How to Build a Telehealth App in 10 Steps: Our Insights

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The recent pandemic’s impact on the healthcare industry was harsh. However, it also brought new opportunities. During that time, we saw a rise in the popularity of digital health solutions. These solutions revolutionized healthcare, allowing patients to consult doctors remotely via video calls or messages. More importantly, they slashed operating costs for healthcare providers.

Today, the telehealth market is still growing steadily and is expected to reach $513.8 billion USD by 2030. But how do you break into this profitable market? In this article, we will discuss everything you need to know about telehealth app development, its features, and best practices.

Getting Started With Telehealth App Development

Telehealth apps are platforms that offer healthcare professionals and patients to communicate remotely with each other. Depending on the app, this can happen via video calls or messages.

The main goal of telehealth solutions is to make healthcare more accessible and reduce clinics’ operational costs. Such apps are purposefully designed to be as accessible and user-friendly as possible since they target patients of all ages at once.

Patients can get all the necessary services from the comfort of their homes instead of making a trip to the clinic. At the same time, doctors can better schedule their working hours and, since distance is not a concern, can expand their reach.

Recently, we conducted a survey among healthcare and wellness companies in order to understand where the future of the wellness industry lies, and here are the results:

As you can see, 75% of respondents said that the future of the wellness industry lies in the increased integration of technology and digital health applications.

The second question we asked was about important factors for businesses to create a seamless digital patient experience and build a consistent brand image.

39% of recipients believe in the importance of implementing complex technological solutions, while only 23% prefer traditional marketing strategies.

Based on the results, we can see that more businesses think the future is in adopting technological solutions. But why is that? Let’s talk about why they think telehealth is so important.

The 10 Steps of the eHealth Software Development Process

As with any type of software development, eHealth solutions require a lot of planning before their execution. The key difference here is that you will need to take additional steps to comply with regulations in the healthcare industry.

Let’s talk about how the healthcare app development cycle looks:

Step 1: Define your objective

Like with any software, success depends on clearly identifying your goals. Think about who this product is for, what its purpose is, and what it can do. Luckily, we already have covered all of the potential features you might be interested in above.

Step 2: Conduct research and plan out your work

Once all your ideas are written down, it’s time to research. Start by looking into solutions that already exist and identifying the user’s needs. Outlining a product roadmap based on your research will help you explain how the software you are creating will benefit patients and doctors.

Step 3: Ensure regulatory compliance

This step is what makes working with an eHealth app different from other apps. Each country has its own set of rules and regulations regarding the healthcare industry that you need to abide by. You need to study and understand them. This is done to provide the end users with a product that is compliant with current regulations.

Step 4: Choose the right technological stack

To start, you need to decide which technology stack to use. The choice of a tech stack varies based on scalability requirements, the development team’s expertise, and budget. A standard technology staсk includes the following:

• Front-end framework and programming language;
• Back-end framework and programming language;
• Database;
• Hosting Infrastructure;
• Other tools.

Step 5: Design the user interface (UI)

Having a good user interface is crucial. But how do you define “good,” and where should you focus? Let’s cover some points:

• The color scheme of the app should align with your branding and image;
• Remember who your target audience is. Your healthcare mobile app design should be easy to navigate;
• The fonts you are using should be readable from the mobile screen;
• The user interface should have consistent design rules. For example, if one cancel button is red, every cancel button must be red.

Step 6: Implement key features

Now that we have the UI design, it’s time to implement the product’s core features. Focus on providing your end users with quality features: prioritize high-quality audio and video and ensure security by adding encryption and an authentication system.

Step 7: Integrate third-party services

We’re almost done with the development. All that is left is to integrate third-party services of your choosing. Such services will provide your software with additional functionalities. Here are some examples:

• Payment systems;
• Analytics tools;
• Language translation services;
• Electronic health records.

Step 8: Test your app

Testing your software is essential. If the software has critical bugs, no one is going to use it. So, let’s talk about what you need to focus on:

• Ensure the app meets quality standards;
• Test if all features work properly;
• Check if the integrated systems respond correctly;
• Monitor the state of security measures.

After the app’s tests are done, you are ready for the next stage of development.

Step 9: Proceed with the deployment

Deployment is the pinnacle of the development process. Deployment (also known as product launch) is the moment when you make your app available to the end users. Here are the key steps to this process:

• Ensure the app functions correctly before launch;
• Make the app available for the users;
• Monitor software’s performance in the real world and address any critical problems users might encounter.

Step 10: Provide updates and maintenance

If you want your app to keep on bringing value to your company, you need to maintain it, which includes several key points:

• Fixing bugs users encounter;
• Continuing to monitor software performance;
• Constantly updating security measures to the latest standards;
• Developing new features or quality-of-life changes based on user feedback.

We have outlined a rough guide for virtual health app creation, so that you know what to expect. Each development team has their own approach to this process, which is why you should talk to your vendor about the project workflow and the estimated time each step will take.

Would you like to get a look inside a telehealth application? In our original article, you’ll find the essential app features to consider for your minimal viable product (MVP).

Moreover, we’ve prepared a fundamental set of tips for telehealth security. Safety comes first regardless of what features you’re going to implement.

Click here to continue reading.