Medicine and technology have been indiscerptible for lots of years. With the technological advance, billions of lives were saved and improved. It’s difficult to predict the next progressive step in the medical field or pharmaceuticals, but for sure modern medical app development should not be underestimated.
At present applications for Android, iOS, wearables or other devices are no longer anything specific but have already become an everyday attribute of many people. Technology is nowadays widely used to enhance healthcare, wearable health devices have proved their efficiency and are seen as the future of the medical sphere. Connected medical wearables have great potential and merging technologies make them more and more efficient and effective for patients. That’s why today we suggest looking at healthcare app development in more detail.
- Category of the product developed. Most commonly medical apps are developed by startups, and then the client defines the peculiarities of the product. However, the startupers may just come with a revolutionizing idea. Often to realize it you should sweat a bit, or not a bit.
The other category – are the applications for the companies operating in the medical market already. They either want to incorporate custom software into their sophisticated medical devices or just want to implement online services to decrease paperwork and to automate appointments scheduling, relieving the lives of both patients and doctors.
Besides, you may deal with intermediaries. They are the companies or individuals having some medical idea, but lacking resources to bring it to life.
- Device type. To craft a good software solution, you should make clear what device it’s for: either it’s a tablet, a smartphone, Android or iOs, an iPad, Apple Watch or possibly TV.
- Type of application created. You should define if your product would be one of the medical applications for Android, a location-based one, or a PWA.
- Platform. After the product type is defined, you may proceed to the choice of platform to work with. You may select a native application of a certain kind (developed for iOS or Android exclusively), decide on a cross-platform or hybrid one (operating on both platforms) or go for a progressive web app.
- Set of features. The next vital step in our checklist would be to define the features necessary for your medical app according to its purpose and specifics. According to statistics, just 11% of the contemporary healthcare applications offer their users the desirable functionalities. So be careful and reasonable in defining the features you want to implement.
The ways in which the companies may get involved in the explosive advance of the medical industry are manifold the specifics and functionality may be extremely variable. However, following the checklist above, you’ll get a clear picture of the product to craft.
1. Strategies for mobile product development.
As soon as you have the idea and the approach specified, work out the strategy of how to develop the medical app you have in mind and deploy it.
First of all, it makes sense to narrow the focus of your project, figure out your target user, his biggest pains and the way you may relieve them.
The next trick that works is to isolate the project team from other responsibilities, unnecessary interruptions often slow the project down very sensitively. That’s, by the way, why Project Managers should be involved. They then communicate with the customer/boss and prevent misunderstandings from communication between him and the tech specialists.
A good idea is always to provide your product with a personality. Imagine who it would look like, is it trustworthy and solid, or creative and light, easy –to deal with and approachable, whatever… . It will help create a connection with your users and improve customer experience in the end.
With all the medicine-related apps security standards and protection of all sensitive info are especially important. Think of the data encryption and other protective strategies for your solution, to make sure that all the standards are followed and methods used to keep the delicate details private and secure.
2. Useful tools and frameworks.
The technologies and tools for each particular app are defined by its requirements, user needs, and the developers’ intentions and preferences. The list of them can be quite long. Still, we’ll refer to only some of the most used frameworks and tools to consider for the medical app development.
React Native technology works well for CRMS and marketplaces. It allows to easily duplicate web data and complement the product with mobile features. Swift and Kotlin languages are used for iOS and Android respectively when the implementation is needed in the native technological stack.
Besides, one should keep Ionic in mind, an open-source SDK for hybrid mobile apps design. It provides a library of native components for each platform, however, requires Node.js for proper operation. The number of products built on it already exceeds 5 mln.
Node.js and PHP can be considered in each particular case. Both technologies are a good choice for API development, since they are fast secure and reliable. Being server-side technologies they successfully serve the purpose of making web pages dynamic and interactive. Both PHP and Node.js can operate in their runtime environments. The choice of one technology in favor of another is only subject to the nature of the projects carried out.
Working with all the tools and technologies mentioned above, Axisbits is capable to combine them in the most effective and optimum way in order to ensure the best result and the maximum benefit from the end product.
When dealing with people’s health the aspects of privacy and information security are especially actual. Sharing and transferring of sensitive medical info is regulated all over the world. With the technological advance governmental regulations started dealing with the protection of healthcare info transmitted between servers and access restrictions to it for unauthorized entities. In the USA the main standard is HIPAA – Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act issued in 1996.
So every healthcare app designed for the United States should meet the standards set by it.
In Europe there are, for instance, Data Protection and e-Privacy Directives /EC.
The same works for other countries and regions. So the modern developers should be very careful and always check the compliance of the product security standards with the ones acting in the area.
No matter what software you need to develop, whether it’s a solution for a patient remote monitoring device, a managing or an analytical tool for healthcare, a reminder app or the one for keeping to healthy standards of living, remember that security is your priority.
Being now aware of the technologies, frameworks, platforms, and tools available, you can create your own checklist for mobile medical app development, meeting your needs. It’s always better to trust work to real experts, but with the medicine-related solutions, it’s an especially important aspect to think of. Axisbits can help you keep the balance between novelty and high standards of security. We develop custom software on request and can do it for you.
