceutical care. Select providers have also begun to expand in-home offerings (for example, to include oncology treatments), shifting the care delivery paradigm toward home-first models.

A range of new models to better integrate pharmaceutical and medical care and management are emerging. Payers, particularly those with in-house pharmacy benefit managers, are using access to data on both the medical and pharmacy benefit to develop distinctive insights and better coordinate across pharmacy and medical care. Technology providers, together with a range of both traditional and non-traditional healthcare players, are working to integrate medical and pharmaceutical care in more convenient settings, such as the home, through access to real-time adherence monitoring and interventions. These players have an opportunity to access a broad range of comprehensive data, and advanced analytics can be leveraged to more effectively personalize and target care. Such an approach may necessitate cross-segment partnerships, acquisitions, and/or alliances to effectively integrate the many components required to deliver integrated, personalized, and higher-value care.

Creating and capturing new value

These materials are being provided on an accelerated basis in response to the COVID-19 crisis. These materials reflect general insight based on currently available information, which has not been independently verified and is inherently uncertain. Future results may differ materially from any statements of expectation, forecasts or projections. These materials are not a guarantee of results and cannot be relied upon. These materials do not constitute legal, medical, policy, or other regulated advice and do not contain all the information needed to determine a future course of action. Given the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, these materials are provided “as is” solely for information purposes without any representation or warranty, and all liability is expressly disclaimed. References to specific products or organizations are solely for illustration and do not constitute any endorsement or recommendation. The recipient remains solely responsible for all decisions, use of these materials, and compliance with applicable laws, rules, regulations, and standards. Consider seeking advice of legal and other relevant certified/licensed experts prior to taking any specific steps.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, our research indicated that profits for healthcare organizations were expected to be harder to earn than they have been in the recent past, which has been made even more difficult by COVID-19. New entrants and incumbents who can reimagine their business models have a chance to find ways to innovate to improve healthcare and therefore earn superior returns. The opportunity for incumbents who can reimagine their business models and new entrants is substantial.

Institutions will be expected to do more than align with growth segments of healthcare. The ability to innovate at scale and with speed is expected to be a differentiator. Senior leaders can consider five important questions:

• How does my business model need to change to create value in the future healthcare world? What are my endowments that will allow me to succeed?
• How does my resource (for example, capital and talent) allocation approach need to change to ensure the future business model is resourced differentially compared with the legacy business?
• How do I need to rewire my organization to design it for speed? 18 De Smet A, Pacthod D, Relyea C, and Sternfels B, “ Ready, set, go: Reinventing the organization for speed in the post-COVID-19 era ,” June 26, 2020, McKinsey.com.
• How should I construct an innovation model that rapidly accesses the broader market for innovation and adapts it to my business model? What ecosystem of partners will I need? How does my acquisition, partnership, and alliances approach need to adapt to deliver this rapid innovation?
• How do I prepare my broader organization to adopt and scale new innovations? Are my operating processes and technology platforms able to move quickly in scaling innovations?

There is no question that the next few years in healthcare are expected to require innovation and fresh perspectives. Yet healthcare stakeholders have never hesitated to rise to the occasion in a quest to deliver innovative, quality care that benefits everyone. Rewiring organizations for speed and efficiency, adapting to an ecosystem model, and scaling innovations to deliver meaningful changes are only some of the ways that helping both healthcare players and patients is possible.

Emily Clark is an associate partner in the Stamford office. Shubham Singhal , a senior partner in McKinsey’s Detroit office, is the global leader of the Healthcare, Public Sector and Social Sector practices. Kyle Weber is a partner in the Chicago office.

The authors would like to thank Ismail Aijazuddin, Naman Bansal, Zachary Greenberg, Rob May, Neha Patel, and Alex Sozdatelev for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Elizabeth Newman, an executive editor in the Chicago office.

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