Telemedicine App Development: How to Make an App Like Doctor on Demand

• Mobile
• June 26, 2023

by Beantsingh Duggal

Now we can order everything on-demand, from personal trainers to taxis to food and doctors also. Although the first 3 on-demand services have been famous for a long, on-demand consultations with medical experts like doctors have not started so long ago.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the landscape of the healthcare industry. And there comes the requirement of telemedicine technology for innovative solutions for the healthcare system.

The average time patient waits for connecting with a doctor using Doctor on Demand is just 3 minutes. This app has undoubtedly become very much popular and has over a million registered users. Hence, healthcare companies and clinics are now thinking about creating the same apps for them.

So, how to start with telemedicine app development? Before discussing that, let’s delve into the details of the technology!

What is Telemedicine Technology?

Telemedicine, also known as Telehealth, is a practice that offers effective assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of patients from remote areas. In short, patients don’t need to be present in the hospital for the diagnosis or treatment.

Healthcare experts can easily offer remote care and medical facilities to the patients utilizing solutions like a telemedicine app. The lowered expense for smooth operations and medical facilities has made telehealth, an accepted process. And this is what has mobilized telehealth app development among all clinicians.

Telemedicine app development is presently the main object of healthcare agencies. And telemedicine has allured much interest from patients, doctors, and clinics. As per MarketWatch, the global telehealth market is expected to reach $16.7 billion by 2025.

People working in the healthcare sector are now well-aware of telemedicine app development and telemedicine’s benefits. As per Meticulous Research, the Global Telemedicine market will develop at a CAGR of 23% from 2018-2023 reaching $12,105.2 million by 2023.

Now telemedicine app development is the main object of healthcare agencies seeking to offer healthcare services to patients from a certain distance. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Statista anticipated that the size of the telemedicine market would develop to $459.8 billion by 2030.

Benefits of Telemedicine App Development

Everybody wants to lead a healthy life. This is one of the topmost human priorities. As of June 2020, there is a huge requirement for health-related products prescribed for the COVID-19 pandemic and global lockdown.

Telehealth services can support the healthcare system across medical foundations, doctors, and patients. The prime task of this service is to increase the efficacy of medical services, offer remote doctor visits, and check health conditions from a good distance.

Let’s summarize the prime advantages of telemedicine app development!

1. Time-Efficient and Feasible Medical Care

During this crisis period, you should not spend excessive time visiting a hospital or waiting in the queue for initial doctor consultation. If you require visiting different medical specialists, the process can take more time.

Thereby, you can use a telemedicine app to fix appointments for remote medical care. Doctors and patients can connect at the foremost convenience. The required treatment begins fast and more efficiently. In emergency care also telehealth apps may have amazing applicability.

2. Availability of Medical Services

For beginners, a telemedicine application can offer medical services for remote areas without access to clinics. The services help people from rural areas where healthcare personnel shortage is found. Telehealth apps can help school students, old people, and veterans reach healthcare services easily.

3. Combined Patient Handling and Checking System

Telemedicine apps can help with fatal disease monitoring, updates to prescriptions; follow-up consultations, and more.

4. Medical Record Storage

A telemedicine app helps medical practitioners in accessing and storing medical data efficiently. Nowadays, it can else be very hard to avail such records and send them to other doctors for better prescriptions of treatments.

5. The Assistance of Admin Operations

Using telemedicine apps, you can devote more time to the actual jobs. You don’t have to complete multiple forms and internal documentation, as the maximum paperwork will be automated. Reducing this inefficiency corresponds with higher profits directly.

Telehealth apps may be used across several medical fields. The prime areas include severe diseases like hypertension and diabetes, behavioral and psychological health, cardiology, dermatology, and so forth.

6. Effective Time Handling of Medical Experts

Medical service providers can systematize their workload more efficiently. This implies there is a probability to test more patients precisely.

7. Extra Revenue

A mobile doctor app permits medical experts to produce extra revenue for after-hour services and the capacity to check more patients, in comparison with face-to-face appointments in the office.

Top Features of a Telemedicine App

Source: Telemedicine App

While creating a telemedicine application, ponder these features:

Telemedicine App Features for Patients

The patient side of the telemedicine app should include the following features:

User Login

When a new user signs into your application, he/she requires making an account with details regarding severe conditions and give data about insurance, sex, and age.

Search for a Medical Expert

When a patient needs to discover a required expert, he/she utilizes a search with Geolocation to find the nearest specialist available for booking an appointment.

To make the application compliant with healthcare regulations, you need to integrate the Google Maps platform through a 3rd party API that decides nearby clinics and the patient area before the video consultation starts.

Book an Appointment

After searching, the user can find the list of doctors and view their profiles. Based on availability, users can book an appointment with the doctor they choose.

Source: Online Doctor Appointment App

Video Conferencing with Doctors

A video call is an important feature of a telemedicine application. These calls connect doctors and patients and allow live communication.

Nevertheless, you require using HIPAA compliant telehealth solutions for keeping the app secure from data violations. Hence, use readymade third-party API for video calls to keep the application users’ data secure.

Payment Gateway

Patients pay doctors for the medical service offered, after the online consultation. To accomplish this, you should integrate the payment gateway through API. Here’s how to integrate a payment gateway in mobile app.

Doctor Review

When the patient gets medical care from a doctor, he/she can give reviews and state his/her experience with the doctor and rate him also.

Telemedicine App Features for Doctors

The doctor side of the telemedicine app should include the following features:

Doctors’ Panel

This panel is part of a telehealth application for doctors. It is integrated with electronic medical records that comprise data regarding medicine prescriptions, patients, and a calendar with fixed appointments.

Manage Appointments

When a patient discovers the required medical expert, he/she requires booking an appointment through the app and gives data regarding medical records and health conditions if needed. The app must handle time slots automatically and display when one or other medical experts are available.

The doctor can receive consultation requests and manage a calendar filled with a list of appointments.

In-App Messages

To permit doctors and patients to send messages securely within the app, and exchange reports, prescriptions, and x-rays, you require paying more heed to the tech solutions you will select.

All these data belong to sensitive info of patients and require fulfilling telemedicine regulations. Hence, ponder using GDPR and HIPAA compliant messaging platforms.

How to Build a Telemedicine App

Follow these steps to develop a telemedicine app like Doctor on Demand:

Step-1: Evaluate your App Idea

To create an outstanding app that can meet the requirements of doctors as well as patients, you need to evaluate your app idea properly. Do some studies and try to find out the pain points of doctors, patients, and healthcare providers.

Step-2: Ask Developers for Quotations

If you want to get your telemedicine app development done successfully, explain your app idea to the development team clearly and try to give as many details regarding your telehealth app as possible.

Step-3: Make the Project Opportunity for the MVP of A Telemedicine Platform

You need to make a project brief and sign an NDA. The project manager and business analyst will display a list of app features for the MVP of the project, and create the project prototypes, and mock-ups.

Step-4: Enter the development phase

After deciding the MVP project scope, break the app features into small user stories that are easy to apply. Then, start building the code, examine it, and conduct error-fixing frequency.

Step-5: Approve the application’s demonstration

When an app’s MVP is prepared, the development team will display you the outcome amid the project demonstration. If you are happy with the outcomes, the team will upload the project MVP to the application marketplace and start applying more advanced features.

Step-6: Introduce Your App in App Marketplaces

After applying all app features from the project scope, the team will run the ultimate product demonstration and provide your app the project-related info, incorporating designs, mock-ups, access to app stores, and databases.

Ultimately, your telemedicine app like Doctor on Demand, will all available features on the app marketplaces, is prepared to serve more users.

How Much Does A Telemedicine App Cost?

It is required to assess the cost of the telemedicine platform and decide on the budget for promoting and distributing the app. A telemedicine app’s cost depends on its development approach, features required, platforms, functionality, chosen development vendor, and concept.

Here are a few deciding factors that estimate the cost of telemedicine app development:

• The app development partner whom you hire for app design & development.
• The app development platform, tools, and other technology stack used in your app development impact the cost of developing a telemedicine app.
• The cost value is directly associated with your app’s complexity and features of an app. Hence, you must have a good budget if you want to develop a full-fledged app.
• Whether you need an MVP or a completely developed application, this will incorporate just the fundamental features with a simple design that will handle the business.

Challenges in Telemedicine App Development

The key challenges of building a telemedicine app include:

1. Backend Framework

In terms of performance, you can integrate some public third-party services into a telemedicine app. Do not forget to research their documentation and then match the system upfront.

2. UI/UX Application

The layout, navigation, and logic must be made according to the target user requirements. However, the user interface in a doctor’s app and the user experience differ from the patient app’s requirements.

3. HIPAA Compliance

Telemedicine app development must consider regulatory standards. Apps managing patient data must be HIPAA compliant. Here’s is how you can make your mobile app HIPAA compliant.

4. Security

Telehealth apps must make sure extreme security of medical records, particularly personal info. Every required precaution must be taken for storing, exchanging, and proceeding with this type of data.

Also, use biometric identification or multi-factor authentication. It’s possible to incorporate top-notch encryption protocols for the data exchange.

5. Choosing and Employing Procedures of Trustworthy Telemedicine App Developers

After determining how to develop a telemedicine app, you require finding a dependable app development company. Based on your financial ability, targets, and business requirements, you can either find an outsourcing firm that specializes in telemedicine app development or employ an in-house app development team.

Closure

Healthcare is a growing industry that will be developing more in the future. And telemedicine app development will be the main tech advancement in this industry.

If you are seeking to invest in such a concept or have an app idea to develop a telemedicine app like Doctor on Demand, get in touch with our experts. They will certainly guide you through all the processes.

FAQs About Telemedicine App Development