The recent technological trend in the healthcare industry has brought a virtual doctor into many of our pockets. Be it a serious health condition or a need to track our fitness level, there are thousands of mHealth apps for most of the healthcare use cases. 

In 2020, the health-tech industry offers many mHealth apps ranging from heart rate monitoring to nutrition and fitness apps. Undoubtedly, there will be variation in the app functionality according to the target market, customer base and the purpose.

There are thousands of healthcare mobile apps available in the market and depending on the use-cases, they will incorporate specific features that help them serve the purpose. Following are some of the most trending app features.

Almost every hospital or pharmacy-related healthcare app should have the functionality to handle digital prescriptions and reporting. Misplacing or losing medical prescriptions and reports is very common for the patients. It even becomes a hassle for the healthcare institutions or doctors to manage and access the patient files. This is where the digital prescription feature comes handy for both the patients and doctors.

This feature should also incorporate the functionality to download the reports and prescription information in a documented format. It allows the patients to manage their lifetime medical history in one place. This feature is very crucial to speed up the medical treatment process.

Wearables are the most trending discussion in the health tech space. Up until now, this feature is most commonly used by fitness tracking apps. But as the healthcare industry has now paced up the technology adoption, healthcare providers and medical practitioners have started to trust the wearable technologies to monitor their patient health continuously.

In 2020, wearables do not just mean some gadgets like Fitbits. There are many clinical-grade IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) devices used by the healthcare industry that are used in a form of belts, chest straps etc. 

The wearable connectivity feature allows the healthcare apps to record the user’s data, which can be shared with the doctors. The doctors can provide a better consultancy if they have access to their patient’s all-time health status. 

Similar to amazon for x apps, this on-demand app feature is focused on making the medicines accessible anytime, anywhere. Using this feature, the patients will be able to refill their stock of medicine without having to visit the pharmacy. 

The feature would require the functionality to allow admin to list out the pharmacies in the locality, so that the users can order from the nearest one. To make this feature more effective, you also would need to add an online payment feature within the app. 

The on-demand medicine feature allows patients to keep up with their medication calendar. This feature can be incorporated in healthcare marketplaces, hospital, and medical practitioner’s apps.

This feature is specific to the patient’s applications. It helps the patients to find a doctor and book an appointment via their smartphones. The app developers can feature the app with filtered search options. Using this, the patients will be able to search for doctors and hospitals based on speciality, experience, proximity, ratings, availability and so on.

The patients will be able to book appointments with doctors. They shall also be able to modify the appointments right from the application. 

Though the features will vary depending on the use cases and user base, there are some common features that every healthcare mobile app will incorporate. Here are some of them

Customer onboarding is a crucial part of every healthcare app user experience. Most of the time, healthcare applications require users to fill in their personal data to have a personalized app experience. 

The healthcare mobile application developers need to make the onboarding process as easy and joyful as possible. If the onboarding functionality is presented as static information, the users may abandon the app. You are not supposed to ask too many questions of your users before they’ve created their account. Instead, you can simply have them register or log in, and then guide them through the rest of the onboarding process.

The best way is to have multiple sign-in options such as Google and Facebook accounts. It will allow your potential customers to hasten the time-consuming sign-up process.

The account management is crucial for every healthcare app, as it lets the users personalize their mobile app experience. Skipping or limiting the functionalities of this feature is considered to be an unformidable offence.

For a patient app, user data will include basic personal data, their ailment, electronic/scanned medical documents, emergency contacts, BMR, height & weight and many other personal health information. The application should be able to personalize the health plans, features or the user-experience based on this information.

For a doctor/healthcare service provider’s app, the account features will be quite less complex. The app may require the medical practitioner’s contact details, certifications, institution’s details, designation and so on.

The healthcare app functionality will differ as per the business strategy and use-case. There are so many healthcare app features to choose from and if you are confused with all the options, it is best to seek help from an experienced healthcare mobile app provider. If your app is for patients, pick the health tech solution provider that has have experience in building amazing user experiences. Because most importantly, the app needs to serve the end-customer well.