How to Develop a Telemedicine App From Scratch?

Quick Overview: In this blog, we will highlight the importance of research and planning, selecting the right features, ensuring compliance with healthcare regulations, and choosing the appropriate technology stack. Additionally, it provides insights into user experience design, data security measures, and testing to create a robust and user-friendly telemedicine app from the ground up.

The COVID-19 pandemic in the world has propelled and changed the functionality of the healthcare industry. It has shown that our healthcare system may evolve with various technologies and solutions. As a result, Telemedicine and mHealth app development has become the primary goal in the healthcare industry.

However, in this digital world, there are many on-demand applications you could find for your devices. From online cab booking to food delivery have already been popular. Amidst pandemic, online doctor consultation came into the picture and has grabbed the attention of healthcare industries – doctors, clinics, hospitals, and patients.

"The global telehealth market size was valued at $128.12 billion in 2022 & is projected to reach $504.24 billion by 2030, exhibiting a CAGR of 19.7% during the forecast period. All thanks to active government initiatives for adoption of telemedicine applications and the concern about rising healthcare costs.

However, as per the prediction by Statista, before the pandemic, the telemedicine market size would rise to $41.2 billion by 2021.

Therefore, we can predict that the healthcare industry will inevitably go online. Hence, now is the best time to look out for the best telemedicine app development company and invest in telehealth app. Since this niche is still untouched, the demand for online doctor consultation services is growing and will surely continue to rise.

So, now you must have a question – how does telemedicine app development bring success to business?

Here, in this blog, we will cover various aspects of telehealth app – telemedicine app development, telemedicine app features, benefits, and pricing.

But before we proceed further, let’s understand why the healthcare industry needs a telehealth app.

So, tighten your seatbelts and let’s dive in.

Top Takeaway For Telemedicine App Development

Telehealth apps can bring people back to the doctor’s clinic, whether by online chat, phone call, video call, or in-person appointment through virtual care and navigation, according to Edent Health.

As per the survey conducted by the renowned organization in the 15 major cities of the USA, patients wait an average of 24 days to get a new appointment with a physician. Therefore, one of three patients prefers to choose the emergency to avoid delays and inconvenience.

So, here comes reality.

• 82% of patients agreed that developing a telehealth app will smoothen the process of healthcare and doctor consultation.
• 69% of patients agree to have a virtual consultation with their physician over physical visits.

In the digital world, telehealth applications bring patients and healthcare experts closer. It builds a bridge to interact with each other for better care from anywhere and anytime. Whereas patients can book an appointment to the relevant professionals at their convenient time and they can be treated with online doctor consultation

However, it takes only three minutes to connect with a doctor using a telehealth app. Therefore, patients don’t have to wait in a long queue for the treatment.

Things You Need For a Telehealth App

A Telehealth app can keep a track of the patients’ personal health records, such as diagnoses, allergies, vital signs, vaccines, lab tests, and prescriptions. Telemedicine App Development involves the complete cycle of developing, implementing, and managing mobile or web applications that facilitate remote medical consultations and healthcare services.

When we talk about developing a telehealth application, here, we are considering the challenges that doctors face in real life. However, a telehealth app may solve the given issues:

• Daily expenses
• Regulatory compliance
• Patient and hospital management daily
• Mismanagement may impact their work-life balance

In a nutshell, the telehealth app is a win-win situation for both – patients and healthcare professionals.

Types of Telehealth App

1) Real-time Interaction

With the real-time interaction telehealth app, patients and healthcare professionals can interact with each other using video or audio. This way, they both can see and hear each other as well.

2) Remote Monitoring

Apart from having a real-time interaction, the prime advantages of the telehealth app are to analyze the patient’s health and monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, etc. It also gives alerts to their doctors and relatives whether the patient is at high risk and allows them to monitor their activities. However, this telehealth app can be developed using IoT development services.

3) Store-and-Forward

Using the store-and-forward telehealth app, healthcare professionals can share the details of patients, such as blood tests, lab reports, x-rays, etc., to the radiologist or a specialist. This way, they can communicate with each other and align the proper treatment for their patients.

Advantages of Telemedicine App Development

A MarketWatch report suggests that “the US telemedicine market generated around 11.8 billion USD revenue and about 50% of the hospitals in the US, use telemedicine programs."

Well, this clearly shows how telehealth apps will define the growth of business success and offer benefits to both healthcare professionals and patients. Let’s walk through those healthcare providers’ benefits here.

For Healthcare Professionals:

Easy For Consultation

Using telehealth apps, healthcare professionals can consult their patients at their given time slot. In addition, they can also access their patient’s medical records. However, both patients and healthcare providers can leverage this benefit and get things done quickly with virtual healthcare.

Record Management

A telehealth app for patients/doctors shows patients' medical history and records with a single click. The app allows storing the record and medical history of patients. Therefore, various doctors from professionals can quickly access their data and treat them in a much better way.

Additionally, an app also allows patients to share their medical records with relatives and respective doctors. So, they can track and analyze their healthcare activities.

Remote Monitoring

A telehealth app for healthcare professionals is used to monitor the patient’s health, symptoms, and heart rate using wearable devices and IoT-enabled gadgets with the remote monitoring feature.

Cost-Effective

Various telemedicine app features allow patients have online doctor consultations without visiting the hospital. It saves both time and transportation costs.

Patient Management

A telehealth app for doctors can manage the patient details, where patients can update their prescriptions, follow up consultations, monitor their disease, and many more.

Effective Time Management for Doctors

Research shows that around 15 healthcare professionals suffer from depression and burnout. However, using a telehealth app for doctors, professionals can effectively manage their schedules and timings. Moreover, different telemedicine app features like push notifications, in-app appointment booking, etc., will not make doctors miss any information.

In addition to that, companies can also integrate CRMs with telemedicine app development. A competent healthcare IT consulting company can help you build an all-inclusive telemedicine app that offers extended functionality to both doctors and administrative staff. Admin can analyze the doctor’s schedule and manage their work accordingly, whereas doctors can apply for leaves and shift-timing changes using the app.

How Radixweb has helped health care organizations by streamlining their processes?

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For Patients:

Numerous Choices to Choose an Expert

The telehealth app offers a wide choice to choose an expert and do online doctor consultation from the nearest area.

Easy Accessibility

Using telehealth apps, a patient from anywhere can connect with their healthcare providers and benefit from online doctor consultation easily. Henceforth, they don’t have to book an appointment, drive to hospitals and wait in a long queue.

As per Cisco, 74% of patients prefer access to telemedicine app over in-person consultation with doctors.

In a nutshell, telehealth applications help patients in starting the needed treatment quickly and effectively.

Lower Risk of Infection

In this pandemic, we always find hospitals and clinics full of patients with different diseases. Therefore, the chances of getting infected during hospital visits increase when a patient goes there, especially when a patient has a weak immunity system. Therefore, using an online doctor consultation app, a patient can get proper treatment and avoid unwanted infection by staying home.

Complete Satisfaction

One of the most important advantages of using an online doctor consultation application is that patients get complete satisfaction with better treatment. A patient can better communicate with the healthcare provider over the call or message and clear their doubts. Moreover, many telehealth applications offer you round-the-clock service.

Easily Accessible to EHR

Any healthcare professional can easily access EHRs (Electronic Health Records) whenever they require them. Hence, doctors can save time by operating it from anywhere. Moreover, patients can also be aware of the changes made in EHR.

Did you know the percentage of telehealth visits for those aged 18–49 climbed from 68 percent in the first week of January to 73 percent in the last week of March in 2020? Click To Tweet

How Does Online Doctor Consultation App Work?

In fact, each telemedicine app has its own features and workflow. However, here, we have figured out a very common app flow of online doctor consultation app.

• In an online doctor consultation app, patients get into the system and create an account. Also, they describe their disease or symptoms.
• As per the location of patients, the app searches for the relevant hospital or medical officers nearby.
• After finalizing the hospital, the patient can book an appointment using a built-in calendar and get a proper consultation via message or video call.
• After the online doctor consultation, the patient pays for the service using a built-in payment gateway and receives a receipt along with prescriptions.

How to Develop a Telehealth App?

Telehealth apps can be extremely beneficial to people who live in distant, rural places. If there are no healthcare facilities nearby, having an app and access to a cellular network or WiFi is sufficient. Furthermore, persons from nations with a low level of healthcare might seek advice from foreign doctors.

So, if you are planning to opt for custom healthcare software development services to build a telemedicine app, then the first thing you have to identify its end-users. You should have a question about who will use my telehealth app – a healthcare professional, patient, or lab technician. Every module will have different features as per their roles.

Telemedicine App Features For Patients

Users or patients can have an online consultation with a doctor with relevant features like video or audio calls, signups, uploading EHRs, etc.

Signup

Signup feature allows users to register via email, phone number, Google, and Facebook and maintain their profile. Besides, it also lets users book an appointment using an in-built calendar, so they don’t have to remember every detail. However, you can keep two-step authentication for enhanced security.

Profile Management

Once a user gets through the application, he/she may set up their personal profile. However, it includes their personal information like name, age, gender, blood group, and previous medical history. Therefore, any doctor can assess patients’ health conditions by looking at their previous treatments and medical history. You have to ensure that EHR information should be available only to healthcare providers and owners.

Real-time Location

Real-time location will allow patients to find nearby hospitals or specialists. Patients can also manually search and look out for the physical as per their demand.

Video Call

The video call is a primary feature in medicine app development. However, the internet connection differs as per the patient’s geolocation, so we should avoid video buffering and optimize the real-time connection. Hence, the quality of the video should be in high-resolution so that doctor could see the possible symptoms. Also, audio quality should be crystal clear. To build a quality video calling feature, we should implement streaming protocols like RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol) and WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication).

Text Messages

When a patient or doctor doesn’t have to opt for video calling, they can always communicate via text messages. However, a text message is a convenient way for communication. The doctor can answer in their spare time if it's not urgent. You can also include attachment of attachments files options with that.

To utilize this feature, you can integrate Twilio for live chats. However, it is a very secured and authorized platform as per HIPAA. So, you can use it for telemedicine app development.

In-built Calendar

Using an in-build calendar, a patient can book and manage the appointment with the doctor. If they want to reschedule or cancel it, they can do it on the calendar. You can sync that data with the Google calendar using its API. Thus, users can receive all the notifications from Google Calendar and see the details.

Payment Gateway

Payment integration or gateway plays a vital role in any telehealth app development service. To integrate a secure and authorized gateway, you can choose a custom payment service or a third-party system. However, before implementing any payment gateway, you have to ensure its security protocol.

You can use various reliable payment gateways for telemedicine app development, such as Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal. They offer robust security and high-speed transactions.

Notifications

Push notifications or reminders help patients to keep track of appointments and other activities. It keeps them updated.

Reviews or Ratings

Reviews or ratings will help patients to identify the best and trustworthy doctor. However, patients can leave their honest feedback and ratings about the doctor’s services on the app. So, other users can come to know.

How Telehealth is transforming the healthcare sector?

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Telemedicine App Features For Doctors

The telehealth app for doctors also comes up with various features for healthcare professionals. However, some of them are similar to the patient’s modules. So, let’s take a closer look at it.

Doctor Registration

In this module, doctors should have the privilege to register themselves with email, phone numbers, or other social media platforms. But one thing you have to keep in mind is that before their profile creation, there must be an additional verification – a doctor’s license.

Profile

Apart from having general or personal information of a professional like name, photo, address, specialization, there should be other essential information like education, experience, credentials, achievements, etc.

Calendar Management

Calendar management will allow healthcare provider to manage their appointments for remote consultants and real-time visitors.

Appointment Management

A doctor has a right to manage and confirm the appointment based on their availability. Also, they can reschedule it as well.

Doctor Panel

Doctor panel in telemedicine app consists of electronic health records such as prescription, patients' information, and calendar and appointment management system.

Digital Prescriptions

This module allows doctors to create a digital prescription for the patient. Hence, patients can use this prescription to get the medicines and other health services like tab tests through the app.

View EHRs

Doctors can also access and browse their patients’ EHRs.

Text Messages, Voice and Video Calls

Well, these features remain the same for both patients and doctors. So, consider the best and secure option to implement these features.

Session Recording

To understand the objective of the treatment, make it possible to record audio and video calls. So, if any conflicts occur in the future, it will help you for justification.

Push Notifications

Notify the doctors about their appointments before it starts. Also, give an alert when a patient books their appointment or even modifies. So, doctors can quickly approve or decline it based on their availability.

Telemedicine App Features For Lab Technicians

There would also be a place for the lab technician dashboard in telemedicine application development.

Profile Management

It allows lab technicians to create and manage their profiles by filling up essential information like licenses, background details, lab names, addresses, and certifications.

View Requests

With this module, lab technicians can view the requests from patients and add them to the calendar based on the appointment.

Task Allotment

After receiving the request, the lab technician can assign tasks to professionals to pick test samples from the patients.

Report Sharing

This feature allows lab technicians to share lab reports with doctors and patients using a telehealth app.

Technologies Used for Telehealth App Development

In this competitive market, you will find diversified technologies to develop telemedicine app for patients/doctors. But do you know what those prominent technologies behind the success of telemedicine app development are? How can you make your app even better? So, let’s discuss everything in detail here.

1) Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence plays the most promising factor for a telemedicine app development company to develop a telehealth app. However, chatbots secure a spot in the telemedicine industry.

In fact, we know that doctors can't always be ready or available for consultation. Hence, a chatbot can guide users with the right suggestions or answers. If a patient is looking to book an appointment, a chatbot can also reserve a slot. In a nutshell, chatbots can automate the routine process and simplify the workflow.

Moreover, AI can help transform the healthcare industry - through telemedicine app development with:

• Treatment Recommendation
• Better Care with Personal Assistance
• Better Diagnoses

2) Internet of Things

IoT or Internet of Things is another important technology that is booming in the healthcare industry. Using wearable devices, doctors can keep an eye on their patients’ medical records and consult them in case of an emergency.

Healthcare professionals can gather the medical history of patients and adjust treatment as per the data. Smart drug dispensers allow doctors to set a medicine time for patients without involving them. It will notify in the user’s gadgets when it is time to take pills.

Moreover, IoT technologies enhance the patient’s treatment in the following ways:

• Collect all the information from various medical devices, Software as a Medical Device (SaMD), etc.
• Assist in remotely monitoring patient’s health

3) Cloud Storage

If you worry about storing all the data in one place, then consider cloud storage technology. It’s quite cheaper and effective than on-premise storage. Moreover, there is no need to develop a security system from scratch. Amazon S3 is the best choice for cloud storage.

4) Blockchain

Blockchain allows both health experts and patients to share the data securely and encrypted. Blockchain is an answer to the question: How to develop a secure telemedicine app? Therefore, the telemedicine app development company focuses on developing secure communication through distributed networks.

5) Big Data

Every year, millions of data are generated and processed in health organizations. Big data allows healthcare organizations to collect and monitor EHRs. The actual data will help professionals offer better care of patients, do medical research, cost reduction, and accurate diagnoses.

6) Deep Learning

Using Deep Learning technology, a telemedicine app can obtain insights from large amounts of medical data. It allows healthcare workers to predict the patient’s well-being accurately.

Technical Tools For Telemedicine App Development

We are now aware of which technologies will play a major role while developing a telehealth app. But what about the technical tools? As we know, an app is made of various programming languages, frameworks, third-party libraries, and tools, etc.

So, here are the technical tools we can consider for telemedicine app development.

Programming Languages:

• Android: Kotlin and Java
• iOS: Swift

Front-end Development:

• Libraries and frameworks: React Native, ReactJS, VueJS, NextJS
• Deployment: Netlify, Vercel, AWS S3
• Design Library: Ant Design, Bootstrap

Back-end Development:

• Programming Language: Node.js
• Frameworks: Ruby on Rails, NestJS, ExpressJS
• For Video Call: RTMP, Twilio, WebRTC
• For Chat: Twilio, Socket.io
• Database: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL
• APIs and Frameworks: Stripe, EC2, S3
• Payment Gateways: Stripe, PayPal, Braintree
• Deployment Platforms: AWS, Google Cloud, Kubernetes services, Terraform, Vault

Tools:

• Search: Elastic search and Algolia
• Mailing: Elastic Emails, SensGrid, AWS SES
• Geolocation: Google Maps Platform

Notifications: Firebase Cloud Messaging, Twilio

General Utilities: Google Analytics

Investment in virtual care and digital health has skyrocketed. It is found that the digital health investment went 3 times more in 2020 than it had in 2017. Click To Tweet

Process of Telemedicine App Development

As a renowned and prominent mobile app development company, our developers divide the telemedicine app development process into two steps –Project Analysis and Project Development.

Let’s bifurcate each stage clearly.

Project Analysis

1) Requirement Analysis

When our project manager receives any client requirements, our experts analyze their requirements, understand their objects, and do thorough market research. It includes project insight, app functionality, and logic.

To define the flow and process of telemedicine app development, we understand and follow the certain below given things:

• Define the end-users
• Identify the app purpose
• Develop a business strategy and plan
• Identify the relevant resources and organize them
• Figure out the cost of telemedicine app development and marketing expenses
• Prepare an investment plan
• Implement the plan and design a product

However, many spheres in healthcare sectors, such as government healthcare centers, patients, healthcare professionals & providers, healthcare specialists, organizations/hospitals, etc., will look forward to developing a telehealth app. Hence, the type of project you choose will impact the telemedicine app development process.

2) Software Architecture

Our software engineers create a software architecture based on the project requirements and business objectives.

3) Wireframe Design

Our creative team of designers comes up with an app interface, layout, navigation based on the requirements. They actually create a wireframe out of it.

4) Project Management

Our project manager manages the whole project at every stage of telemedicine app development.

Project Development

The custom software development process of telehealth services consists of the following stages:

1) Project Ideation

In this process, our experts plan for the development and deadlines. Once it’s finalized, the team starts working on it.

2) Project Development

When the team finalizes the project with the concept, it moves into the development phase. Furthermore, the dedicated team of developers utilizes the latest technologies, tools, and frameworks as per the requirements and develops the application as an outcome. All the features and functionalities are included in this phase.

3) Testing and Quality Assurance

Our QA team tests and checks the application at every development stage. They ensure to offer high-quality performance and proper functioning of the telemedicine app.

4) Deployment

After checking the application’s quality and making it error-free, it gets ready for deployment on the appropriate platform.

5) Continuous Support

Once the telemedicine app launches in the global market, our team is always ready to offer continuous support to our customers. However, we work 24*7 to resolve their issues and answer their queries.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Telemedicine App?

Whenever, as a business, we are planning to develop a telemedicine app or hire a healthcare software development company, the cost of app development depends upon the features that you need to integrate into the app. Therefore, the features, integrations, design, and complexity determine the estimated time for the telemedicine app development.

However, the development cost also depends on the geography location from where you are hiring the developers. Because you can hire experienced telemedicine app developers from India at very lower rates than other regions.

In a nutshell, if we consider the above factors, we can come up with a minimum estimation of telemedicine app development cost, which includes mobile platform, backend, and admin panel development. Having said before, don’t consider it as the final estimation. It may vary based on your designs, features, and requirements.

If you hire an experienced mobile app development company, the estimated cost would be around 70,000 USD – 100,000 USD for one platform – Android, iOS, or Web with basic features and functionalities.

Kindly note that this cost only includes a patient, doctor, and an admin /lab technical module for a single platform, at an hourly rate of 25 USD – 40 USD . The estimated time of this application development varies from approximately 4 to 6 months.

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How to Monetize Your Telemedicine App?

By developing a telemedicine app, you can monetize this app in various ways. Here, you can utilize many models, such as in-app purchases, subscription model, crowdfunding, advertising, sponsorship, and many more.

One of the best and primary ways to generate revenue from the telemedicine app is through fees. You can get some percentage amount from the services. For example, the app charges a 20% fee to patients every time they pay for online doctor consultation. However, this fee may vary depending on the consultation, doctor specialization, consultation duration, or other factors.

Let’s understand each monetization model here for telemedicine app development.

Pay Per Consultation (For consultation duration, specialist, etc.): You can use this model and charge from the doctor or experts as per their consultation. Norwegian Telenor Group utilizes this model for its telemedicine app.

Subscription or Membership Model: This model helps you monetize your app when a patient or doctor subscribes or becomes a member. You can get paid on a monthly basis.

Franchising: You can move overseas or another market if your local market is loaded with a crowd. You can offer the franchise to a health organization. In this way, you can generate revenue.

SaaS Model: Software as a Service model will help you get a good amount based on the time duration (month) and users. Just like many other healthcare SaaS startups, you can provide the app in the form of service to medical establishments.

Gear Up to Develop a Telemedicine App

In recent years, especially post-pandemic, the telemedicine app industry is evolving. Therefore, it’s quite difficult to cover all the aspects of telemedicine app development and its role in the industry. And with the rise of its demand, there are many opportunities to grow and monetize telehealth and telemedicine apps.

In a nutshell, Telemedicine application development enhance the services of both healthcare professionals and patients – while patients get the medical treatment at their convenient time, doctors get paid for a consultation immediately.

To develop the online consultation doctor app, you need to hire a mobile app development company - Radixweb. We will shape your ideas with marketing strategies and create an enterprise-grade solution. Contact us and let us know your requirements; we’ll take your telemedicine business forward and dive into the telemedicine app development system.

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