Mobile Apps -Simplifying The Healthcare Sector
Mobile apps may have taken the global stage relatively recently, but in a little under two decades, they have revolutionized virtually every aspect of human life. Today, there’s seemingly a mobile app for anything, and developers are insistently uncovering even more opportunities to make life easier for the ever-hungry users of smart devices.Among the sectors that are benefiting significantly from the mobile apps boom is health care. The health industry is currently undergoing drastic changes, as focus shifts from traditional models to digital solutions that can extensively transform patient experience and improve the operations of healthcare organizations. In fact, industry leaders are increasingly adopting no-code mobile application solutions such as iBuildApp tools as primary facilitators of a possible future in which patients are placed at the center of healthcare and given adequate tools to manage their health, while professionals deliver quality care, not in costly facilities like hospitals and clinics, but closer to where patients live and work.
Mobile app stores are swarming with medical applications that are streamlining the way services are delivered and paid for, and empowering patients to take responsibility for their health. The mobile health market is expanding rapidly, and although brick-and-mortar medical facilities aren’t going anywhere any time soon, mobile apps could become the main avenue for patient-practitioner relations in the coming years.
Factors Driving Mobile App Adoption in Healthcare
The health industry is considered one of the top fields accelerating the growth of mobile technology, and according to figures from a Manhattan Research, more than 95 million people in the U.S. alone use mobile devices to access medical information.The primary factor that is driving mobile use in healthcare is undoubtedly the ubiquity of portable devices. Over 36 percent of the entire world’s population uses a smartphone actively, with the number being much higher in developed countries. The prevalence of smartphone ownership is particularly dependent on income, and because medical practitioners are comparatively well-paid, more than 90 percent of them use smart portables.
Patients are also coming to terms with the importance of playing a more significant role in their health care. This move is, of course, being championed the most by payers looking to hold down costs. With mobile apps, people can keep track of metrics like their heart rate, the calories they burn in a day, and their diet, without requiring the costly services of a professional.
The Present and Future Impact of Mobile Apps in Healthcare
As it stands, everyone in the healthcare industry has their sights on smart mobile technology as the magic bullet that will put an end to the sector’s numerous inefficiencies, reduce costs, and improve the quality of service.Mobile Health Apps for Practitioners
Presently, a decent number of medical professionals are using mobile devices to help deliver patient care. In fact, the American Medical Association notes that thanks to smartphones and tablets, physicians are beginning to view health technology as something they want to use, rather than something they have to use. In some hospitals, using smart gadgets for basic tasks like accessing medical records and ordering tests and procedures is saving hours of daily work time. Professionals are also putting mobile tech into use outside the traditional healthcare setting through apps that can record body parameters like temperature and electrocardiograms, delivering accurate diagnostics while on the go.
Practitioners are now keen to combine mobile technology with data analytics to enhance the way they make and implement decisions surrounding the health and treatment of patients. Mobile apps and big data can also facilitate better collaboration among physicians, by making it possible to share patient data from one trusted practitioner to the next.
Some health care centers have already succeeded in implementing mobile health techniques to improve workflow and productivity. Partners Healthcare in Massachusetts, for instance, has launched a variety of programs, including Connected Cardiac Care, Diabetes Connect, and TeleStroke Centre, all through mobile apps. As the technology continues gaining acceptance, it’s only a matter of time before such programs become mainstream occurrences in hospitals around the world.
Mobile Health Apps for Patients
Mobile applications hold enormous promise for patients. In addition to improving the way they interact with medical practitioners and healthcare institutions, apps can help patients adhere to treatment regimens, manage their conditions, keep track of costs, access useful information, and generally live healthier lives.In healthcare centers, mobile apps can be used to guide patients through every step of their journey, reducing waiting times and giving them precise access to the services they need, when they need them. Apps could also allow patients to select the facility that is closest to them and have the quickest service possible in case of emergencies.
The GMVEMSC Fire/EMS/Private ambulance care providers, hospital emergency departments mobile app, for instance, ensures that every person in the Greater Miami Valley area who call for emergency services receives timely response. It helps to guide fire professionals, EMS, private ambulance and pre-hospital practitioners and physicians.
Additionally, Research on mobile health promises even more ambitious apps, which could help people to reach doctors from around the world directly, diagnose and monitor conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes themselves, and go through data submitted by other patients to assess the effectiveness of treatment methods. With patients currently being encouraged to be proactive in their healthcare, smart health apps will only get more popular.
Mobile Apps for Healthcare Staffing
There is no denying the healthcare recruitment process suffers from various challenges. Hospitals can no longer depend solely on staffing companies to help them recruit qualified nurses for short-term help, for instance.This is largely due to factors such as the increase in the number of people (especially baby boomers) who require medical care and the fact that more people have health insurance and access to hospitals. Hospitals, therefore, are finding themselves short-staffed and, thus in constant need for temporary staffing solutions or what we commonly refer to travel nurses. Figures from the U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics shows that 500,000 nurses will retire by 2022 and as a result, the health sector will need 1.1 million new registered nurses in order to prevent a shortage.
Mobile apps can be a game-changer when it comes to sourcing and hiring travel nurses. They allow recruiters to easily post and update jobs; providing an easy and simple way of engaging with nurses.
By leveraging the iBuildApp solution, for example, a recruiter can build a Travel Nursing Jobs App that intuitively guides travel nurses through the job search workflow and also works on both Android and iPhone platforms. In Essence, the solution offers the following:
- You will be able to populate the back-end with new available job openings on a daily basis without releasing new updates to the app itself.
- You will have the option of creating a location-based menu that allows nurses to browse jobs by state, city and unit type.
- You will be able to easily run Excel right inside your app which will ultimately allow you to instantly generate accurate pay ranges for each available position.
- You will have access to various health-related icons which will enable you to custom match colors and icons to each particular kind of nursing unit.
- It is cheaper compared to hiring a developer to create a Travel Nursing Jobs App from ground.
- And last but not least, the iBuildApp support team will be there 24/7 to help with questions and offer support.
Mobile Health Apps for Healthcare Plan Providers
Health plans and managed care organizations have long been at the forefront in championing the use of Web portals to give members easy access to useful information, and unsurprisingly, they’re among the parties that are actively pushing for the adoption of mobile technologies in healthcare.Insurance firms are seeing mobile apps as a viable avenue for gaining competitive advantages because of their potential to improve customer engagement and encourage loyalty. The players that are getting ahead in the industry aren’t leaving it all up to developers to create mobile health apps. Instead, they’re directly investing in the companies that make the applications. Aetna, for instance, purchased Healthagen, an app development company that was started by professional physicians, and whose app, iTriage, gives Aetna-covered patients access to critical health information, and also lets them check the status of their cover.
“We have invested extensively in a service-oriented architecture, and that has allowed us to bring a lot to mobile technology. The healthcare sector is difficult to navigate, but we have been building tools that make it more straightforward for customers to interact with the system.” Mark Bertolini – Aetna CEO
The health insurance sector is one of the most rapidly expanding industries today, but as growth persists and competition continues to heat up, success in the future will come to those companies that effectively implement mobile applications to fulfill the needs of customers, while reducing administrative costs.
The Takeaway
Mobile apps are taking over the healthcare industry in a massive way. Sooner rather than later, health apps will become the go-to tools that medical professionals and health plan organizations will use to deliver services and refine their workflow. On the other hand, patients will embrace them as reliable sources of information, and essential resources for keeping track of their health and fitness regiments, as well as their insurance covers.Although the widespread adoption of mobile apps in the healthcare sector may still be hindered by issues like data security and patient anonymity, it’s only a matter of time before the tech world finds acceptable answers that will entirely silence the skeptics.
