8 Step Guide to Creating a Robust Healthcare App

The demand for healthcare and fitness apps is growing at an exponential rate. Statistics show that102,062 million apps were downloaded by people from around the world. Of these, healthcare apps were downloaded and used by 62% of the people on a daily basis. The innovations in the apps themselves and the urge to live healthy and happy lives have prompted many people to download healthcare apps and use them. Irrespective of this interesting statistic, it is said that healthcare app development is still in its early days because doctors have a huge repository of clinical data at their disposal; and you can make use of this data to create a truly innovative app for your users.

Healthcare apps can do a number of things including, coding and billing, diagnosis, electronic prescriptions, treatment, and so on. Mobile apps can even stimulate surgical procedures, conduct medical exams, vision tests, hearing examinations, etc. People are already familiar with personal ECG monitors, wireless scales and implants that can monitor calories consumed and burned. Before planning the development of your healthcare app or any app for that matter, you need to be clear about your objectives. The legendary "what", "where", "when" "who" and "how" questions are to be answered.

• What - are you trying to launch?
• Where - are you planning to launch it?
• When - is the time of launch; is it a key event/seminar/exhibition?
• Who - is your target segment?
• How - would your target segment benefit from the app?

Once you have the answers to the above questions, you can follow the steps mentioned below and create a successful, robust healthcare app. It is always important to have a specific, but realistic launch date so you have sufficient time to go through all the steps in creating a successful app.

Step 1: Determine the Target Segment

This is the basic step in any app development project. Focus on the target segment and what value the app would eventually be delivering to the end user. App developers must resist the urge to throw in any fancy features that are of no use to the target segment.

Step 2: Hire a Developer

Hiring an expert health app developer would be the next step. You can either do this in-house or delegate the task to an expert outsourcing partner/company infused with the latest technologies in app development.

Step 3: Identify Where the App will be Integrated

Your app needs to be integrated to a database if it has to function in a smartphone. In that case, are you planning to integrate it into Google Fit or Apple's HealthKit? Spend considerable time investigating this before making the final decision. You would probably need to consider your target segment when you decide on this.

Step 4: Establish Privacy Protection

In this day and age when there are a deluge of issues regarding data security and privacy breach, it is only natural that your app should protect crucial patient information. You can perform a number of activities to ensure the information shared by your users remain safe. Some of them are:

• Incorporating password or user authentication so the app can be accessed only by the patient
• Install and enable encryption methods so patient information will be protected
• Remote wiping feature where you can remove all the data from a remote device; this is extremely useful when the mobile device gets stolen
• Install firewall to dissuade unauthorized entry into user app

Step 5: Incorporate Relevant Features

Discuss with your developer and finalize the features that are to be incorporated in the app. Even if you are planning to develop a simple calorie count or fitness tracker app, make enough room for features that you may have to add in the future. Users might want to add people into their profile, or share their information and indulge in a competitive stance. Include interactive, intuitive features to engage user interest, but of course, that depends on whether you are going to release a paid app or a free one.

Step 6: Include Gamification

Once you have incorporated all the necessary features in the app, it is time to incorporate some gamification as well. Integrate happy sounds, stars and badges to encourage user participation in your app. Your user's daily health targets would be more interesting if you make it seem like a game for them.

Step 7: Integrate with Facebook

Once your app is all ready for its big release, ensure you integrate it with Facebook. This would not only help spread the word, but would also encourage users to cheer each other on, congratulate one another on milestones achieved, provide motivational words, and so on. The spirit of competition would prompt them to use the app with renewed vigor.

Step 8: Test the Prototype Before Release

This comprises the last step in developing your healthcare app. It is not possible to understand the discrepancies of a project without field-testing it. You may have to allocate some budget for testing the app before you release it, but it is worth the effort. This is especially true for apps that require constant net connectivity. If your app doesn't work with slow connections, or if your users are facing sporadic net connectivity, then you need to make the necessary changes so at least some of the basic features would work (even if there is no connectivity).

Test your app for cross-platform support, scalability, security and adherence to industry regulations. Once the app has been tested and announced fit to be released, you need to work closely with the marketing department to check what plan they have for releasing your app. Marketing plays a very important role in the success of your healthcare app. Apps in the healthcare industry are quickly gaining momentum and becoming quite popular. We hope this article has given you a clear outline of how to create a healthcare app from scratch.

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