The Coach SpaceSurprisingly almost 71% of patients in the United States prefer to use a mobile device to interact with their healthcare providers!
Though it might sound shocking, being practical even you would want your healthcare professional to be a phone call or text away, just like your friend. Let’s look at some stats that might give you deeper insights into this. 97% of the Americans use cell phones and 85% own a smartphone and as much as 93% of the healthcare providers expect their healthcare organizations to use digital tools.
Looking at the bright side of the patients’ expectations, development of mobile health apps or patient engagement apps can be a game changer for healthcare clinicals. But how can these mHealth solutions be the bridge to patient empowerment and how to build a patient engagement app?
Well, healthcare app development for patient engagement can be a complex process, but in this blog, let’s have a sneak peek into the benefits of patient engagement apps and the future of a healthcare app development that improves patient engagement, leading to improved health outcomes.
So, without further ado, let’s deep dive into the patient engagement app and the potential it has to revolutionize the entire healthcare landscape!
The Rise of Patient Engagement Apps
The introduction of digital means have simplified our lives significantly. Furthermore, the transition of healthcare landscape to a digital healthcare landscape opened new doors to healthcare technology and adoption of technology in healthcare with mHealth solutions.
During this, healthcare providers have recognized the need for patient engagement as an important aspect of patient care delivery. This required custom healthcare software development with capabilities to keep the patient engaged in their health journey. For instance, a patient engagement app not only enables healthcare providers to opt for a patient-centric care model but also empowers patients by giving them more control of their health.
One of the major benefits of patient engagement apps has been the creation of win-win situations for both patients and providers. On one side patients could take control of their health with effective self-management and keep a tap of their medication and care plan. On the contrary, providers could easily communicate with patients and the care team in real-time and collect data in a streamlined and better way.
Key Features of Effective Patient Engagement Apps
Unlike any off-the-shelf healthcare software, patient engagement apps offer some unique features that help providers prioritize personalized health management. With features like custom medication reminders and symptom trackers, both patients and providers can offer personalized treatment with better preventive care measures.
Along with that, the option of goal setting enables both parties to track their progress and keep a check on their healthcare journey. Furthermore, mobile health apps also provide secure communication channels, which come in handy for effective patient engagement. With this contact, the care becomes much easier and leads to better care.
An essential part of the care journey is patient education, which seemed to be a problem in digital healthcare practices. Here, the integrated educational content with mHealth solutions will give patients easy access to be aware about their health.
Apart from all these intriguing features, the design of the patient engagement app can be customized with data visualization tools. It helps both patients and providers to easily track the progress and make informed decisions with respect to the care plans being decided for optimum care delivery.
The Impact of Patient Engagement Apps
The trend of patient engagement apps in the healthcare industry has been here for a while and for good reasons. These stats might help you have a better idea to reason yourself with it.
- Almost 92% of patients feel more connected to the hospitals and are able to keep themselves engaged in their care activities.
- 61% of the patients improved their relationship with the physicians using the patient portal and secure communication features.
- Studies suggest patient engagement leads to 6 times better patient health outcomes.
- Patient engagement leads to a reduction in overall healthcare costs by almost $2000.
- Engaged patients are more likely to attend follow-up appointments.
- Patient engagement apps lead to a 20% better medication adherence rate.
Despite the inclusive benefits of patient engagement apps, it is important to understand that the user-friendly nature of the application can leave an ever-lasting impact. Here it is crucial to provide the user a friendly and easily navigable experience.
Taking it a step further, you can also include some gamified elements to keep the patients proactively engaged in their care activities. Apart from this, another thing to consider here is taking robust data security measures and addressing patient privacy concerns. Adhering to the HIPAA and HITECH Act regulation can come in handy in developing a user-friendly and secure mobile health app.
Challenges and Considerations for Developing Patient Engagement Apps
Healthcare app development is complex, and similarly, patient engagement app development comes with a lot of challenges. Some of the challenges and considerations that one must address during the development of a custom patient engagement app are:
- Digital Literacy and Accessibility: The first thing that we need to address here is the digital literacy of the patients who are going to use the application. Since most people are not technology-friendly, having a design with proper navigation can help. A simple trick to achieve this is to design a simple and easily navigable. This helps you in developing a patient engagement app that can be used by patients with different levels of digital literacy.
- Interoperability and Data Integration: The patient engagement app is connected to electronic health records, and it can only prove useful when data transmission happens in real-time. To achieve this, it is important for the mHealth solution to achieve interoperability. To achieve this, it is important to follow interoperability standards like FHIR and HL7.
- Sustainability and Cost-effectiveness: Given the fast-evolving nature of healthcare and technology, developing a sustainable patient app. That is why you need to prepare beforehand for the future. Consider the scope of growth for your practice and develop a patient engagement app with respect to it. However, budget constraints are a concern here, where custom development can come in handy, as you can easily expand the app’s potential and make customizations as per your needs.
The Future of Patient Engagement Apps
With advancements in technology patient engagement apps can become more personalized and provide data-driven health insights that can potentially change the way healthcare works. For instance, with AI and machine learning algorithms, patient engagement apps can suggest accurate suggestions depending on the complexity of the condition, etc.
Furthermore, with integration with wearable devices and sensors, the patient engagement apps can further improve its functioning as data collection will become much more sophisticated. This will improve health monitoring and empower healthcare providers with the tools to provide better preventive care.
Last but not least, the patient engagement app will be a tool for provider and patient empowerment. With this the healthcare ecosystem can be collaborative where everyone will be connected with each other and work in synchrony to provide better healthcare services.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, as the healthcare industry moves ahead with digital transformation, the role of patient engagement apps and mHealth solutions will become even more eminent by fostering better communication and collaboration between all stakeholders.
Furthermore, considering the need to engage patients in their healthcare journey will help the healthcare industry in deriving more improved health outcomes of patients. And being at the starting stages of digital transformation, this is the right time for you to develop a patient engagement app for your healthcare practice. Click here to start the journey today.
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