Telemedicine App Development Solutions: Key steps to develop

Over the last few years, telemedicine has revolutionized the healthcare industry. It has transformed the method by which patients and providers communicate. As telemedicine services expand, building a strong telemedicine app becomes more and more necessary. This is even more important for healthcare organizations that wish to improve patient care and their operations. 

However, developing solutions for telemedicine apps can take a lot of time and effort, especially if you’re new to this. But don’t worry, read on to learn the key steps for building a telemedicine application in our guide. 

In this article, we will look at the essential features your app should have. We’ll also discuss the challenges to prepare for to ensure a smooth development journey. Understanding these factors is crucial no matter if you’re a startup entrepreneur or an established provider. 

I. Overview of Telemedicine App Development Solutions market

Global demand for virtual healthcare propels the telemedicine app development solutions market remarkably. Telemedicine took off during the pandemic, becoming essential for patients and healthcare providers. The market was valued at $85.2–$87 billion in 2022 and is estimated to reach $286 billion by 2027 or $427.9 billion by 2032. 

Telemedicine’s impressive growth is a clear indicator of the major needs of healthcare, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.9 percent. It has been successful in controlling chronic and age-related diseases, providing good management of mental health and neurological disorder conditions. In addition, it facilitates patient access for healthcare providers while helping to cut costs and meet staff shortages. 

Reasons behind the growing adoption of telemedicine include live video and phone consultations and health app-based services. These technologies became popular during the pandemic and are essential to delivering healthcare today. Consequently, provider organizations now consider telemedicine a top priority for staying competitive in a developing industry. 

Through the development of reliable, tailored telemedicine applications, software vendors assist healthcare organizations in providing patient care and adapting to patient needs. Telemedicine app development solutions are changing healthcare globally – from supporting routine checkups to managing complex conditions. 

II. Must-have features of telemedicine software solutions 

When creating a telemedicine app, it is important to have basic elements and unique features that are different from those of other health apps. Following is the list of telemedicine app development solution features you must have for such software. 

1. User profile

Patients need to be able to view their information easily using their user profile. Essential data that should show in this profile include address, gender, location, time zone, email, phone number, etc. Furthermore, the patient’s visit history and upcoming appointments should also be displayed. 

2. Patient web or mobile panel

A typical patient panel lists doctor services and health conditions treated. It should also have an appointment scheduling form. This panel’s common sections are medical history, mental health records, family health history, lifestyle information, payment methods, settings, and patient activity logs. 

3. Geolocation

Using geolocation, patients can be encouraged to avoid unnecessary travel with telemedicine app development solutions. The app can find nearby pharmacies and hospitals by requesting the user’s location. It also gives directions and an estimated arrival time to a select destination. 

4. Communication methods

Real-time communication is crucial for good management of treatment. This is why working together to integrate live chat and video sessions is extremely vital. Therefore, the focus should be on creating a message system through file-sharing audio and video calls with a high degree of connection. 

5. Electronic medical records (EMR)

Medical records are critical for patient care; if they’re inaccurate, that will cause a huge problem. To improve workflow flexibility and data accessibility, EMR integration should be an integral part of telemedicine app development solutions. This feature supports ongoing diagnostics because it tracks the patient’s condition over time. 

EMRs hold all pertinent health information, cut down paperwork and testing for doctors, and eliminate the possibility of duplicate records. However, they also handle security concerns, as you have different levels of access for different specialists. For example, only the attending physician can see the entire patient record, while others can only see certain information blocks. 

An important part of the development team’s task is developing a secure data administration structure that protects patient and healthcare providers’ information. Considering key features like this, telemedicine app development solutions can greatly advance healthcare delivery and patient experience. 

6. Remote patient monitoring (RPM)

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is critical for patients who need to self-monitor their conditions. RPM features are often part of the telemedicine app development solutions to help patients and doctors track health metrics. This is very useful in, for instance, monitoring pregnancy or treating chronic conditions such as cholesterol and glucose levels. Developers can develop RPM-based apps to help patients with severe diseases like cancer have a better quality of life. 

7. Symptom checker

A symptom checker is an important part of developing a telemedicine app. The patient can find solutions to identify their symptoms, if any, and they can understand their current health status. Patients receive a list of possible diagnoses once they have entered their relevant data. However, the information might not be enough for anyone to make the final diagnosis; only a physician can. 

8. Prescription and medication tracker

A built-in tracker is attached to a doctor’s prescription, so the patient knows when their prescription is ready to be picked up from the pharmacy. The patients must show their ID, insurance card, and electronic prescription to pick up their medication. Your telemedicine app can incorporate an online pharmacy or marketplace for patients’ convenience. The ability for patients to receive their medications delivered to their homes is particularly useful for patients who can’t get to the pharmacy. 

9. Payment modes

The payment methods in a telemedicine app development solution can be highly diverse. Like other successful platforms like Doctor on Demand, payment methods can include credit cards, insurance plans, employer coverage, and coupons. Essentially, multiple payment modes should be offered so that patients can easily obtain telemedicine services. 

III. 7 comprehensive steps for telemedicine app development solutions  

Building a telemedicine app is a very complex task. The time taken to complete the telemedicine app development solutions varies between six to twelve months, specific to the significance of the idea and other variables. Hence, follow a particular sequence of steps to be sure important features and design elements are included and completed on time.  

Here are the stages to consider when developing telemedicine app development solutions. 

1. Validate your idea

If you have a concept of a telemedicine application, the first thing you need to do is make sure that your idea is practical. You have to determine what pain points your telemedicine app development solutions will address and who your target market is.  

At this level, one should talk to the potential users to identify what they look forward to in a telehealth application. Determine how tech-savvy your audience is and their willingness to pay for your product or service.  

Also, a competitor study should be conducted that indicates specifically what can be implemented and what should be avoided in similar applications. 

2. Assess your resources or partner with experts

Another key decision you will make at some point at the beginning of any telemedicine development project is regarding the resources you have. Do you have the resources to build it in-house? Or will you have to contract certain work with a tech company?  

For medium and large projects, it would still be useful to cooperate with the healthcare-related partner even if you have an internal team. This is especially true since complying with industry standards may be difficult for a first-time trying telemedicine app development solutions. 

3. Develop the application architecture

One of the distinct stages for telemedicine app development solutions is the design of the application architecture. The architecture will differ for different projects, so you may need a system architect to help you out.  

Ideally, this person should know the technical side of application development as well as the business considerations that go with it. They can thus help close the gap between the idea of undertaking a given project and the materials available for it.  

Components in the architecture will be client, clinician, and administrator side features, means of communication, APIs, micro-services, and cloud operational facilities. 

4. Create the UI/UX design

The importance of great UI/UX should always be emphasized. As a user, you know that design makes or breaks a software product. This is especially true if you are catering to people who don’t have a technical understanding of these products. The application should be designed with a simple, clear, understandable user interface across all platforms.  

This means that the telemedicine app development solutions should include all the features that can be accessed with one or two taps. If you want an excellent UI/UX design for your ideas, always consider hiring an expert with professional experience. 

5. Build your software solution

This stage is the most fun because it brings your ideas to real life. This helps you to see how the telemedicine app development solutions would work in reality.  

A good way to do this is to begin with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) at the initial stage. This enables one to be in a position to feel how users will respond to it before defining added functionality. A two-stage development may incur higher initial costs but prevent costly mistakes later.  

At this stage, the principle to focus on is ensuring that your app is delivered on time and with all the planned features. 

6. Conduct quality assurance

It is important to establish that your application is not under development when it is released. The only way to achieve this is by performing software testing to ensure its quality.  

Some tests that may be performed based on the project’s characteristics might be functional, user acceptance, compatibility, localization, security, and UI/UX testing. Other tests like smoke testing and regression testing will further ensure that the software build has been developed with enhanced functionality and stability. 

7. Launch your application

After some development and testing processes, you are ready to deploy your solution. It can either be used as a standalone application on App Store, Google Play Store, or also be built as a web application. Furthermore, you should create a marketing campaign to promote the app. This would help increase awareness of your app and increase the number of users daily.  

But the job is not done yet; you have reached the next phase of the process – maintenance. Update the application often, constantly enhance usability and new features, and regularly gather customer responses to stay competitive in telemedicine. 

IV. Challenges to consider when building custom telemedicine software solutions

Even though the telemedicine industry’s revenues are high, certain complexities of telemedicine app development solutions are very worth noting. Failing to address these issues may result in serious problems that could harm your app performance. 

1. Design challenges

The first reason is obvious: UI/UX design is always difficult, and telemedicine app development solutions are no exception. It must be functional, easily understandable, and designed to be adapted for users with disabilities.  

Features like voice command would improve the efficiency of telemedicine app development solutions. Also, the design must be responsive to different font sizes and color schemes. Another important thing is that telemedicine application interfaces should be usable by persons with physical disabilities regarding design.  

Finally, telemedicine app development solutions have two types of profiles: one for doctors and another for patients. These spaces should be paid attention to and designed from the user’s point of view so that it benefits everyone. 

2. Security challenges

The greatest concern in telemedicine apps is security because they deal with personal data. Essentially, patients require their data to be protected at all times.  

Build application security by encrypting and obfuscating data shared and received through your app. To improve security, obtain third-party servers that meet all the laws and regulations of the target country. 

3. Legal challenges

In building telemedicine app development solutions, you will go through legal challenges that exist around healthcare laws. Patient privacy protection is still unclear. Restrictions can be at the state and federal level. For U.S. citizens, compliance with cybersecurity and HIPAA should be the focus. For EU residents, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) should be the first thing to keep in mind. 

3.1. Local legislation 

HIPAA guarantees security in the U.S. Further, the HIPAA Security Rule requires that information conveyed in electronic form be done through secure messaging. All media files are to be encrypted, and documents can be shared on other networks.  

For European countries, the app should also follow the GDPR. The app must have the above-mentioned credentials to make it functional in the world’s designated regions. The GDPR requires that privacy is built into systems from the get-go and is always the default setting. This is explained in Article 25 and Recital 78.  

Data protection by design includes: 

• Pseudonymization: Replacing personal data with artificial data. 

• Encryption: Transforming data in a way that will be understood only by particular personnel.  

Data protection by default means that a user’s health information will only be accessible and processed for specific cases. This involves minimizing the kind of data gathered and regulating the time of processing, storage, and usage of the data. 

3.2. International care provision 

Telemedicine app development solutions can have difficulties functioning globally because the regulatory systems differ across countries. Still, there are no restrictions regarding the patient’s ability to schedule an outside service area visit.  

The only limitation here is that care providers can only recommend treatments and medicines but cannot prescribe them. In this case, the patient takes full personal responsibility for the treatment and its further consequences. 

3.3. Legal relationship between doctor and patient 

Privacy issues in the legal relationship between doctor and patient may involve: 

• Patient credentials: Some doctors need to check a patient’s ID, get consent before the examination, and receive it before the medicine prescription. 

• Practitioner’s license: Your app must only be used by doctors with a GP or relevant specialist license in the patient’s area. 

• Malpractice insurance: Check whether your malpractice insurance covers telemedicine services in your planned area. 

V. How Adamo can help in developing custom telemedicine app development solutions 

Adamo Software offers custom telemedicine app development solutions that perfectly address your business needs. Our experienced team creates user-friendly applications that enable virtual consultations or remote healthcare services. We also ensure that the new telemedicine platform seamlessly integrates with existing systems to make the system more efficient. 

We offer telemedicine app development solutions, including appointment scheduling, secure messaging, and patient monitoring. Data security and compliance with industry regulations are at the heart of what we do to protect sensitive information. Using advanced technologies, we build scalable solutions that will help your business grow. 

Are you ready to elevate your healthcare services? Contact us today to get your own telemedicine solutions!