Mobile technology might have once started out as a thing for young people, but nowadays, it’s estimated that 96% of Americans own a cell phone of some kind. When it comes to reaching out to just about anyone, our first thought is to use a cell phone.
While having a website for your healthcare company is important, more and more people are now starting to look for businesses that can make their lives even easier with a dedicated app. An app offers so much more than information.
In this short guide, you’ll learn about the benefits of creating an app for your healthcare company, and why mobile apps are fast increasing in popularity.
1. Healthcare apps are convenient
When you build your own healthcare app, you’re offering your patients a quick and simple way to book appointments, access test results, and order prescription medication. A well-designed app should offer so much more than just information. It should be a handy way for a patient to manage many aspects of their health care experience.
This means that rather than having to visit your website – or worse, ring you in-person – patients can simply achieve what they want with a tap of a button.
2. Healthcare apps are helpful
Perhaps your patients regularly forget to order prescription medication, or they accidentally don’t show up to their appointments because they never saw your email reminder. With a healthcare app, your patients can opt in to receive push notifications directly to their home screen, which could remind them of important appointments and even offer important health updates.
Since most of us have our phones with us for most of our day, notifications and reminders via an app are more likely to catch their attention. Some apps also offer help with regulating daily medications.
Another handy feature of health apps is that they allow a patient to monitor their health at home. Many health apps include ways to measure blood pressure, heart rate, sleep quality and length, menstrual cycles, and much more. While this doesn’t replace proper medical attention, these tracking devices can give a doctor and a patient a good overview of their health. Keeping a food/mood diary can also give valuable insights in a person’s health.
The benefits of healthcare apps are numerous. They could even potentially lower hospitalizations.
3. Healthcare apps are easy to make
There’s no hard work involved in producing a healthcare app. You could either outsource the job to a professional – check out how these developers built a digital healthcare app – or you could use your own simple app-building tool for the task. The choice is yours, but whether you opt to assign the task elsewhere or you take it on yourself, minimal work or skill is required.
However, before you start work on your healthcare app, spend some time thinking about the design and functionality. What benefits will your app offer? What features will you include?
4. Healthcare apps can support your medical staff
Let’s look beyond how a healthcare app could benefit your patients to how it may support your medical staff. With a simple way to add and review patient updates, and a means of digitizing patient prescriptions, doctors and nurses can save the time and hassle of paperwork and access all the information they need in one place.
5. Healthcare apps are an ideal promotional tool
You can promote special offers and deals within your healthcare business directly to your patients through your app. While not all of your patients may check their emails regularly, it’s likely that they’ll check their phones at least once a day. By sending push notifications to your patients’ home screens, you can better market your business – and it’s completely free to do.
If your patients are already comfortable with using your app, chances are they’ll receive promotions and deals with more interest than if you offered them via email, or even in person.
6. Healthcare apps help with retaining patients
If your patients are lucky enough to only rarely need your medical services, they may forget that they have even visited your healthcare business in the past. If they download your app, however, they’ll have a reminder that you exist on their phone’s home screen.
Considering apps offer the simplest, fastest solution for booking appointments, purchasing medication and so on, it’s likely that an old patient will return to you in the future simply for the convenience of it.
Should You Consider Creating a Healthcare App?
Apps are the future, with the average phone containing dozens of apps. We use apps for our banks, financial transactions, shopping, social media, and more. There’s an app for just about everything you can think of.
Therefore, creating a healthcare app is the natural next time for a medical service. An app offers convenience and all the information a person could want, right there in the palm of their hand.
