By Bhaval Patel
If you want to learn how to develop a telemedicine app, you are at the right place.
Telemedicine has grown from 1,000% in March 2020 to over 4,000% in April 2020. In fact, it is found that 90% of medical providers have invested or are planning to invest in remote patient monitoring technologies.
A telemedicine app enables app users (patients) to book medical treatment to combat disease or disorder at their fingertips. Being a leading digital healthcare app development company, we are going to tell you more about the basic yet powerful features that you need to include in the telemedicine app.
This blog includes information for digital-centric health startups and entrepreneurs. Here is a round of five powerful features of the best telemedicine apps, which you can consider during telemedicine app development.
Table of Contents
- Why Build a Telemedicine App?
- How to Create a Telemedicine App in 6 Steps
- How Much Time Does it Take to Develop a Telemedicine App?
- How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Telemedicine App?
- Features to Consider while Developing a Telehealth App
- Benefits of Telemedicine App Development
- Top 5 Best Telemedicine Apps with Their Features
- Scope of Telemedicine App Development
- FAQs
- Conclusion
Why Build a Telemedicine App?
There is no room for doubt that physicians are overworked and emergency rooms are overloaded. And, top of it, the cost of healthcare has been rising continuously. After the emergence of telemedicine, the change in the healthcare industry is at pace. The cause of this drastic change in this industry is due to the makeover of mobile applications, or better to say ‘telemedicine apps’.
Undoubtedly, telemedicine app has changed the way people manage their health. The telemedicine app provides a blend of convenience and medical care mobility.
Being a digital-centric health startup or entrepreneur, if you want to develop a telemedicine app or telemedicine solution, then let’s check out the process you need to follow for developing a doctor’s on-demand app.
How to Create a Telemedicine App in 6 Steps
Here is a step-by-step process of developing a telemedicine mobile app.
Make a Plan
A goal without a plan is just a wish. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Before you start developing the app, you must make a project plan with all the necessary details. You need to decide on the important features that you want to include in your app. We have tried to help you with the 5 most powerful features that you will find in the next topic of this blog.
You should also have a flexible yet approximate budget for your app development project. You must know your upper limit to spend on the project. Also, carrying out business analysis can also be helpful.
Get a Quote
After business analysis, it’s time to get a quote from a top healthcare application development company. This step is very easy. All you need to do is contact us and tell us some details about the software idea. We have experience in building 40+ healthcare apps, so we will discuss your needs and solve all your queries. In fact, we will give an estimated price for your telemedicine / on-demand pediatrics app development.
Discuss
After finalizing the budget and project plan, it’s time to discuss the action plan and terms of the project. We will discuss the MVP project scope, project management tools, and sign an NDA to safeguard your app idea. Then, we will finish the necessary paperwork and move on to the development stage.
Start the Development
After the action plan is finalized, we will start making app wireframes, mockups along with design prototypes. When you approve the designs, we will start developing the code, testing it, and fixing bugs. We make sure the app includes all the required features and runs seamlessly on various mobile devices.
We do this keeping you in the loop and taking care of any feedback and instructions that you need to give.
App Demo
Once the app with the necessary features is ready, we will give you a project demo. If you are satisfied with the product, we will start doing the paperwork for publishing your telemedicine app on the designated marketplace.
Deploying the App
Whether you want to launch your app on Google Playstore or Apple AppStore, we take care of the guidelines that these application stores require. We, then, deploy your application on the app marketplace as well as your servers.
Further, we also submit your project-related data like the source code, databases, designs, mockups, and admin panel access credentials.
Have a Telemedicine App Idea in Mind?
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How Much Time Does it Take to Develop a Telemedicine App?
Telemedicine app development takes from 3 to 6 months. The app development steps include requirement gathering, engineering, project planning, app designing, app development, and launch.
The app development team includes a project manager, business analyst, app designer, and front end and back developers.
How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Telemedicine App?
Telemedicine app development cost $10,000 to $200,000. The app development cost depends upon your app functionality and complexity as well.
Most developers have a per-hour charge for developing an app. This means the cost of telemedicine app development for MVP as described above can be calculated. Suppose, the developer charges $35 per hour then 280*35 is $9800.
Features to Consider While Developing a Telehealth App
Here is a table summarizing the basic features to add in a telehealth app
| Feature | Telemedicine App for Doctors | Telemedicine App for Patients |
|---|---|---|
| Video Consultation |  | |
| Messaging System | | |
| Appointment Scheduling | | |
| Prescription Requests | | |
| Electronic Health Record | | – |
| Remote Monitoring | | |
| Secure Data Storage | | |
| Payment Processing | | – |
| Integration with Wearables | | |
| Multilingual Support | | |
| Doctor Profiles | | – |
| Patient Profiles | – | |
| Symptom Checker | – | |
| Health Education Resources | – | |
| Virtual Waiting Room | | – |
| Prescription Delivery | | |
| Prescription Tracking | | |
| In-App Translation | | |
| Review & Rating System | | |
| Insurance Verification | | |
Now, let’s explore some of these features in detail
5 Telemedicine App Features for Patients
The patient’s app is for the users to make an appointment, add symptoms, and get a consultation from doctors.
Book Appointments With Doctors, Practitioners, or Therapists
With this feature, your app users (patients) can book appointments from a wide range of doctors, physicians, nurses, or practitioners as per their requirements. Also you can develop a doctor appointment booking app just for this specific functionality.
Image Credits: mdlive
Source: Google PlayBy including this feature, you can make it easy for them to find doctors on-demand. An online telemedicine platform for digital health can connect patients in minutes with senior doctors as per their needs.
Video Consultation With Doctors, Nurses, or Practitioners
The telemedicine app provides a convenient and quick way for patients. With two-way communication, patients or app users can easily connect with experienced doctors, nurses, and practitioners. If you are planning to develop a successful virtual clinic app for your customers, then the schedule live session feature is important in order to connect with patients and physicians.
Image Credits: amwell
Source: Google PlayThe virtual medical care app shows all the professionals and connects patients and doctors virtually. Instead of going to the urgent medical treatment provider, the mHealth (mobile health) app can help patients to a great extent. With a doctor’s on-demand app, patients can consult for a wide range of diseases like acne, allergies, cold/flu, sinus infections, ear problems, severe headaches, or any other concerns of behavioral health.
In-App Chat
The mHealth (mobile health) app provides every medical treatment virtually as per the convenience of your users. There would be no hurdle in the way of virtual medical treatment; the in-app chat feature is another powerful feature, which can easily connect your users (patients) to experienced doctors. There are patients, who could not connect in video consultation to doctors, so you can give the in-app messaging option for an instant consultation.
Image Credits: talkspace
Source: Google PlayWhen the patient is having a cough or just a cold, then they can go with the in-app chat option. Also, you can also provide a wide number of options in the in-app messaging chat like recording a video, take a photo, and record a video message. In addition, patients can also get their prescriptions through the in-app messaging option.
Organize & Track Health Information in One Convenient Place
The next important feature is to allow users to organize and track health information of themselves. For patients who have long treatment, assembling medical records is essential for them. So, such a feature comes from there. However, first, it looks like a basic feature, but it actually plays an important role in the lives of patients.
Image Credits: mdlive
Source: Google PlayBy providing such an online digital health platform where they can organize and track their medical records, you can simplify their lives. If you have not yet included such features, then there’s still time to include it.
Prescriptions Sent Automatically to Nearby Pharmacy
Another important feature, which can make your telemedicine app stand out is to make things seamless for every age group of users. Once the patient is done with a consultation with the doctor, then you can prescribe medicine to the nearby pharmacy and get it delivered to their places.
Image Credits: doctor on demand
Source: Google Play
4 Telemedicine App Features for Doctors
The Doctor’s App is for doctors to communicate with their patients. They can also organize their schedules and manage their virtual and walk-in appointments accordingly. Some of the common features of Doctor’s app are:
Accept/ Reject Appointment
The patients have an option to send an appointment request to healthcare providers like doctors and therapists. The telemedicine app for doctors must have a feature to either accept or reject such requests based on their schedule. They can also have a list of accepted and rejected appointments to keep track of history.
Video Calls
This feature is extremely important when you develop a telemedicine app. This feature of video calls is the same as the patient’s app and is used to treat patients virtually. These virtual healthcare appointments make up the most essential part of the telemedicine platform. The doctors can communicate with their patients through video calls and collect information about the symptoms to assist them in their health issues.
In-app Chat
Another feature of the telemedicine app for healthcare providers or doctors and patients is in-app chat. Even if the patients and doctors are not available at the same time, they can still be in contact via chat or text messages. Such telemedicine solutions are very popular in the United States because people are always available in real-time.
The doctor can give telehealth services to the patient even discuss brief medical history, review their tests & treatment plans, and resolve any queries regarding prescribed medicines without the patients having to visit the doctor.
Appointment Calendar
While developing a telemedicine app, another feature for the target audience of doctors and patients is the appointment calendar. A doctor can keep track of all the appointments whether daily, weekly, or monthly via telemedicine applications. It makes it easy for the doctor to manage their schedule.
If you are all set to develop a virtual medical app, make sure to embrace such features while developing a doctor appointment app.
As a digital health startup or entrepreneur, if you want to add these features or any other important features such as below into your telemedicine app solution, discuss it with an experienced full stack developer.
- Appointment Reminders
- Appointment Scheduling
- Patient Queue Management
- Online Billing
- Online Payment
- ePrescription
- HIPAA-compliance
If you’re wondering why telemedicine apps are so popular, take a look at the benefits.
Benefits of Telemedicine App Development
The following section includes the top benefits of telemedicine app development you should know.
3 Benefits of Telemedicine App Development for Patients
Convenience
Who likes to wait in a queue? No one. Do patients and doctor’s time always coincide? It’s a joke. On-demand telemedicine app or telehealth apps make it very convenient for patients to get treatment at any time they want. Video call or in-app chat features keep the doctor and patient connected at all times. If the patient is worried about getting infected while going to the doctor, he can instead book a virtual appointment.
Further, the time for traveling to the clinic can also be saved, and the patient can do other tasks in the free time.
Quality of service
The telemedicine platform is also known for a better quality of service. Appointments are rarely delayed and the doctors can also give complete attention to one patient at a time. The patients won’t have to stand in a queue or wait for their token number. Everything becomes streamlined with telemedicine solutions.
Saves cost
One of the most important factors that impact healthcare decisions is the cost of healthcare services. Most people would not go for a doctor’s consultation because it can cost too much and they feel that they can’t spend this much. Telemedicine app development has made many of the services directly on a mobile app and that makes it affordable to most people.
Moreover, patients also save money on commuting to the clinic if they have a virtual appointment. Weekly consultations can be heavy on the pocket but with a telemedicine app, the cost is reduced drastically.
3 Benefits of Telemedicine App Development for Doctors
Time management
Ask any doctor about work-life balance and they’ll say they have almost none. Many appointments take longer time than expected and doctors can not turn away the patients next in line. It is a huge task to manage time for doctors. Telemedicine app development comes as a boon in such cases. With marked calendars and virtual appointments, they can choose to invest their time in the way they want.
Recordkeeping
This benefit is for the doctors as well as other healthcare professionals like nurses and office administrators. Record-keeping becomes completely digitized and automated. There is no need to look for data in different files as everything is stored at one central location. The doctors can manage patients’ medical history and prescription with just a click.
Patient management
From appointment to diagnosis to treatment and payment, every part of the patient management process can be handled just on the fingertips. The doctors can even manage the dosage of drugs and monitor health conditions if the telemedicine app has such advanced features.
Want to Develop a Telemedicine App?
Now, let’s check out the top 5 telemedicine apps that are performing well in the market.
Top 5 Best Telemedicine Apps with Their Features
These best telemedicine apps are creating a buzz for the past few years.
| Name Of The App | Features | Playstore Ratings and Reviews | App Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| MDLIVE |
| 4.7 9.41K reviews |   |
| Talkspace |
| 4.1 5.26K reviews | |
| Doctor On Demand |
| 4.8 59.5K reviews | |
| Babylon |
| 4.8 3.23K reviews | |
| Dialogue |
| 4 2.13T reviews | |
Want to Get a Free Quote for App Development?
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Scope of Telemedicine App Development
Healthcare is a trillion-dollar industry that is rising continuously. However, telemedicine software is also contributing to the healthcare sector. In 2017, the global telemedicine market generated $21.5 billion in revenue.
According to the report from P&S Intelligence, “The global telemedicine market is projected to attain a size of $48.8 billion by 2023.” In addition to this, tele-home is one of the expected faster-growing categories during the forecast period, with a CAGR of 17.1%.
Source: p&s intelligence
Let us now check out some of the most commonly asked questions and their answers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the types of telemedicine or healthcare apps?
Different types of healthcare apps are as below:
- Mental Health Apps
- Apps to Monitor Chronic Conditions
- On-demand Therapy App
- Women’s Health and Wellbeing Apps
- Remote Patient Monitoring
Conclusion
So, if you are having an app idea based on telemedicine, then you can cross-verify it with us as we’re the best mobile app development company in the USA. And, we’ve already developed over 4400 mobile applications of varied categories like over 50 apps on healthcare solutions and over 60 on-demand solutions along with diverse features and functionalities.
Two of our telemedicine applications are Conduet and MedCall.
- The web portal, doctor’s and patient’s app
- Patients can send photos of injuries or other symptoms
- Doctors and patients connect via text, or audio and video call
- Doctor’s and patient’s app
- Patients create inquiries and add symptoms
- Option to connect via text, or audio and video call
In case, if you still have any query or confusion regarding how to make money with an app idea like Doctor On Demand or MDLive and want to develop telehealth apps then you can get in touch with us through our contact us form. One of our sales representatives will revert to you as soon as possible. The consultation is absolutely free of cost.
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