Doctor mobile app is practicing large utilization of smartphones to keep track of healthcare. People have relied on such applications to secure their health and improve their lifestyles. In the coming years, the market of the doctor on demand app development is expected to rise exponentially as more and more people are willing to access healthcare solutions from the comfort of their homes.
It is found that there was a transcendent shift from traditional medical delivery models to such applications over the time. A large number of physicians and professionals strongly recommend their patients to use such safe platforms. According to the article published by OrthoLive in the year 2019, 93% of physicians trust these applications to improve health and wellness of patients.
According to the Statista report, if we talk about the numbers of medical apps available during the first period of 2021, the figure would go to 53,054 Healthcare apps, with an increased percentage rate of 6.5. The market of global medical apps size has driven to 48 Billion US Dollars by the end of 2021. The numbers symbolize a new era of mobile applications usage by people.
Covid-19 impacts a huge increase of 14.3% in market growth for the utilization of such healthcare mobile applications demands the supplement in the areas like remote patient monitoring, data analysis & management, and diagnosis. Big companies like Abbott and Allscripts are ready to penetrate the doctor’s on-demand mobile applications and could activate an initiative on such a market. Large datasets are present on such applications so data scientists can predict any health issues and advise their clinical decisions to the pharmacist and other health care professionals to depict the best quality of drugs and other affirmatives.
Some of the key companies that have their presence in global healthcare mobile apps are Johnson & Johnson, Novartis AG, Abbott Laboratories, Sanofi, etc. and countries acquiring these solutions are India, the US, Germany, France, Italy, and many more.
Market Leaders in Doctor-on-demand Apps
The online doctor scheduling app market is striving with a lot of leaders who have lured the whole patient to doctor dependency and fit their idea of a mobile application to flourish the gap. You must study such leaders, one to get yourself motivated and second to inculcate some valuable information to apply to your utilitarian product. Our experts prepare a list of such mobile applications that have stunned this industry with their features and services.
- Practo: While searching over the Internet for the doctor on-demand solution, Practo may be the first name you look upon. They have proposed their services, especially for Indian markets. Have consists of some predominant features like a catered list of nearby doctors to reserve an appointment, order medicine refills, find the medical record online, consult the live doctors, send push reminders to the user’s profile, and many more. Plus, this app provides regular health tips.
- ZocDoc: It is another popular on-demand doctor app solution for patients, widely used across cities in the US. It is available on all platforms including Android, iPhone, and Windows. ZocDoc arranges best specialists for people, who are looking for nearby doctors to cure within time.
- Pager App: This application allows the patients with some of the extensive solutions to limit their illness. With the facilities like connect with doctors, order individual lab tests with their medical prescription, consult with the doctors over chat and video calls. You can redeem top-ups to your wallet and avail it for your use.
Mobile applications provide 24*7 solutions of high feasibility and quality to lure medical services. These market leaders have transformed the world of the medical and healthcare industry. Behind every brilliant app, there is a team of experts, who make sure that every feature they have implanted inside the app reflects the best results for patients. Their clients won’t regret taking their services to keep on building their higher revenue.
Why Build a Doctor-on-demand App?
There are many appropriate reasons for patients and doctors to adopt doctor booking app development:
- Difficult for patients to find nearby doctors
- Take appointments prior and wait in the long queue for consultation
- Doctors unavailable for 24*7
- Wide options of doctors as per their specializations are available
- Improves the health of patients with enhanced solutions
- Attract new patients
- Personal assistance, drug order facilities are very reliable for patients
Problems/Challenges
While developing a doctor mobile app, developers have undergone lots of challenges and sacrifices. Sometimes some of the features are very essential for the application but it crosses the limit of budget then in that case the final decision is in the hands of the development team. At last, the best mobile app solution is one that takes care of everything and casts the best-optimized solution to the client.
Let’s understand a few of the important factors that need to be taken care of.
1. Information security
Creating an application is not a gentle task. The doctor’s mobile app depends mainly on the patient’s data. The app is proclaimed with a lot of elementary features and functionalities. So the information which they have filled must be present behind some bar of security. The app should be responsive yet highly secured, so patients and doctors make their trust in it. It must be employed with secured features like third-party encryption, two-way end interface login, and others to latch the security without a doubt. Doctor mobile applications are tied up with HIPAA compliance. For supplier security, the database from the backend is well functional to restrict any risk at this site.
2. A new experience for users
When you download an app from the play store and open it in your mobile system, what must be the final thing you have with yourself? It’s an experience. Yes, an amazing experience was placed in your mind for a boundless time and you felt overwhelmed with it. Inside on-demand doctor mobile applications, either a user or patient, or doctor, once in a while opens the app and quickly wants to resolve their problem. If your mobile app is entitled with a surreal UI/UX interface, responsive working of every tab and panel, quick access to payments, and likewise, then you can say that you aligned a pitch-perfect solution to the users. Generally, the user interface of doctor mobile apps is sustained with different panels, one is the doctor panel, the second is the user panel and the last one is the admin panel with every panel including specific characteristics, to smartly function with each other.
3. Financial compensation
Many times when you have visited one doctor over the other, you saw a difference in their fees. To minimize such differences there must be a law of service Equality by the government. When our developers build the app, they consider these guidelines and implement the application accordingly. Developers have embodied new technologies to enlarge the life of mobile applications. Some of the futuristic technologies are AI and ML, IoT, Data Science, etc. which are successfully integrated with the mobile app to expand its life. A few of the top mobile app leaders with such technology-driven solutions are Practo, ZocDoc, Pager App, etc.
Yet some of the other challenges that keep on evolving from time to time are secure installation of cards, Medicare protections, and the use of different codes embedded inside the application. Our team is doing fabulous work in part to predict the challenges before and settle them.
Business Models/monetization
Here we have listed some of the business monetization models used not only for clinic appointment app development but for others also to scrutinize their revenue.
1. Freemium Model:
As the name suggests, this free version of the mobile app allows the users to access only a small or basic part of the application. The main idea behind the use of the Freemium model is that users must be aware of the working interface of the application and once they feel attached to it, then only they move to paid versions. This is a promotion kind of thing for monetization of apps and adds more value to it.
2. Localized ad campaigns:
This one is the best monetization strategy to communicate with local people. It’s well sure that local people are an important asset for your app. Your app must be locally intrigued. So to make local people more aware of the use of mobile apps, there should be local advertising campaigns operating within a fixed amount of time. Features like push notifications hit the user’s mobile device once they have searched for local Healthcare information.
3. Registration and subscription fees:
This revenue model is the one in all platforms to connect patients with doctors. In this process, doctors have to keep them registered to attend to their patients over the app and pay a monthly amount for it. ZocDoc uses the same model for easy access to doctors with their patients. Although subscriptions have been classified with some plans like monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
4. Promotional and discounts:
This is the best way to connect easily with the patients. Offer promotions and discount coupons to the patients to make them habitual for your application.
Features /panels for
Patients/Users:
Sign in/Sign Up – This is the first screen available for the user. You can also make the login process easier by implementing social login like Facebook, Gmail login and ask for the details later in the profile section. Make the login secure by sending OTP to the user’s mobile number.
User Profile – The user will have to enter the necessary details like name, address, sex, age, blood group, weight, height, etc. in this section. You can also keep a tab to save the preferred doctors for the specific disease for easier one-tap access.
Appointment Booking – Now let us come to the most crucial part of the app. All the available doctors or medical practitioners should be displayed on the home screen. The user can just tap on anyone and see his or her profile, reviews, charges, etc.
Tracking Doctors’ Location – Keep this option to track the nearby doctors and are free to book a meeting or appointment.
In-App Chat Option – In-App Chat functionality helps the user to stay in touch with the doctors in the future. This helps in boosting user experience and makes the user use the app more frequently.
Doctors:
Sign up/ Sign in – This portion will be relatively the same as the patient version of the app. In Sign up for a profile, the doctor needs to provide their degree, university names, a certificate of authenticity, working experience, area of expertise etc. along with all necessary contact details and time of availability.
Appointments Status – Here you can view lists of booked, canceled, and completed appointments to keep track of all of the appointments scheduled along with the date and time of registration.
In-App Calling – Using this feature, doctors can communicate with the users and listen to their problems to provide them urgent remedies. All of the prescriptions and other reports can be discussed by the doctors. Patients use them to combat their health problems at home.
Marketing Tools – Under this section, all doctors are set free for promoting their services. They use these marketing tools for relevant offers and discounts to engage and motivate the users to use their services.
CMS for Publishing – All the doctors registered within the app can publish their researches on the various issues of health. They can promote their writings for making the societies aware of the health governing factors and insights.
Admin: Patient Management and Doctors Management
Add/Block Features – The admin should have the permission to block any doctor or patient for taking the wrong advantage of the application or also can restrict from using some features.
Report management – All the reports related to the patients and doctors are managed under this category. Health-based reports and other prescriptions are tracked and stored for maintaining a sophisticated backup.
Advanced Features
Payment Modes – All the types of digital payment solutions such as Credit/Debit Card, Internet Banking, Paypal, and Braintree are added for taking the app usability concept to a whole new level.
Push Notification – Integrating push technology comes as a great deal to attract users. The users kept informed about the appointment status, prescription charts, and much more.
Social Sharing – Social sharing helps in gaining recognition in public so it is always better to keep the options to share specific results or outcomes to have the extra advantage.
Real-time Analytics – This is one of the most important aspects that must be considered upon. Users attuned with the app can use the Real-time Analytics can view the graphical reports and charts as understanding such reports is very easier when it comes to analyzing the numerous pages of facts and numbers.
GPS Tracking – GPS technology can be used, case you are looking forward to developing an advanced doctor on-demand booking app. The users can track the doctor current location and vice versa in real-time in thus helping in time management activities.
Technology Stack
Implementing sound technological infrastructure is a must one it comes to craft feature-rich mobile apps. Therefore, analyze all the technical verticals and make all the associated provisions for enforcing them into the basic building block of a Doctor On-Demand Mobile App.
UX/UI Designing – For designing the interface of the application few languages are used, for the front end part Bootstrap is used, and for designing the backend part JavaScript and AngularJS are the widely used languages. Designers before designing the application need to choose the platform like for Android they required Java and for the iOS platform, they can go with Swift.
Location Tracking – Tracking user’s current location is provided based on users’ proximity sensors. For Android, Google Maps has all the needed functionalities, and for iOS – Apple maps are there.
Cloud – For safe storage of data, the app developer uses Amazon data servers or Google cloud storage.
Verification by SMS, Voice, and Phone – Security breaches are more often laid their presence. Features like Google sign-in or the use of Facebook SDK would be highly secured paths to restrict such loopholes. For authenticity, a developer can use a captcha to avoid any kind of spambot inference.
Database for handling data – There are many database options is available to occupy the data. Some of the options are MongoDB, Cassandra, Postgre, Hbase, and MySQL.
Development Process
Once all the features have been accumulated and finalized that are to be included in the Doctor On-Demand Mobile app, it is imperative, to begin with, the developmental procedures.
- Concept & Analysis – To develop a unique mobile app for your target audience, you should be aware of the different paradigms like knowing about your potential audience, their behavior, their choices, the growth ratio of the future market segment, and another perspective. Indulge your Business Analysis team into developing the wireframes, SOW, and SRS to develop an effective app idea.
- Design – It plays a crucial part in the journey of the mobile application. Your mobile app has an attractive and responsive interface to retain the customers, and it should be a surreal experience for them.
- Development – Before you embark on the app programming and coding phase determine all the building processes, technologies adopted, and platforms to remain conserved with the proficient mobile app.
- Quality Assurance – There is levels of testing required to obtain an error-free product and to sustained optimal efficiency.
- Launch & Marketing – Right marketing is required for augmenting the success levels of your product.
Team Requirement
Doctor on-demand app development becomes very easy when you hit upon an experienced and best Mobile App Development Company. Certainly, for converting your app idea into reality you need a talented pool of:
- Project Manager – Should be equipped with managerial skills and must be intelligent enough to identify the best in the mobile app industry landscape. She/he should be capable of finding the most productive solutions as to achieve your business goals and insights.
- Developers: Android App Developer, IOS App Developer, Back-end App Developers
- Designers: Expert UX/UI designers, Graphic Designer
- Testers/Quality Analysts – A team of proficient and skilled QA experts for delivering a smooth and rich experience to users.
Cost of Development
Depending upon the requirements, the cost of the doctor scheduling app development can alter. Most of the doctor on demand app development companies charge on an hourly basis, which also differs from one country other as listed below:
- $50 to $250 per hour for U.S. based developers
- $30 to $150 per hour for Eastern Europe based developers
- $10 to $80 per hour for India-based developers
For the Android/iOS platform, on average the time duration would go for 500-600 hours. Whereas, the cost of the budget would lie around $20k-$80k to develop the doctor’s app and vary as per the complexity.
Conclusion
Health is the first necessity for people. Having a reliable solution in your mobile which promises to keep you fit and safe, then what else you would required. Healthcare apps are such a blessing, extending their coverage to every corner including far remote areas. These apps are quick solutions to find appropriate specialists on your hands at affordable prices. In recent years, the dimensions of doctors’ mobile apps have expanded their reach to become more diversified. The apps are glued with futuristic features which have nullified the error in the diagnosis of patients.
At Octal Info Solution, you have a myriad of options for building your on-demand doctor mobile app from scratch. Our value-driven features benefit all, including doctors, administrative, patients, and other medical staff. Don’t wait for any moment and allow us to develop an app for your business.