Opting for telehealth app technology can bring many benefits to clinics and healthcare organizations. The field is growing rapidly, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic hit us hard back in the year 2020. According to a recent Statista report, the telemedicine market will grow by nearly 439 billion USD by the end of 2030.
While the tech market develops off the shelf solutions, many clinics have already started developing their custom telehealth products to allow doctors and patients to enjoy the digital health domain we live in. But with so many products and solutions available today, it could be hard for businesses to find exact steps to find how to build a telehealth solution in 2023.
Let’s get to the point.
Before We Start, What Is A Telemedicine App?
Telemedicine is a term describing electronic information and telecommunication technologies designed to support long-distance clinical health care, both patient and doctor health-related education, clinic front desk work, and public health.
Simply put, a telemedicine app provides remote healthcare through video calls, chats, file exchange, and vitals tracking. Telehealth has numerous benefits for everyone, be it a doctor, a patient, a front desk employee, or other staff.
6 Steps To Build A Telemedicine App
Step 1: Start Off with a Business Analysis
This is the key step in building an effective and reliable solution. As the basic stage of any development process, analysis allows you to explore problems you currently have and how the final product will resolve them.
Here is how conceptualization might be built:
- What problems will my app solve?
- What will be the monetization method?
- Who will be the app’s target audience?
- How will my app distinguish itself from the competition?
Step 2: Analyze Competitors
Once your inner research is done, you can move to detailed research on competitors. This will allow you to identify problems they face or have so you can avoid them while also exploring the tech stack and other vital info that can help you build knowledgeable software.
Step 3: Plan App Infrastructure Ahead
The research will show you what the final app should look like, so here is the starting point to plan a detailed infrastructure of the application. Here you should also plant paint points, the solution, healthcare data integration process and a budget.
Step 4: Design The User Interface
The UX/UI design is essential. That is why the first step is to create wireframes and mockups so you can see how the final product will look and what should be changed before you start the development stage. Design plays a great role when it comes to telemedicine software since patients and doctors should be able to use the app on the go without looking for extra information every time.
Step 5: Find a Development Team
You need to find a development team with relevant experience. Telehealth applications should comply with strict market guidelines, so it is crucial to find a medical app development company in the USA that has in-depth expertise in that domain.
Once the company is founded, you will need to choose a suitable cooperation model – whether it be outsourcing, staff augmentation, or a dedicated team. The choice will be based on several factors, like timelines, budget, and location.
Here is a quick breakdown of how a tech stack might look like:
- Front-end part – React Native, ReactJS, VueJS, and NextJS, Swift and Kotlin for native development;
- Back-end part – NodeJS, NestJS, ExpressJS and Ruby on Rails;
- Deployment – Netlify, Vercel and AWS S3;
- Design and prototyping – Ant Design and Bootstrap;
- Geolocation & GPS tracking – Google Maps;
- Cloud-based messaging – Firebase Cloud.
Step 6: QA And Testing
Testing is a step that completes the development process. The QA team will go through the entire software and verify every aspect of an app functions the way it is supposed to. Some aspects that testers check are excellent coding, fast performance, as well as a positive user experience.
Step 7: Deployment
Once the development and testing parts of the development stage of the telehealth app are done, you are ready to introduce the app to the market. Based on the business needs, your development team will either grant access to the app’s source code or handle this stage of the process as well. That means they can also publish the app on the app store and resolve issues that may arise during the process.
Step 8: Optimize and Market the App
Once the app is launched, it is time to promote it and update it. You need to find channels for its promotion since there are so many competitors on the market. In addition, you don’t want to miss the fact that any app also needs timely maintenance and user reviews for product upgrades.
Wrapping Up
The telemedicine industry is evolving rapidly, and more and more clinics are developing their custom solutions. As a result, the tech market also offers a vast range of solutions, so telehealth applications have truly improved the patient’s and doctors’ lives in the best way possible. They help doctors to reduce the efforts and time needed for each patient yet improve the overall care quality.
