Healthcare Mobile App Development: Features, Best Practices, and Trends
Updated 13 Jan 2025
27 Min
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Healthcare app development is the process of designing, building, and deploying mobile solutions tailored to healthcare organizations' specific needs. These apps usually range from patient management systems and telemedicine platforms to fitness trackers and chronic disease monitoring tools that serve as a secure, user-friendly, and compliant way to improve patient health outcomes.
Utilizing healthcare mobile apps is a great way to make the lives of doctors and patients easier with a wide range of improvements that apps can bring to medical services.
With 13+ years of industry experience in healthcare software development, we at Cleveroad are here to share our expertise and help you understand all the ins and outs of healthcare app development.
What Is a Healthcare Application
A healthcare app is a digital solution that revolutionizes the way medical institutions manage health and wellness. Whether it’s booking a doctor’s appointment, monitoring fitness goals, accessing telemedicine, or managing chronic conditions, these apps put healthcare at yours and your patients' fingertips. Mobile healthcare application development provides users with real-time medical data, and personalized insights and facilitates seamless communication with medical professionals, all while ensuring high-security standards within sensitive medical information.
Why do you need healthcare app development
For the majority of healthcare facilities, mobile health app development has become a game-changer. Such digital solutions enable healthcare professionals to seamlessly, swiftly, yet securely access and operate patient data, streamlining and speeding up the process of providing high-quality medical care for their patients. Here’s only a few things why you should consider implementing a healthcare mobile app within your practice:
- Improve health data gathering
- Provide timely care despite the location
- Minimize medical mistakes
- Lower spending for hospitals and patients
- Improve communication between physicians and patients
- Increase customer loyalty and engagement
- Provide time-saving features for medical staff
- Offer healthcare data visualization tools
Healthcare apps market overview
Healthcare mobile app development is the creation of applications for mobile devices to aid users in managing their health-related concerns in real time. These concerns may include medical services, hospital experiences, electronic health records, or insurance claims.
The app development for healthcare serves multiple purposes and is growing with every year. Let’s review some valuable statistics to assess the health app market condition:
- According to Precedence Research, the global mHealth market size accounted for $71.59 billion in 2024 and is expected to be reach around $268.46 billion by 2034.
- Insider Intelligence research shows that nearly two-thirds (63.4%) of US adults are using mobile health apps. Moreover, if we talk not about specialized solutions but about fitness and general wellness apps, 6 out of 10 users utilize them on a day-to-day basis.
- The survey by National Library of Medicine showed that 59% of study participants have installed and utilized 1–3 health-related apps. Among the users with mobile health applications, 38.6% utilize them several times a day while only 2.1% utilize them rarely.
This brief market overview shows that healthcare mobile application development is a promising area for healthcare businesses, as the popularity of such solutions is growing rapidly, and more and more users are actively moving to mobile medicine.
Types of Healthcare Apps
The global growth of healthcare app development industry has led to more than 95 thousand healthcare apps available on the App Store and Google Play at the moment. Those healthcare app development solutions can be split into two categories: apps for patients and healthcare professionals. Let’s consider each category and type of healthcare app and overview them in more detail:
Apps for professionals and medical facilities
These apps are intended to bring value to physicians, nurses, doctors, and other staff at medical facilities. As a result, they’re more complex and filled with advanced features that might be useless for the average user.
Medical networking
Even though physicians are pretty busy and are rare guests on popular social media, they also need a way to communicate with their colleagues, share expertise, and improve the decision-making process. The well-known medical networking apps are:
- Daily Rounds
- Doximity
- Sermo
Billing apps
Billing healthcare app development streamlines the overall billing process and digitalizes operations like claims management, accounting, payment processing, and patient registration in medical facilities. There are several popular billing apps as an example for mobile healthcare app development:
- Advanced MD
- EpicCare EMR
- Waystar
How to make a medical billing software to satisfy your medical practice needs? Learn about how it may help you streamline financial processes, features to implement, and more in our guide
Telehealth
Telemedicine app development is aimed to let physicians schedule appointments with patients and provide consultation using in-app messaging or video calls. Telehealth apps are convenient for both medical facilities and patients as they reduce “no-shows” by 50%, and patients can receive medical consultations in the comfort of their homes. Famous telehealth apps are:
- GoodRx Care
- Doctor on Demand
- Teladoc
Medical prescription apps
E-prescription app development lets physicians pick the right drugs for each patient, pack it into a convenient list, set and control dosage, avoid adverse drug events (ADEs), or cancel prescriptions at any time. Some of the apps like RxEasy and STAT allow prescriptions to be printed so patients can easily show them in any pharmacy.
Medical records apps
Simply put, healthcare mobile apps development for medical records is intended to simplify collecting and updating the patients’ health records. This includes vital indicators (blood pressure, temperature, etc.), medical examinations, prescriptions, appointments, and other information essential for physicians to track the overall treatment process. There are several apps that are quite popular among physicians:
- DrChrono Practice Management
- RXNT
- Meditab
Apps for patients
The name speaks for itself. These apps are designed to make the patients’ lives easier. Simple yet useful along with basic medical assistance, these apps cover a wide range of wellness aspects.
Mental health apps
Mental health app development aimed to make therapy more accessible, efficient, and flexible. They can assist with fighting depression, stress, anxiety, and sleep disorders with the help of pre-recorded meditations, breathing exercises, gamification elements, and more.
We’ve recently worked on a mental health app called Nedley Scorecard. It’s designed to cure insomnia and depression and improve the overall psychological condition. Learn more in our case study!
Health monitoring
Monitoring medical app development comes with symptom checkers to give recommendations on medication intake or treatment advice. They can also help manage current chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes, and so on. The well-known examples of monitoring medical app development are:
- WebMD
- Ada
- The Diary
Medical education
The main idea of education health app development is to create a reliable database with up-to-date medical information for students, doctors, and regular users who want to know more about healthcare. There are great examples of this type:
- Medscape
- Clinical Sense
- Lecturio Medical Education
Medication trackers
Medication tracking apps are quite popular in healthcare app development thanks to their overall simplicity as they help users take their pills on time. Besides simple scheduling and reminders, these apps can track specific drugs in pharmacies nearby, letting users know where the cheapest offer is. Among all medication trackers, there are several established solutions:
- ScriptSave WellRx
- Mango Health
- Medisafe Pill Reminder
Dieting apps
The main task of dieting app development for healthcare is to help users establish a diet and maintain healthy eating habits. Some of the common features in these apps are a calorie calculator, meal planning, reminders, a food and health information database, and much more. All these features can be found in apps like:
- Lifesum
- MyFitnessPal
- Fooducate
Healthy lifestyle apps
This category brings together many different applications, such as fitness apps, brain training apps, self-improvement apps, and many others that make a healthy lifestyle much easier to achieve. Notable examples of such applications are:
- Elevate: Brain Training
- Remente
- Results Wellness Lifestyle
We provide a wide range of healthcare software development services. Check out our landing to learn more about opportunities cooperation with us may bring to your healthcare app success
Benefits of Healthcare Application Development
Healthcare mobile app development is a versatile instrument that delivers multiple advantages for providers and users by improving efficiency, accessibility, and overall healthcare experiences. Let's take a look at the benefits of such apps:
Benefits for healthcare providers
Healthcare application development offers significant advantages for healthcare providers, streamlining various processes and enhancing overall efficiency. These benefits include:
- Improved patient management. Healthcare apps development facilitates better organization and management of patient data, appointments, and treatment plans, leading to more efficient healthcare delivery.
- Enhanced communication. Health system app development enable seamless communication among healthcare professionals, fostering collaboration, quick information exchange, and better decision-making.
- Time and cost savings. Automating administrative tasks, such as appointment scheduling and billing, reduces manual efforts, saves time, and cuts operational costs for healthcare providers.
- Access to real-time data. Healthcare apps provide instant access to patient records, test results, and other critical information, enabling healthcare providers to make informed decisions promptly.
- Remote monitoring. The ability to remotely monitor patients' health through applications allows healthcare providers to offer continuous care and intervene promptly in case of emergencies.
What is vital to know about remote patient monitoring in 2025? Go through our guide and learn about how RPM works and why it may come in handy within your medical business
Benefits for patients and general users
Healthcare application development brings numerous advantages to patients and general users, enhancing their overall healthcare experience:
- Convenient access to information. Users can access medical information, schedule appointments, and view test results conveniently through healthcare apps, promoting easy and quick access to healthcare resources.
- Better care quality. Leveraging available automation, healthcare providers can deliver personalized health plans tailored to the unique conditions of individual patients.
- Medication management. Healthcare apps often include medication reminders and tracking features, helping patients adhere to prescribed medication schedules.
- Accessible medical services. Health app development typically aims to let users consult with healthcare professionals remotely, ensuring accessibility to medical consultations from the comfort of their homes.
- Health and wellness monitoring. Applications can track and monitor users' health and wellness, providing insights into fitness levels, nutrition, and overall lifestyle choices.
MVP Features Checklist for Healthcare App Development
In healthcare app development, it's essential to clearly understand the product you want to build before you start the development process. Creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a crucial step in this process. MVP allows you to test your idea, validate assumptions, and get user feedback while minimizing development costs and time.
Let’s explore the key aspects of creating an MVP for mobile app development for healthcare:
Secure authorization and authentication
This is an essential and primary feature in healthcare app development. It is the process of verifying the identity of users accessing the application and ensuring that only authorized users can access the sensitive information within the app. For instance, a two-factor authentication process may be implemented, requiring a password and a unique code sent to the user's phone or email, or biometric authentication, such as fingerprint or facial recognition, may be used.
Authorization feature designed by Cleveroad
Profile screen
The profile functionality is an essential part of the telehealth app. The user should be able to fill in personal information, add a photo, write a medical history, and generally manage and edit personal information according to up-to-date data. This significantly adds to personalization for both patients and practitioners.
User profile screen feature example designed by Cleveroad
Search and filter options
Finding a physician should be simple yet effective. It’s a good idea to add filters within medical mobile app development that’d let users find a doctor based on set criteria such as specialization, experience, or appointment cost.
Ratings and reviews
This feature streamlines the decision-making process as reviews and ratings from previous clients can help users decide whether it’s worth contacting a physician or not.
Appointment scheduling
This feature works well in both ways. The physician receives a calendar to schedule appointments and control their number during the week. In the meantime, patients have access to the doctor's schedule for a quick booking that is convenient for both parties.
Appointment booking feature example designed by Cleveroad team
Video and voice calls
This feature is the foundation of all telehealth apps. Video calls are often made using WebRTC, HLS, or MediaStream protocols. These technologies support real-time communication via the camera and microphone of mobile devices. During video and audio calls, both parties should have a stable connection and no trouble with the audio or video.
In-app video call feature example designed by Cleveroad
Online chat
If the doctor can’t see the patient at the moment, the user should be able to ask a question or leave a message for a physician using an in-app chat. The chat is useful enough for both parties. The patient can send various documents and media files that are important for the consultation with medical mobile app development, while the doctor can clear up the course of treatment or send a file with the prescription.
Chat module in healthcare apps feature example designed by Cleveroad team
Payment options
This feature is useful for everyone. Users can pay for the doctor's services, the platform holder gets a commission, and the doctors get paid for their work. The main way to add online payments is to implement a payment gateway. This could be PayPal, Stripe, or Braintree. Besides that, it’s worth implementing payment directly from a patient's credit card.
Reminders and notifications
Through reminders and notifications, medical apps not only keep users on track with timely alerts but also consider their location, enhancing the overall medication management experience. This feature ensures that patients never miss a dose and stay well-informed about their health.
Note: This feature selection is the basics to make your medical app functional and intuitive for your users. At Cleveroad, we provide full-fledged MVP development services you can utilize to initially create a well-functioning medical app with no frills to test the software concept while minimizing financial and user engagement risks.
How to Build a Healthcare App Step-by-Step
Professional healthcare app development is impossible without a clear understanding of your goals, app features, and a clear plan. Therefore, you should apply to a competent software development vendor. Reliable and experienced partners will assist you in selecting the kind of custom healthcare app development you want, researching target audience details, what problems your healthcare product will solve, and how.
Whether it's a hospital app or a management app, they’ll guide you through the healthcare app development process to develop a health app tailored to your needs. With custom app development, they ensure that your app aligns with your vision and seamlessly implements your app idea. By leveraging professional healthcare app development services, you can build a custom healthcare app that stands out and fulfills its purpose effectively.
Let’s go over 7 steps of healthcare mobile application development to unblur this process for you.
Step 1. Problems' identification
This is a foundational step. During it, the following range of factors will be considered by you and your IT vendor:
What problem do you want to solve with your app? Maybe you want to create a fitness app to help users keep fit. Or you want to save users money when buying medications. The opportunities for medical app development are vast, so your initial requirements and the tech team's research will help pick the relevant type of medical app. Your final decision will impact the following factors that will be considered and studied by your software development partners:
- Number of competitors
- Barriers to entry
- Feature list
- Target audience
For example, if you are looking on how to create a fitness app, you’re likely to have a hard time. This type of app has probably the largest market share. In addition, you’ll have to compete with well-known apps like Fitness Buddy, Map My Run, JEFIT Workout Planner, and others. Business Analysts will carefully study the most popular rivals and come up with a truly unique solution that’ll make you stand out among them.
Step 2. Find a credible software development provider
The next step is to find a technical vendor who can help build the application. When selecting a vendor, you should consider the following things:
- Experience in the medical industry and healthcare software development services
- Availability of a portfolio that demonstrates experience in developing apps similar to yours
- The healthcare app development process the vendor will use, including testing and debugging
- The cost to make healthcare app and the expected time it will take to develop the app
- Availability of specialists who know the requirements and legislation in the medical industry
After selecting several vendors, you should create an RFP for software development. RFP stands for Request for Proposal, a document companies use to solicit vendor proposals to complete a project or provide a service. An RFP typically outlines the project scope, objectives, requirements, evaluation criteria, and any other pertinent information vendors need to submit a proposal. The goal of an RFP is to ensure that vendors clearly understand the project requirements and can provide a proposal that meets the company's needs. RFPs are commonly used in healthcare app development to help companies find the right vendor to help bring their vision to life.
If you are experiencing difficulties with the RFP, you can always order a consultation with a specialized IT provider to get the request for a proposal template and professional recommendations.
Need a proficient healthcare app development partner?
Our team of health software experts will help you create a healthcare app that seamlessly integrates with your practice processes, ensuring convenience for medical staff and exceptional patient care
Step 3. First contact
The receipt of the partnership request traditionally goes to the Business Development Department, which processes it and assigns a personal manager with relevant expertise in the client's business domain. After submitting your healthcare app development RFP, the IT vendor can sign an NDA upon request to ensure confidentiality.
Step 4. Solution design stage
Upon agreeing on the partnership, the selected vendor will contact you to clarify initial inquiries that are addressed to determine the primary objectives and business context. Then, you and your IT partner schedule a meeting with the Solution Team to discuss the project in more depth, analyze it, and specify requirements. The Solution Design team, comprising of business analysts, solution architects, and designers, if needed, reviews the application and preliminary information.
Note: At Cleveroad, we offer a free solution design workshop as part of our development process to ensure your solution is of the highest quality and perfectly aligned with your business needs.
Step 5. Discovery phase
The Product Discovery Phase is a crucial step in any software development project that helps transform your project requirements into a comprehensive plan. It serves as a blueprint for the development process and ensures that the end product meets the client's needs and specifications. The goal of the Discovery Phase is to gather all necessary information and requirements that will help streamline the development process and improve the final product's quality.
During this step, the healthcare mobile app development team collects information about the project, such as the platforms that need to be covered (Android, app for ios, web), features to include, and third-party services to integrate. This information is then used to create a detailed plan that outlines the project's scope, objectives, timelines, and milestones. By establishing a clear plan at the outset, the development team can identify potential roadblocks and make adjustments to ensure the project stays on track and is completed on time and within budget.
Step 6. Build healthcare app MVP
As we’ve already covered, a Minimal Viable Product, or simply MVP, is an app that only has essential features that allow users to solve their problems. MVP building is the best choice when:
- There’s a need to validate the idea
- You’re low on resources
- You need a fast time to market
Thus, before creating MVP, together with your IT vendor, you should determine the minimum set of features that will deliver the most value to your target audience. Focus on solving their main problems or pain points. This will help you prioritize medical app development efforts, avoid feature bloat, and decrease the app development cost.
Step 7. Collect feedback, update, repeat
So, you’ve released your MVP. Now, it's time to collect and analyze user feedback. Don’t neglect the audience’s opinion; it can fuel your ideas for future updates. After the release, you can support the app by expanding its functionality and implementing various quality-of-life improvements. This process involves expanding on the initial MVP and adding features that users have requested or that you have identified as necessary.
The primary step is to analyze the feedback and prioritize features based on their impact and feasibility. Then, the development team can build and integrate the additional features into the app. This process may require changes to the app's architecture and additional testing and quality assurance measures.
As the app takes shape, it's important to continuously gather feedback from users and stakeholders to ensure the solution meets their needs. This can help identify areas for improvement and guide future healthcare application development efforts.
Learn about how to hire dedicated development team for your healthcare app project regarding costs, valuable tips, and more
Trends in Healthcare Mobile App Development
The health application development market offers new solutions to meet dynamic user requirements. Distance sessions need to be conducted simply and conveniently via mobile devices with digital therapy tools, and modern architectural trends such as AI, ML, and chatbot implementation are becoming essential. AI and ML can enhance decision-making processes and provide valuable insights, making accurate diagnoses and treatment methods possible. To keep your app user-friendly and up-to-date, it's essential to incorporate these solutions and technologies. Below, you may find the range of trends in healthcare app development that you can benefit from:
Telemedicine
Telemedicine software development is highly profitable for the healthcare industry. Previous apps avoided using its capabilities, but in recent years, health app development has continued to generate profits with the introduction of telemedicine.
Modern medical meetings, e-prescribing, and other interactions within the healthcare industry have moved to the online format, especially with the global pandemic. Therefore, this is another path to performing health tracking, data access, recommendations receiving, and session completion remotely, at any time and location, to optimize medical services delivery.
Gamification
The treatment process can be more engaging and perceived positively by turning it into a game with the help of digital health app development. Especially in case patients are children.
The on-schedule medicine intake and regular session attendance may be encouraged with diverse achievements, motivating the patient to follow the prescribed recommendations. The other pleasant gifts ensured after the proper treatment can be discounts for appointments, a number of free-of-charge sessions, etc. Therefore, the entire process is more interesting, satisfying, and delightful.
Recently, the Cleveroad team created a health habit-tracking app for children with gamification elements. They engage young users in training through achievements, animations, and emotions. Animations use a chosen character to guide children on performing exercises correctly. Kids can set their current feelings, and their character reflects their mood, pairing them with suitable activities.
Wearable medical equipment integration
Medical device integration with a healthcare app is an individual process, as the integration depends on the software as well as the facility type. Through this solution, physicians can access their patients' latest health condition data. You may also benefit from healthcare API integration, which will transmit information and indicators from the client's wearable device and alert doctors in case of need. You can also establish connectivity with equipment like a blood sugar meter, pace monitor, pulsimeter, etc.
Interoperability
Interoperability in the health system app development sector enables access to information from various health data frameworks. It transmits this useful data to healthcare establishments, laboratories, and medical institutions — regardless of the solution or software applied to ensure excellent healthcare service remotely. The main benefit lies in the connectivity of the hardware and software and unlimited yet safe data transmission. The interoperability process is performed at the 3 main stages: functional, structural, and semantic.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)
By leveraging these technologies, healthcare apps can be developed with advanced features such as predictive analytics, natural language processing, and image recognition. ML in healthcare can help healthcare providers with tasks such as diagnosis, treatment recommendations, and patient monitoring.
This technology is often implemented in medical image analysis software development to provide faster operation and efficient diagnostics. AI technology is applied in the production of new medicines and vaccines. The ways to utilize AI technology, and lots of healthcare establishments have already implemented this solution, especially for the decision-making process, which is highly beneficial for therapists to detect the diagnosis and pick a proper treatment.
Prioritizing the patients
With the spread of dangerous viruses, modern medical industry solutions have a development vector aimed at clients. Previously, healthcare mobile application development focused on the architecture to assemble essential patient data. For now, applications are primarily designed to deliver simplified usability and convenience for clients to enhance satisfaction rates. Therefore, the application's user-friendliness is a must to make it sought-after. Clients are pretty fussy nowadays and will pick the solution with a seamless and smooth operation and, obviously, with a perfect interface design. So, the visual aspect of the functionality requires primary consideration.
In-app waiting room
One more solution developed to cut down the spread of infections with medical mobile application development is architecting a virtual hospital waiting room. The feature is intended to design a patient's waiting room that can be used easily via the application installed on the mobile device. When the appointment time comes, users receive the notification that they have entered. When accessing this virtual room, the verification process occurs, and then patients wait for their appointment.
Blockchain
Blockchain represents an essential trend in medical mobile app development, bringing unique opportunities to improve security and efficiency. In the context of healthcare applications, blockchain enables secure storage and transmission of medical data, ensuring its integrity and protection from unauthorized access. The technology also supports the creation of smart contracts, facilitating the automation of agreements and providing transparency in data processing. Blockchain security is the foundation of healthcare development that promises to improve privacy issues, information sharing between parties, and the overall efficiency of medical processes.
Healthcare data privacy and security
Solid healthcare data security and privacy is a crucial trend in healthcare app development. With the increasing amount of health data being collected, processed, and shared through apps, it's important to ensure that this data is kept private and secure. Patients need to trust that their sensitive health information is not being mishandled, and healthcare providers must comply with regulations like HIPAA to protect patient data. To address this trend, healthcare app developers must prioritize implementing robust security measures, such as encryption, secure login processes, and data backup and recovery systems, to ensure the safety and privacy of patient information.
Learn more about healthcare data security, ways to secure your medical data, vital data security standards, and more in our guide
Best Practices for Medical App Development
The vital question of health application development is the specifics of this industry. To comply with all the nuances of the solution architecture, it is worth considering the following points:
Solid data security
The first point that needs close attention is data protection. In the flow of delivering a medical consultation, the app stores, processes, and gives doctors access to users' medical data. Moreover, online payment through the app for appointments is also an integral part of the functionality. To protect sensitive user data, it is worth considering the implementation of a solid security system. Neglect of potent security results in the risk of not only financial losses but also issues with the law.
The app architecture engages a diversity of methods to protect the software from data leakage according to its type and purposes. Yet, we may outline the most often applied ones:
- Data encryption (end-to-end encryption)
- MFA protection (multi-factor authentication to get to the private user details)
- Expiration policy (requesting to log in again after a specific amount of time).
Guidelines and regulations for healthcare mobile app development
The region your healthcare application is architected for determines which regulations and guidelines your software must comply with. The impacting factors are also the type of data it will keep and process, for which period, and the entire app concept.
The law regulations are not the same globally; therefore, you should get acquainted with obligatory law demands prior to healthcare app development. Here are the examples of regulatory requirements for healthcare apps in different regions:
- HIPAA (US)
- CCPA (US)
- GDPR (European Union)
- NIST (US)
- HiTech (US)
- PIPEDA (Canada)
How do you comply with HIPAA requirements? Read our extensive guide and learn about essentials steps and practices to implement within your healthcare app development
Interoperability
Interoperability is one of the greatest complexities of the entire medical domain. It implies smooth data transmission among diverse platforms, gadgets, and software solutions. The process of health app development may require integration with the particular medical establishment's systems, tools, or devices the institution currently possesses. To enable safe, seamless, and efficient communication among them, you should ask your software vendor to remember about HL7 integration.
Pay attention to UI/UX design
UI/UX design services are vital for healthcare mobile application development. The target audience of healthcare apps is quite extensive. Aiming for maximum reach, your design should be as user-friendly as possible. To nail it, your tech experts should follow several important UI/UX design rules:
- Optimize the user journey inside your app. Create a user persona, and based on their desires and expectations, inspect each touchpoint in your app to find weak spots in the design.
- Minimize the number of actions a user should take to complete a task. Your team may group related content to make it accessible in one click. For example, Use the Progressive Reduction method. Start from your standard design layout and gradually reduce unnecessary elements to lower the number of actions that lead to a completed task.
- Show important information at the beginning of the user journey. If you’re making a fitness app, the burned calories and steps taken should be placed right away on the first screen. If it’s a pill reminder app, show the nearest scheduled pills and the time left before taking them.
- Make design responsive. It’s worth taking care of how the app will look on screens of different sizes. Make sure that your app looks similarly great on any screen size.
Specialize purpose
While healthcare app development covers various categories like fitness tracking, postoperative care, and appointment booking, it's advisable for businesses to concentrate on a single app category. By honing in on a specific expertise area rather than offering a myriad of services within one application, companies can deliver profound value to stakeholders, addressing their pain points with detailed precision. This focused approach enhances user experience and ensures a more targeted and effective solution for end-users.
Choose a monetization model
Almost any digital product is designed to generate revenue. To do it successfully, you and your tech partners will choose a monetization model. There are several common models for mHealth solutions:
- In-app ads. The app is completely free, but it shows ads to users.
- Freemium. The app is still free, but some features can be unlocked through in-app purchases.
- Subscription. Users must pay for a subscription (weekly, monthly, yearly).
- Pay-per-download. Users buy an app with a one-time payment.
Integration with third-party applications
Seamless integration with third-party applications is crucial for healthcare app development. This ensures that patient data is easily exchanged between different platforms, providing a more comprehensive view of their health. Without integration, the scope and utility of healthcare solutions are limited, hindering the ability to offer better care and improve the patient experience. As such, integration is a top priority for medical application development companies.
The Cost of Healthcare Application Development
Finally, it’s time to discuss another important consideration of medical app development—how much does it cost to build a healthcare solution? In general, the cost to develop a medical app ranges from $100,000 to $300,000+. The price varies depending on the software types, features complexity, design, integrations, and vendor’s hourly rates.
Ensuring compliance with healthcare regulations is also a crucial factor, as it impacts the development process and overall cost. A successful healthcare app must cater to the needs of patients and healthcare providers, offering seamless interactions and value. Whether you're looking to create an app to optimize the healthcare system or enhance the experience for app users, every healthcare project demands careful planning to ensure it meets industry standards.
To make the estimate as precise as possible, our certified team will assess the scope for basic features and make an approximate cost of a basic telehealth application.
Feature | Approx development time (h) | Approx cost ($) |
Registration and login (Patient + physician) | 76 hours | $2,660 |
Profile screen (Patient + physician) | 81 hours | $2,835.00 |
Search, filter options and ratings | 103 hours | $3,605.00 |
Appointment scheduling (Patient + physician) | 185 hours | $6,475.00 |
Video and voice calls (Patient + physician) | 136 hours | $4,760.00 |
Online chat (Patient + physician) | 121 hours | $4,235.00 |
Payment options | 36 hours | $1,260.00 |
Admin panel | 271 hours | $9,485 |
Backend part | 1120 hours | $39,200 |
Frameworks and libraries implementation | 56 hours | $1,960 |
Code documentation | 17 hours | $595 |
Total | 2202 hours | $77,070 |
There are many specialists involved in the development process. Their services are also included in the final price. Using our telehealth app as an example, we want to show who participates in the development and the project's final cost.
Development team member | Task | Approximate time (h) | Approx cost ($) |
Mobile developers (iOS and Android) | MVP features development | 1280 hours | $128,000 |
Frontend developers | Admin panel development | 160 hours | $8,000 |
Backend developers | Backend part development | 1120 hours | $56,000 |
UI/UX designers | Wireframes and mockups creation | 160 hours | $8,000 |
Project Manager services | Development process overseeing, development reports | 400 hours | $20,000 |
QA engineer services | App testing, bug reports creation | 600 hours | $30,000 |
DevOps | Development process automation, DevOps methodologies | 120 hours | $6,000 |
Business analyst | Discovery phase, creation of final estimate and specification | 160 hours | $8,000 |
Team lead | Project architecture development, code review | 180 hours | $9,000 |
Total | 4180 hours | $273,000 |
Note: This estimate is approximate and includes MVP development expenses only. For a more precise calculation of your project, contact us and get an estimate from our professionals, as healthcare domain applications have a number of key peculiarities that can significantly affect the cost of their architecture. Therefore, each project case is worth considering individually with an expert to get accurate calculations.
Cleveroad Experience in Healthcare Application Development
Cleveroad is a healthcare app development company from the CEE region. Since 2011, we've been helping healthcare organizations, clinics, medical device manufacturers, and other health-related businesses improve caregiving, enhance client satisfaction, boost clinic management, and optimize overall workflow within custom healthcare software development services.
We provide a wide range of healthcare software services, including custom software development from scratch, software modernization, and facilitating third-party integrations (e.g., EHR, EMR, e-RX services, patient portals), and more.
Besides, we thoroughly keep up with global security methods to ensure trustworthy cooperation and deliver highly secure medical software solutions to our clients. This includes HIPAA, GDPR, and PIPEDA, and we are also certified with ISO 27001:2013, proving our services align with leading world data security and integrity standards.
To demonstrate our expertise, here are some examples of the healthcare solutions we've built for our clients:
- Quality Management System. A B2B SaaS solution designed to streamline the document flow and essential processes required for obtaining FDA and ISO certification in the production of medical devices.
- Telemedicine System with Appointment Scheduling. The telemedicine solution allows patients to receive 24/7 access to telemedicine services offered by general practitioners and clinicians, as well as electronic prescriptions, referrals, and sick notes.
- IoT System for Monitoring EKG and Blood Oxygen Level. A mobile telecare solution designed to track heart rate and blood oxygen levels through a user's smartphone, involving a mobile application that wirelessly connects with IoT devices.
- E-Learning System for Official Certification. An online educational platform tailored for medical students, featuring a comprehensive learning material database and continuous training services through subscription models.
- Clinic Management System with EMR. An integrated clinic management platform with EMR and a mobile app for remote healthcare. It covers appointment booking, scheduling, HR management, accounting, payments, and e-prescriptions.
- IoT System for Hydration Monitoring. A software solution for an IoT hydration tracker that monitors and controls hydration levels for medical and wellness purposes. It tracks data from IoT sensors and enables the creation of training and care programs through the Admin panel.
- Therapy Services Ecosystem with EHR Integration. A custom telehealth system provides 24/7 access to mental healthcare services delivered by US healthcare providers, offering improved appointment management for service providers and recipients.
- RPM Solution for Behavioral Health Support. A free mood-tracking app helps users combat depression by enabling them to log daily progress, receive well-being notifications, and follow personalized schedules for improved mental health.
Here is what Breanne Butler, project manager at Prime Path Medtech, says about our mutual work on Quality Management Systems for medical device manufacturers:
Breanne Butler, project manager at Prime Path Medtech, provides feedback about collaboration with Cleveroad on Quality Management System.
Let’s start building your medical app together
With over 13+ years of expertise in the healthcare domain, we're ready to create a secure and modern healthcare app providing consistent IT assistance during each stage of your app development
Healthcare app development involves seven critical steps:
- Step 1. Identify your healthcare business challenges and needs
- Step 2. Seek out a reputable software development partner
- Step 3. Initiate initial contact with the chosen provider
- Step 4. Prepare requirements, feature set and design prototype
- Step 5. Develop a healthcare app MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
- Step 6. Gather user feedback, implement updates, and iterate as needed
The development time for a mHealth app can vary based on factors such as complexity, features, and customization. On average, an app must take between 3500 to 5000+ hours to develop, but this is a general estimate. Patients and healthcare providers benefit significantly from these apps, making their creation a priority for many organizations. Partnering with a mobile app development company can streamline the process as they possess the expertise to develop healthcare solutions effectively.
The average cost of healthcare app development can vary from $100,000 to $300,000+, depending on number of features and development time spent on their implementation. Besides that, the final cost depends on the location of your development team, since in different regions different hourly rates.
Healthcare app development is very beneficial since these apps can:
- Improve health data gathering
- Provide timely care despite the location
- Minimize medical mistakes
- Lower spending for hospitals and patients
- Improve communication between physicians and patients
- Increase customer loyalty and engagement
- Provide time-saving features for medical staff
There are several common monetization models for mHealth solutions:
- In-app ads. The app is completely free, but it shows ads to users.
- Freemium. The app is still free, but some features can be unlocked through in-app purchases.
- Subscription. Users must pay for a subscription (weekly, monthly, yearly).
- Pay-per-download. Users buy an app with a one-time payment.
Evgeniy Altynpara is a CTO and member of the Forbes Councils’ community of tech professionals. He is an expert in software development and technological entrepreneurship and has 10+years of experience in digital transformation consulting in Healthcare, FinTech, Supply Chain and Logistics
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Comments
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yes, 40% of physicians believe telehealth apps could reduce in-office visits. 74% of the hospitals that used mobile apps to collect patient data showed higher levels of efficiency than their counterparts not using any apps. mHealth is the future and we should find solid reasons to before investing in mHealth app.