How mHealth Apps Can Address Healthcare Challenges in 2024

Posted in Healthcare App Development

How mHealth Apps Can Address Healthcare Challenges

Do you love to use mobile phones? Well, who doesn’t? Statista revealed that the average US citizen spends more than 4 hours on the phone, checking their phone 144 times daily. Whether we accept it or not, our current times are all about digitalization–from ordering a quick meal or a cute dress to tracking your menstrual cycle to booking a call with your doctor, it’s everywhere.

Healthcare is going through transfiguration, and Agile technology has swamped healthcare with opportunities. mHealth apps or mobile health applications cater to the dynamics of care, from doctor on-call to remote patient monitoring. They are the core of convenience for care providers and patients, enabling connected healthcare.

Today, everyone carries a mobile device everywhere they go. In many instances, mobile applications have saved lives by giving alerts of abnormal cardiac rhythm or low blood oxygen levels. In fact, almost 70% of Americans agree that they’ve used healthcare apps in one way or another. 

When there’s a wide range of healthcare options to cover, mHealth apps can do a lot more than you can imagine. Why don’t we give it a comprehensive look and see how it can help you?

Overview about mHealth

mHealth apps are an avenue to provide advanced and integrated healthcare and make it more efficient, user-centric, and accessible. As medical technology evolves, solving problems to make healthcare delivery the potential is undeniable.

Healthcare applications have evolved over the years and built momentum in healthcare. The usage of such apps is directly proportional to the users on the internet. 

Moreover, mobile health apps provide an opportunity to improve population health through virtual care options. It is a prime factor for the growth of the mHealth technology. 80% of healthcare agencies use mHealth apps in one form or another. In fact, most healthcare organizations confirm their data efficiency has increased by adopting a mobile medical application and actively looking for how to make a medical app. 

Different Types of mHealth Apps

The domain of mHealth applications is vast and ever-growing. They offer a wide range of services in multiple aspects of healthcare and well-being. We’ve covered different types of mHealth apps in this section.

Fitness and Wellness Apps

Fitness and wellness are broader categories in mHealth apps. These categories help users maintain their overall health and well-being by monitoring vitals and activities like walking, trekking, and monitoring diet for stamina and strength. 

Exercise and Workout Apps

These apps are designed to achieve fitness goals by tracking users’ workouts, cycling, swimming, and everyday activities. Helping them build a healthier and balanced life by showing them their achievements, plans, and motivational reminders 

Nutrition and Diet Apps

The world of nutrition and diet has various features for everyone. These apps help people with goals like building muscles, managing specific dietary needs (allergies, intolerances, etc.), improving overall health and nutrition, and developing mindful eating habits. 

Nutrition and diet apps have options, too, such as calorie tracking, food logging and scanning, meal planning and recipe suggestions, or nutritional analysis and insights. These apps have audiences from all age groups and walks of life to improve their health.

Health Tracking Apps

In today’s fast-paced world, tracking and managing health is a task, and mobile apps used for mHealth are here to save the day. These mobile apps monitor health by tracking and acting as a central point to analyze health on several metrics.

Tech giants also have their health tracking apps, including Apple Health, Google Fit, and Samsung Health, to provide an integrated system. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that every developer in the healthcare industry has thought of building an app like Apple Health or searched for how to develop an Apple Watch app on Google.

Activity Trackers

Activity trackers are usually used as wristbands or smart watches for real-time tracking. In many scenarios, these trackers act as life savers. The smartwatch market was valued at USD 3.67 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 8.41 billion by 2027. 

Here’s how activity trackers help. On a flight going from Birmingham to Verona, a woman in her 70s was suffering from shortness of breath. The doctor on board borrowed a smartwatch and accessed its blood oxygen function to assess the patient’s oxygen level. This eventually saved her life. 

Sleep Tracking Apps

Sleep tracking apps provide insights into your sleeping patterns and improve overall sleep quality. Numerous apps are available that work with smartwatches with unique features and strengths to enhance your sleep. 

These apps usually track sleep stages, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and sleep trends and offer personalized sleep insights and tips.

Mental Health Apps

With the drastic growth in mental health issues, the need for counselors and therapists has increased. Technology solved the problem of the scarcity of psychologists by answering the question of how to develop a mental health app. These applications are accessible, convenient tools offering support in a cost-effective way.

mHealth apps for mental health serve as an umbrella and have various applications encompassing various features for well-being. From severe conditions like suicidal thoughts to mindfulness, these apps help in leading a well-balanced life with unique and personalized features.

Meditation and Relaxation Apps

Anxiety and stress are now common issues, and meditation and relaxation apps focus on cultivating inner peace. Encouraging users to incorporate activities like breathing exercises, mindfulness practices, and calming music or nature sounds for stress management. These apps help with focus and concentration issues, stress relief, and emotional regulation for personal growth.

Mood Tracking Apps

Chemical reactions in our brains derive moods. We cannot control unpleasant events, but mood-tracking apps can capture the reasons. These apps record emotions and moods throughout the day and identify the triggers and patterns. Understanding emotions and developing strategies to manage them.

Telemedicine Apps

Telemedicine apps bridge the gap between traditional medical help and technology. They are enabling virtual consultations with medical professionals from the comfort of the home. Also, they are connecting patients with doctors through phone and taking full advantage of technological advancements.

This need of telemedicine apps made the healthcare industry aware of the patients’ requirements. It led them to look for how to develop a telemedicine app or find people who would do it for them. 

Virtual Consultation Apps

Virtual consultation apps are mHealth apps for Android and iOS, allowing patients to consult remotely. mHealth apps for patients connect through video conferencing, audio calls, or messaging, enabling affordable consultation. Virtual consultation became increasingly popular after COVID-19, from specific to general practitioners and patients.

Prescription Management Apps

Prescription mHealth apps for patients offer solutions like managing medication schedules, refills, and adherence. These apps provide medication reminders, alerts for refill requests, educational information about medication, and communication with healthcare providers for effects.

Chronic Disease Management Apps

Chronic diseases require continuous management; they often experience medical help and constant monitoring. Chronic disease management mHealth apps for patients are digital tools to empower individuals with conditions like diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and more. These apps do more than track symptoms; instead, they assist in managing health at all steps.

Diabetes Management Apps

Diabetics need to watch out for their routine and diabetes management apps. Track blood sugar levels and insulin intake and connect to a Bluetooth glucometer for automatic blood sugar tracking and personalized coaching via a connected device. mHealth apps for diabetes have features like recipe suggestions for managing diabetes with customized insights.

Hypertension Management Apps

Hypertension is a common problem, especially among elderly and middle-aged people. These apps connect to a Bluetooth blood pressure monitor. To track BP readings, analyze trends, and provide alerts for high readings. Hypertension management apps guide meditations and exercises to tackle difficult situations.

Women’s Health Apps

Women’s mHealth apps are explicitly designed to cater to the particular needs of the female population. From menstrual cycle tracking to pregnancy support and menopause, these apps provide tips and support for all stages. Women’s health apps provide tracking, mental relief, and guidance to navigate different cycles and stages women go through.

Period Tracking Apps

As far as healthcare mobile app cost goes, period tracking apps are relatively low and tend to be useful. Its common features are maintaining period logs, mood swings, cervical mucus, Identify ovulation days for conception or contraception needs. It provides Insights to manage PCOS and find relief through lifestyle adjustments or medication reminders.

Pregnancy Apps

Pregnancy is a very critical stage for a female, and pregnancy apps provide support in all aspects. Pregnancy nutrition and diet, monitoring due dates, fetal development, and weight gain to track the growth. These apps educate on prenatal care, exercise, and common pregnancy concerns.

Medication Reminder Apps

From vitamins to chronic diseases, everyone takes pills as needed, but forgetting is a part of human life. Medication reminder apps give timely reminders to take medications at prescribed times. These apps make it easy to input medication names, dosages, schedules, and durations. Some apps allow scheduling for multiple people to track for your parents or partner.

Pill Reminder Apps

Some pills can’t be missed to avoid any adverse health effects. Birth control and insulin are examples of these pills. These apps allow customization to schedule medication according to prescription. These apps help set up personalized reminders for each medication, with timing, frequency, dosage, and notification style options.

Medication Tracker Apps

Medication tracker apps are not just ordinary reminder apps; instead, they track patients’ histories to analyze patterns and generate reports for your doctor. This data helps limit dosage and treatment adherence. 

Health Information Apps

Health information apps are medical libraries providing information like a list of mHealth apps, the best mHealth apps, and examples of mHealth apps to deliver accurate information. You can find information in any format, like articles, videos, symptoms, treatments, community discussions, etc. 

Remember,  these health information applications are not diagnostic tools and should not replace professional consultation. Learning how to develop a healthcare app is easier and more informational as it assists in answering questions we often forget to task or are curious about.

The Rise of mHealth Apps: Exploring 5 Must-Have Features

Benefits of mHealth Apps

mHealth apps offer a variety of benefits that play a role in improving mental and physical well-being. mHealth applications have benefits for both users and hospitals. Some applications have subscription-based models, which allow users to enhance user experience and create income streams and brand identities for application owners.

1. Efficient Appointment Scheduling

mHealth apps are a convenient option for patients and hospitals to save time and resources for scheduling appointments. Appointment apps provide features like online booking, appointment reminders, and wait time updates. Improving access to care with technologically advanced solutions.

2. Medication Adherence

Following a treatment and medication plan religiously leads to improved health outcomes. mHealth offers solutions like medication reminders, pill trackers, and educational resources, which can contribute to better adherence.

3. Public Health Initiatives

Seasonal and viral diseases ignite the question of what medical app development costs are. mHealth applications help prevent the spread of disease by contact tracing and health education campaigns. Helping governments and organizations in vaccination tracking, chronic disease management programs, and mental health support initiatives.

How to Build a mHealth App?

What is a mHealth app is a common question once a healthcare industry professional realizes its importance. To start with, mobile health applications are more than just applications installed on your mobile phone. The application has the purpose of creating ease of access for all. If you want to understand how that works, here’s a step-by-step process:

1. Identify the Root Cause

Identifying the root cause is the key to building an application that actually helps people. Traditional blood pressure machines were not portable; digital machines changed the game. You no longer need a machine today, as mobile devices do everything. In the same manner, the identification of the root cause is crucial. 

2. Choose Platforms

All of us have heard of the proverb “one shoe fits all,” but not in healthcare. You might be searching for how much does it cost to build a fitness app for your video-based fitness program. However, the audience may be more active on desktop devices, and a website would give better results. 

Choosing the right platform is the key to success; you cannot add step-tracking features to web-based applications. Here, thorough research of your audience and clear goals are the parameters.

3. Hire Ideal App Development Company

Finding a team that matches your requirements is crucial. An ideal company would have worked on similar solutions and is eager to create great solutions. A balance of creative and technical knowledge is what you need to develop a top-notch mHealth app.

4. Choose Monetization Model

Making money is the ultimate goal for all apps created. Do the industry research, and if you’re discovering a red ocean, take advantage of the first movers and experiment. Choose a way to earn, like monthly fees, in-app purchases, or even partnerships, to make profits and pave your path to success.

5. Create an MVP

For this step, the practical approach is building a basic version of your application, adding all the features, and making your dream app. Start with critical features and take feedback to learn and excel.

6. Test your mHealth App

Test using various methods, techniques, technologies, and devices to ensure it flows like water before it gets public. Health apps are sensitive in nature. Hence, vetting and testing to meet all regulations is crucial.

7. Launch and Track Performance

When the stage is set, launch your app. Remember, tracking and continuous monitoring are vital. Take feedback from all, review, and analyze from all aspects to nurture and flourish it. See what people have to say and what they want and give it to them.

Emerging Trends in Mobile Health Apps

The dynamics of mHealth are rapidly evolving and incorporating technologies to advance care. The four key trends that are changing mHealth are:

1. Social Determinants of Health Integration (SDOH)

mHealth apps are now going beyond tracking individual health data. SDOHs connect with health by merging with factors of income, education, and access to health facilities, providing a more in-depth intervention with causes and enabling the development by providing the right resources. By addressing SDOH, mHealth apps have the potential to create a more equitable healthcare system.

2. Voice-Activated Health Assistants

Getting solutions for your health problems just by talking into your phone? Yes! Voice-activated health assistants are making this a reality. These trending AI tools can answer health-related questions, track symptoms, and even schedule an appointment. Users can control their connected smart inhalers and blood monitoring devices.

These voice-activated health assistants are a breeze of relief for older adults, especially those with disabilities. As NLP improves, voice-activated health assistants are expected to play an even more prominent role in mHealth.

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

AI and ML are advanced technologies that help analyze large datasets of health data to identify patterns, predict health risks, and personalize interventions. They assist healthcare professionals by taking over repetitive tasks and assisting in operations like medical imaging to augment their capabilities.

4. Wearable Technology Integration

Wearable technology integration with top mHealth apps to track users and generate massive amounts of health data. Wearable technology is also enabling remote patient monitoring. 

Tracking vital signs and other health data, wearable devices can help identify potential problems and allow timely intervention. mHealth solutions are making healthcare more accessible, personalized, and effective for all.

Conclusion

mHealth apps are transforming the healthcare game by addressing challenges. They can provide personalized solutions to provide accessible healthcare solutions. 

These apps are empowering individuals to take control of their well-being by monitoring through apps on their custom metrics. mHealth apps foster tracking and enhance remote patient monitoring to save costs while maintaining the standard of care. 

Integration of technologies with mHealth apps promotes timely intervention and promotes a functional healthcare system. Adopting health apps fosters a future where healthcare is reactive and preventative, ultimately creating a healthier and more connected society.

FAQs

What are mHealth Apps?

mHealth apps are applications that can be installed on mobile devices to manage health. Tracking footsteps, appointment reminders, or exercising are mHealth apps examples.

How Many mHealth Apps Are There?

Various apps are available for different aspects of healthcare for all age groups and diversified audiences. 

What Do Most mHealth Apps for Clinical Trials Lack?

Keeping users engaged, making data accessible to manage, and following strict rules for research are the shortcomings of mHealth apps.

How can mHealth technologies be used to support patient care?

There are health user communities to provide support, remotely monitor health, remind about meds, and provide education and motivation.

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