How Does an Application Help a Hospital?
In short: because the healthcare industry needs improved efficiency and additional revenue. Presently, care providers that don’t meet consumers’ growing demands for intelligent access to services are at risk of losing customers and revenue. Mobile apps play a key role in this game.
What is the rush?
According to Statista, the digital healthcare sector is mostly driven by mobile health development. Just take a look at the 48,600+ healthcare apps available on the Apple App Store — it’s getting crowded out there.
Because of the numerous benefits, mobile healthcare apps have become one of the fastest-growing segments of IT. Analytics resource ResearchandMarkets states that the healthcare application market will reach $236 billion by 2026, exhibiting a 45% CAGR.
For obvious reasons, healthcare consumers expect to receive more than just basic coverage and an annual medical examination; the demand for innovation continues to grow. Ever since wearable and other connecting devices became available to the public, patients have gotten used to 24/7 support and expect the same from medical establishments.
As provider competition increases, mobile applications play a key role in helping hospitals and medical practices bring in patients at the right time, to the correct locations, matched with the appropriate level of service.
Hospital application development frees us from the out-dated, traditional approach of the patient-doctor relationship. The decision to build an app for your medical practice can help to reduce mispronounced names, overbooked operating rooms, excess downtime, and irritated patients.
Benefits of building an app for your hospital
#1. Cultivate customer loyalty People prefer clinics that fall within the boundaries of their comfort zone. To many, comfort means accessibility to information, appointments, test results, a secure payment system, and educational information. Develop an app that serves the patient’s needs, and you’ll have a devoted customer.
#2 Ensure better patient outcomes Big data, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies help diagnose, monitor, and treat medical conditions. A correctly selected algorithm can bring diagnostics and self-care to remote areas with telemedicine solutions.
#3. Organize internal processes Treating patients is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to healthcare. The hospital lifecycle depends on the workflow setup, including actionable worklists and managing inventory, patients, recruiting staff, and more. A hospital management app can increase visibility and track successful accomplishments in real-time.
#4. Ensure convenient payments Why shouldn’t paying a medical bill be as easy as splitting a check at a restaurant? A friendly and affordable payment option will benefit all parties by limiting billing frustrations, services activation, cutting call volume, and increasing patient satisfaction.
#5. Increased doctor efficiency The database is the cornerstone of your app. Via a centralized database, a doctor can search for patient health records and easily analyze and comment on test results. Check out how we designed an EHR to ease clinical research for a French pharmaceutical company. Our EHR allows researchers to check trial feasibility with input data, detect safety risks early on, assess outcomes, and conduct post-market monitoring.
#6. Promote your business Communication is the key. Tailor push-notifications to inform your users about news, promotions, special offers, and more. Using your app as a marketing tool is the best way to turn a one-time customer into a returning customer.
#7. Research, collaborate and build a reputation Personal data, which is central to the functionality of a health app, can move science forward. An app that is visually appealing and smartly designed will be voluntarily adopted for long-term use by more people than in a research study, transforming a commercial app into a precious data source.
The best medical apps for patients often collect feedback and analyze user behavior to help organizations with research.
Ways of Monetization
Hospital applications can range from health diagnosis apps to hospital waiting-time apps and doctor on-demand apps. Such software not only benefits patients but also opens new revenue streams for a medical center.
Let’s take a closer look at how an application can increase a hospital’s revenue:
Freemium
This term consists of two words — free and premium, which means a free download of a premium version. To get access to real-life services, like a one-on-one chat with a doctor, a user has to upgrade. The trick here is to determine valuable features that will bring profit. In any case, your app should remain fully functional even if a user rejects in-app purchases.
Subscription
One of the most widely used tactics is a paid subscription. To ensure a download, the provider offers free access to all features for a fixed period of time. As this period ends, the user needs to choose a paid-plan and make fixed monthly payments. An example of such a model is when a doctor pays a monthly fee to be visible in a user’s search.
Fee-Sharing
A lot of people find it convenient to book an appointment using a hospital application. For this reason, it is beneficial to develop a marketplace-like app with a transaction fee as your monetization model. In other words, you provide patients with a convenient booking and payment method and charge a fee. Picture booking a car from a rental agency app where part of the fare is paid to the app provider.
In-App Advertisements
Your hospital app is helpful, nicely designed, and is high-performing. In this case, most promoters will consider it attractive and are willing to pay you to advertise their products and/or services; however, this strategy can negatively affect UX. To minimize aggravation, your medical application should offer only relevant advertising. Be sure to only choose brand partners that use GPS, Wi-Fi, or beacons to localize ads.
Where to begin and how to choose the right medical app monetization strategy?
A mobile application provides a mechanism for interaction and solves many problems for the owner of a healthcare business, by:
Boosting staff efficiency
Increasing customer loyalty
Saving time for both doctors and patients
Raising patient awareness
It all starts with the types of medical challenges that you want to solve with your software. After outlining any potential problems, be sure to research and define your app’s architecture and acceptable monetization models. Don’t limit yourself to one tactic. The blend of several revenue-generating approaches is always best for achieving optimal results. If the entire process looks like a challenge, don’t fret — contact Ebris now for a free consultation. We’re here to help you every step of the way.
