How to Develop a Popular Healthcare-on-Demand App like Practo or Zocdoc

The adoption rate of on-demand healthcare apps is skyrocketing. But while some on-demand healthcare apps have gained unprecedented popularity, others have failed to impress. What can be the reason? Well, issues such as poor usability, erratic data, inconsistent UX, and lack of security protocols have led to the failure of certain healthcare apps.

Healthcare app development is a complex process, and app creators need to follow the right approach and best practices, as well as consider several other factors for crafting an impeccable solution. This post guides you through the right process and approaches to developing a popular healthcare application like Practo or Zocdoc. We will discuss the reasons why these apps have garnered unprecedented popularity. A quick read will provide you with an idea of how to go about the process of healthcare app development, and, by the end of the post, you’ll know which strategies to adopt for making your app stand out from similar apps on the market.

What Are the Healthcare Industry Pain Areas an On-Demand Healthcare App Can Resolve?

Accessibility

Certain patients find it challenging to access medical facilities in person because of constraints such as mobility issues, residing in remote locations, or super-busy schedules. An on-demand healthcare app will make such patients’ lives easier by simplifying the process of finding the most suitable healthcare practitioner or provider, appointment scheduling, and obtaining online consolations for minor medical issues or follow-ups. With an on-demand healthcare app, patients can access healthcare services regardless of their location or the time.

Improved Patient Experience

An on-demand healthcare app enables providers to offer an elevated patient experience with shorter wait times, better access to healthcare facilities, and improved coordination with doctors, among other benefits. Patients can enjoy the convenience of online appointment scheduling without the hassles of paying a visit or making a phone call to a healthcare facility. Providers can also improve patient engagement by sending patients follow-up doctor visit reminders via notifications and medical record reviews.

Administrative Benefits

An on-demand app helps medical providers to digitize their services and automate routine operational tasks. As such, healthcare digitalization boosts the provider’s operational efficiency, minimizes errors, reduces administrative workload, saves time, and improves patients’ healthcare data management. Moreover, patients can easily access their medical records, including lab and imaging results, treatment history, medication details, and appointment history.

The Offerings of Popular On-demand Healthcare Apps Practo and Zocdoc

Take a look at how popular healthcare apps Practo and Zocdoc have gained universal acceptance among their target audiences. Both these applications aim to resolve an existing issue, offer a combination of basic and advanced features, and include some USPs. Practo and Zocdoc have also come up with a sound monetization strategies.

Practo

Practo offers its users a combination of free and paid features. Practo users can search for a specialist doctor based on their specific requirements. The doctors’ specializations, years of experience, reviews, and ratings are displayed. Once a doctor consultation takes place, medical reports are uploaded in the app for the future reference of the patients and doctors. Practo also provides USPs such as secure clinical records storage, online medicine ordering and doorstep delivery, as well as a directory of healthcare blogs.

Monetization Strategy

Practo’s revenue generation strategy includes charges collected from doctors and patients and the sale of ad spaces. Doctors, hospitals, or clinics opting for the “Practo Reach” (“premium listing”) feature are charged for appearing at the top of the search results. It also offers a paid Cloud-based software for doctors called “Practo Ray” for managing the healthcare data of patients. Paid features for patients include medicine delivery services and a real-time video consultation facility.

Zocdoc

Zocdoc focuses on reducing the wait times for patients. It offers online appointment booking services to patients using the advanced search feature. A patient-centric search feature has been specifically created for individuals who are not well acquainted with healthcare jargon. Patients can also check whether insurance coverage is available for their specific use case. An AI-powered feature is there for understanding and verifying patients’ insurance requirements. Users can utilize the map feature for locating doctors, as well as insurance networks.

Monetization Strategy

Doctors are charged for registering themselves on the platform, and patients are charged an appointment booking fee. Doctors can also take advantage of the paid service of “featured results”, which improves their chances of getting discovered by patients.

On-Demand Healthcare App Development: Steps to Follow

Now that you’ve gained an idea of how to shape your healthcare app business model to maximize customer acceptance and generate a continuous revenue stream, here’s step-by-step guidance to execute your idea into a fully-functional application.

Conduct Market Research

Conduct market research to figure out your target users’ pain areas, user preferences, and ongoing trends in the healthcare app development arena. Analyze these requirements to create an idea that will prove beneficial to your customer and fulfill your business objectives at the same time.

It’s important to focus on resolving a consumer pain area to convince your target audience to download your app. Also, check out similar apps existing in the market to understand why some apps have gained popularity and why certain applications have failed to make a mark.

Pick Healthcare App Development Resources

Now it’s time to pick your resources depending on the healthcare app development use case. You can either go for in-house resources or partner with an experienced healthcare app development company for this purpose. Hiring independent resources doesn’t seem to be a good idea for creating a healthcare app. Ensure that the healthcare app development service you’ve selected adopts an agile methodology for product development.

Define the Scope

Define the specific use case and finalize the features of the on-demand healthcare app. You need to select the operating system or systems your app will target. To maximize customer outreach, targeting all three platforms – Android, iOS, and the Web – will prove beneficial.

Some of the key functionalities to include in a healthcare app are the following.

User Module

• Profiles for patients and practitioners
• User authorization and authentication
• AI-empowered symptom checker
• Appointment scheduling and management modules
• Clinic or doctor search with advanced filters
• EMR (electronic medical records) for saving and managing patients’ healthcare data, prescriptions and test results
• ePrescriptions and prescription management modules
• Wearable devices integration
• Doctor-patient communication via chat or messaging
• Virtual doctor consultation modules such as video or audio consultation and messaging
• Reviews and ratings for doctors and medical facilities

Admin Module

• Dashboard: Admins can get an overview of all the app users – patients and practitioners
• Management modules for doctors and patients
• Payment management
• Push notifications

Create the UI/UX Design

While designing the UI/UX, you need to focus on user engagement and satisfaction. Develop a simple, user-friendly, intuitive, and clutter-free UI that is effortlessly accessible, and then create the app’s flow. Also, make sure that your app’s design caters to users with disabilities such as visual impairment. The app’s content should be well organized. There must be consistency in the app’s design elements such as imagery, font, and color so that users get the experience of a unified whole. Your app should be effortlessly navigable so that users can instantly find the information they are looking for.

Develop the Healthcare App

Now comes one of the most crucial phases: healthcare app development.

Database Designing

Develop the entity-relationship models for different features, and design the database schema using optimal normal forms. Pick a database management system and thereafter create tables for saving healthcare data such as patient information, appointment records, clinical data, and so on.

Back-End and Front-End

Now develop the app’s backend architecture by implementing the server-side APIs and business logic. Pick the programming language that best suits the platform your app will target and which also goes along with your technical requirements. Choose the application’s server-based on non-functional requirements such as reliability, scalability, performance, and security. Thereafter, implement and design the client-side logic employing a suitable mobile app development framework.

Feature Implementation and Third-Party Integration

Implement the features. Here are some examples. You can implement the feature of real-time communication using text, audio, or video messages by employing technologies such as WebSockets or WebRTCDevelop. You can create an admin panel for continuously monitoring and managing the on-demand healthcare app’s overall performance and addressing issues. Integrate with third-party services and APIs such as map APIs and payment gateways. Payment gateway integration secures transactions between medical providers and patients.

Coding Practices

Healthcare app developers should create the code according to best development practices. The code has to be refactored and optimized based on the necessity. One must also create detailed documentation for the code and integrate and deploy the code using a version control system such as Git.

Implement Security Measures

Healthcare apps store sensitive data. Hence, it’s important to ensure the privacy, security, and confidentiality of sensitive patient information, healthcare data, and clinical data. Check out the security best practices recommended for your healthcare application.

Implement standard security protocols such as multi-factor authentication, hashing algorithms, advanced antivirus solutions, and sturdy firewalls. Adopt measures such as real-time threat intelligence solutions to minimize security vulnerabilities such as broken authentication, injection, cross-site scripting, and XML external entities. You also need to strictly adhere to standard compliances mandated for the regions where your healthcare app operates. For example, all healthcare apps operating in the US should be HIPAA compliant.

For a healthcare app, using a hybrid Cloud computing deployment technique will help. You can store sensitive and confidential data in a private cloud. Data related to administrative functions can be stored in a public cloud. For API security, you can adopt techniques such as  encryption, digital signatures, authentication, secure gateways, and throttling.

Test and Debug

Thorough testing of the code and app’s quality is necessary for identifying the issues followed by debugging (fixing issues). Some of the standard testing practices for healthcare mobile app development include the following.

• Alpha testing for identifying issues or disabilities
• Beta testing is done in the real environment to check for any major failures
• Running a user accreditation test to make sure that all the functionalities are working as desired
• Accessibility testing to ensure that the app can be accessed by users with disabilities
• Black box testing to check the app’s performance
• White box testing to test the code’s performance and the internal software
• Unit tests to check the functioning of the modules or software
• Security and compliance testing to check for security vulnerabilities the app may be exposed to

Deploy and Promote

Launch the app at the app stores and do not forget to promote your app to draw the attention of your target audience. For app promotion, you need to devise a smart strategy. Email marketing and social media promotions are some of the techniques to promote your healthcare application on several platforms.

Maintenance and Support

Post-launch maintenance is essential for an on-demand healthcare app as it requires continuous monitoring with regard to performance as well as security vulnerabilities. New functionalities also need to be added at frequent intervals to accommodate the ever-changing user requirements.

Trending Modern Technologies to Consider for Healthcare App Development

Blockchain

Blockchain has proved its potential in the healthcare sector. It plays a crucial role in ensuring the secure storage and transfer of healthcare data. Blockchain-based healthcare solutions add an extra layer of data security and help to minimize unauthorized access and security breaches to a considerable extent. Blockchain in healthcare automates the process of insurance claims resulting in improved accuracy, speed, and cost-efficiency. With pharmaceuticals, Blockchain can verify the authenticity of medicines thereby reducing the risk of counterfeit drugs.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI and ML technologies can be leveraged by healthcare applications to identify patterns, establish relationships based on them, and provide automated outcomes. AI-powered medical applications come with features such as personalized search, customized treatment plans, and  accurate prediction of health risks for certain medical conditions. AI/ML algorithms facilitate managing large amounts of data effectively while improving accuracy and speeding up the process altogether. AI/ML also automates tasks such as appointment scheduling, leading to highly productive outcomes for the healthcare sector.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing enables healthcare app admins and healthcare app providers to manage huge chunks of data and store them safely. Cloud computing enables healthcare service providers to engage customers better by securely storing patients’ healthcare data, such as doctor’s notes, medical data, and test results, in one place. Patients can access their healthcare data from any place and at any time.

Final Thoughts

We hope this information will guide you through developing a world-class healthcare app. Besides following these well-established practices and approaches, choosing the right healthcare app development partner and leveraging emerging technologies will help you to gain a competitive edge. You also need to select the right healthcare app use case based on ongoing trends, your budget, and resource availability for successful healthcare on-demand app development.