Telemedicine Software Development: Features, Cost & Benefits

Medications are the most important part of everyone’s life and keeping track of these notes is always very important for providers and patients. Sometimes you can feel unwell all of a sudden and think about what you need to do? This is when telemedicine applications come into use as the patient’s saviour.

Like all mobile applications, telemedicine applications are extremely handy and useful for urgent medical cases or for regular medical cases as well.

Telemedicine applications are in a lot of demand because of the features they have and how user-friendly they are. With the help of these applications, doctors, and patients both can stay in touch with each other and manage online consultation forms anywhere. 

Health care providers no longer need to keep a private offline service for providing medical care to patients or for practicing. With this online mode, hospitals have reduced the number of patient admissions significantly and their services have reached a lot more patients than it did ever before. According to a survey done by statistics, telemedicine application market size can grow to a high of about 40 billion dollars by the year 2021. 

What are telemedicine applications? - Telemedicine can be described as the practice of making communication between patient and health care provider with the help of advanced technologies. These modes of communications can be with the use of mobile, laptop, computers or text communication. 

The coronavirus crisis has disrupted the workflow of many healthcare organizations. Health care providers are overworked and hospitals do not have any plans for new patients. This is when telemedicine applications come as the saviour. Health care has been able to grow so much due to the development in the types of telemedicine applications. 

Because the health care sector can not be risked or delayed, healthcare practitioners are using these new modes to the max level. Telemedicine app development solutions, healthcare providers are able to find new ways to treat their patients remotely. Patients have been successfully reaching medical assistance. 

Features of telemedicine applications - 

1. Availability of medical services - In many places around the world especially in rural and remote areas, the availability of medical resources is very little. There are no proper hospitals or clinics available for patients from these places. In these areas, the number of medical problems and diseases is much more than in developed cities. This is when the use of telemedicine applications is appraised so much. With the help of telemedicine applications, patients from these areas can easily gain access to the right medical treatment. These applications can be used for treating kids, veterans, and even old people. 

2. Time-saving options and a more convenient medical care plan - With telemedicine software development, spending time going all the way to a hospital and waiting for your turn to consult with the doctor can be a very time-consuming process. This is when telemedicine applications come into use to the fullest. With these applications, patients can make easy appointments with their providers at a convenient time for them. 

The treatment time can also become very fast with these applications. Also, telemedicine applications are very useful in the time of an emergency. 

3. Medical record keeping - Medical records are a very important thing for both patients and providers both. Keeping track of these medical records without the telemedicine application can become very difficult.  But if a practice uses telemedicine applications then they can easily manage doctors’ and patient’s data in one place. These records will help form a better treatment plan and prescription for patients. 

4. Easy management of patients - With the help of telemedicine applications, one can make easy consultations with their doctor. These consultations are disturbance-free and run smoothly. After the consultation is over, patients receive digital prescriptions and follow-up digital monitoring systems, and many more things. 

5. Much manages administrative operations - If you choose a good telemedicine app development company for your first project, you can easily give time to more tasks in less time. Administration staff do not have to waste time filling consultation forms or making any more documentation processes. All of this can be done online.

Different technologies used in telemedicine application

1. EMR systems - EMR systems are inbuilt software systems in the telemedicine application. EMR systems can also be called the new digital charts of a hospital. They also keep track of a patient's medical treatment process. They can store all the lab results, medical test results, and the medical history of the patient. 

2. RPM (Remote patient monitoring) - With the use of remote patient monitoring software systems, doctors and clinicians can easily treat patients from anywhere in the world and at any time. RPM technology was specifically built to give patients error-free medical solutions. With the use of a remote patient monitoring system, medical care providers are able to monitor their patients 24/7. Remote patient monitoring applications help in cutting down expenses of both medical care providers and patients. 

3. Medical database - Medical databases are just like EMR systems. Medical databases store a patient's medical history and treatment plans. The only difference between a medical database and an EMR is that in this, the information of a patient is saved according to the condition they are being treated for. Helping providers provide better treatment plans for their patients. 

4. Pharmacy systems - With the help of telemedicine apps for the healthcare sector, pharmacies gain benefits as well. These pharmacy systems are designed for storing medical data and to keep the medicinal process organized. Pharmacies also need these systems because many times medicine can go missing from their places. Increasing the workflow of pharmacies.

5. Interoperability systems - These systems help with exchanging health-related information of patients. These software systems help in delivering information with the use of advanced and effective medical services. 

6. Assistive technology systems - Assistive technology is used when an old patient or someone with a disability needs medical treatment. These patients can connect their monitoring devices to telehealth software applications and receive medical treatments. 

7. E-prescribing systems - E-prescribing systems are used to send digital prescriptions to patients. This mode is faster than other modes of sending prescriptions because it takes only some seconds.  Because these systems are safe, a lot of providers prefer using them.

8. Practice management - Practice management software systems help healthcare organizations in running their daily activities error-free. The practice management system handles online appointment bookings, online payments, patient notes, integration processes, video conferencing, etc.

How does a telemedicine application work?

1.  There is a login section. Here patients will need to describe their symptoms. 
2. According to the symptoms of the patient, the application makes proper searches for doctors and manages consultation timing. 
3. Patients can select one doctor out of the many available on the doctor on demand application and schedule appointments according to their time.
4. Then the provider and patients can choose the mode they want to connect with each other on. This can be via video calls, phone calls or text messages. 
5. When the appointment is over, patients can make payments via the application alone.

Cost of developing a telemedicine application

The budget matters a lot when it comes to using or developing anything new. A telemedicine app development cost can depend on a lot of different factors. These factors are the platform the app is available on, the approach software developers have chosen to take and the team required to develop the application. The right budget for the application can only be found from the telemedicine software development company you choose.