Telemedicine App Development - Trends, Features & Challenges

The concept of telemedicine is relatively new, but with the world moving at a great pace, thanks to the Internet, this concept too has been developing pretty quickly in its stride. This particular field has become very dynamic in its short life, and there are a number of complexities that arise with a concept that has garnered huge attention in such a short span of time.

In its most generic sense, telemedicine helps medical professionals treat patients by various video conferencing tools with the help of the Internet, where both the doctors and patients are in totally different locations. With sophisticated telemedicine applications and software solutions, professionals gauge a patient’s vitals over the Internet, making the entire process very easy.       

A Little Behind the Telemedicine Concept

• Telemedicine saw its inception about half a century ago, where a few hospitals tried to connect with their patients in remote locations through telemedicine. That was just a start though. Today, telemedicine has become a complex and integrated service domain that is used in hospitals, clinics, and in all types of healthcare infrastructure.
• In the present scenario, the advancement in the field is truly exponential, which can be credited to wider accessibility and affordability for telemedicine tools.
• Convenience, clubbed with the unavailability of thorough medical professionals, has contributed to a great degree in the rise of telemedicine companies, that successfully provide their patients a 27/7 access to quality services.

Defining Features of Great Telemedicine Apps

As a new concept and with the rise in telemedicine companies, telemedicine app development too has witnessed a powerful growth amidst the industry. Obviously, there are a lot of promising opportunities when a concept is at an initial phase, boosted by such a promising growth. With a lot of telemedicine apps reaching out to the market, here are some features that make the great ones stand out from the normal ones- 

• Support for Slow Internet Speed

In usual cases, it is difficult to find medical offices and hospitals that have a speedy Internet connection. Apps with the video conferencing feature too, generally require a higher bandwidth to function optimally. If a telemedicine app can support slower speeds, it is never bound to fail. A telemedicine app that is completely functional in less favourable conditions is a great option.

• Complete Support for Patients and Professionals

There are some telemedicine apps that offer low support for a low-priced model. Great telemedicine apps offer a lot of features for both the professional staff as well as patients that help them in all kinds of requirements.

• Integration of EHR 

If it is a great telemedicine app, the app will definitely have an EHR (Electronic Health Record) integrated into its interface. The EHR reduces the possibilities of errors and inefficiencies and further provides users with the opportunity to easily schedule appointments and share health information of patients across different systems and platforms.

Telemedicine Trends to Look Out For

With the world under lockdown because of the COVID-19 outbreak, telemedicine has become more integral than ever before, and there are some trends that have the capacity to change this telemedicine scenario forever- 

• Better Access to Healthcare

For people of every background, telemedicine has opened doors to have unlimited access to quality healthcare services. With areas that have a lack of healthcare professionals, the importance of telemedicine cannot be stated enough. Definitely, the access shall be better than ever before.

• Reduction in The Cost of Healthcare

With telemedicine apps finding more use, the costs involved in traveling and bills associated with hospital visits will see a decline, leading to quality healthcare but at a fraction of cost. This is going to find more relevance this year.

• Better Levels of Patient Engagement Through Telemedicine Apps

Without a doubt, when patients are in the comfort of their homes and consult doctors through video conferencing, they will always find a better level of attention from their doctors. This will further lead to a better level of satisfaction among patients as well.

The Challenges in Telemedicine Apps

Like everything else, telemedicine app development is not completely foolproof. There are certain hurdles that have the potential to impact the steady growth of these apps. A few of the more critical challenges are- 

• Data & User Security

For patients, their personal health information is the most critical, and for any telemedicine app, this information needs to be protected optimally so as to ensure complete security. Government policies too, keep on changing, making it more difficult to keep in line with the changes in safety regulations.

• Ensuring the Best UI/UX

When it is about telemedicine apps, every app will have two parts- one for the patients, and other for doctors. Now, it will not be easy for a developer team to ensure a similar kind of ease in designing these apps.

A uniform UI/UX, that works seamlessly as two different parts and then gets integrated beautifully too is a challenge that will make all the difference in creating a robust telemedicine app.

Summary

There is no doubt that telemedicine apps have a great potential in the time to come. The sheer simplicity they lend to the daily lives of people will always take the telemedicine app trend a long way ahead. The feature-loaded prowess, the cost-saving, and increased convenience will come up as the winning formula in the future for sure.

When it comes to the perfect telemedicine app development, Consagous Technologies can create some superb apps that take care of each and every feature that will make your telemedicine app stand out from the rest.

Original Source:

https://www.consagous.co/blog/telemedicine-app-development-trends-features-challenges