The Healthcare industry has advanced by launching Doctor appointment app which have always been used widely even before pandemic showed up. As the medical necessities are growing constantly, the healthcare apps are developing vastly. According to a recent survey, 64 percent of patients will schedule medical appointments online.
If you are a doctor or have a hospital and want to get an application. that provides all-round solutions for patients then you must go for healthcare applications. They are widely used across the world. A healthcare application adds all important features that are helpful to connect doctors with patients.
Here are some of the important features of a doctor appointment app. This feature will enhance the experience of your patient with easy processes. But before that let us have a quick view on why having a medical appointment app is necessary:
Benefits of Medical Appointment App
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Systematize patient’s data in a single system
You can easily filter a patient’s track record, minutes from the last meeting, prescribed medication, and other reports all from one single system.
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Allow booking, rescheduling, and cancel appointments
You can allow your patients to book an appointment from the app itself from anywhere, anytime. Even rescheduling and cancelling are the options here. Your patients can reschedule or cancel appointments before the time you have set for the action.
This helps in emergency situations, when there is no time for filling up the formalities. Your patients can simply book an appointment on the way and then once they are at hospital, they don’t have to wait.
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Reduce patients missing ratio
The patients can book in advance in order to have less waiting time the better as it reduces the no-show rates dramatically. You can also use in-app tools like notifications, mails, etc. to remind the patients priorly about their appointments.
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New patients will seek it out
Recent surveys say that practice offers online appointment booking apps will attract more new patients than the practices that don’t have an online appointment booking app.
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Online scheduling reduces added strain on the staff
By using online booking app development, the overall appointment count increases. And it also reduces any added strain on the office staff by automating most of the appointment process online.
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Security
Secure login and transaction credentials with two-factor authentication. You can also provide an auto-logout facility for locking safety. Also the reports and other confidential details are only accessible by respective doctor and patient.
13 Key Features of Medical Appointment App
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Authorization
This is the first necessary feature: user sign-in and log-in. Patients should have the ability to enter their personal details, like:
- Insurance information
- Weight numbers
- Blood type
- Contact details
- Any permanent diseases or malfunctions, etc.
Doctors should provide:
- proof of their expertise
- their specific qualifications
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Patient/Doctor Profile
User profiles are necessary for placing an appointment. Users and doctors both should have the authority to change their profiles according to the symptoms or diseases the patients are experiencing.
Both patient and doctors can see each others profile to:
- Prioritise the patient’s appointment, and to
- Trust the doctor before appointing them
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Search Tool
A search tool is an essential function for such an emergency application. From finding and checking availability of a medical professional to searching for specific location or speciality, all included in features of the search tool.
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Appointments Manager
This is the core feature and motive of building any medical app. Both doctors and patients must be able to make and manage appointments relaxed. Offering features like rescheduling or cancelling an appointment is highly advisable.
Patients can set an appointment from the available time charts in the doctor booking app. For these you can integrate an internal calendar app. This will make the app more user-friendly.
- Users need to register and fill out the necessary information.
- Select the doctor or specialist as per your requirement.
- Book an appointment according to the availability.
- Once the appointment is confirmed you may view it in the calendar or schedule section.
- Before users actually visit the doctor, they can easily upload and share health-related information and documents online.
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Notifications
This feature ensures that patients never forget about their online doctor visits. For this, you can implement push notification in the app.
Users get a notification when a preferred specialist becomes available, or when it is time for a check-up, etc. you can use in-app features like sending direct email or message notification too.
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Geolocation Access
To visit a hospital physically can be a task sometimes, like finding the exact location or exact gate numbers. Geolocation features can guide the patients throughout, from their home to hospital with optimized route services.
Even getting lost inside the hospital is a common problem. This feature makes it easier for visitors to find everything from the parking spot to the appointed doctor.
This also gives patients a chance to know about the doctors and ERs nearest to them in case of an emergency. The sub-features of this feature includes:
- Emphasized indoor maps of the hospital
- Turn-by-Turn indoor navigation
- Parking help from the mobile phones.
- Indoor positioning within one to two meters. This navigation platform also assists users with visual landmarks
- It can also send relevant location-based text messages pointing to a specific ward/doctor
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ePrescription
Allow patients and doctors to view and manage the prescriptions from the app itself. This easy they can have a record of medications they are consuming and can know all the details like:
- Time of consuming a dose
- Type of injection required
- When to stop taking medications, etc.
ePrescriptions works as a support tool giving immediate access to a patient’s medication history and other details. This feature reduces the number of prescription errors initiated by bad handwriting or illegible faxes.
You can even include an in-app medication ordering service.
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Seamless Payments
In-build payment gateways are perfect options to serve online payment facilities. Integrating those getaways, helps patients to transfer the appointment fees, or app subscription fees online.
Security should be over-checked here. Make sure, whichever payment method you choose, should be safe and reliable.
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One-click Ambulance
It already reflects ‘emergency’ right? One-click ambulance calls can be of great help in emergency situations. This feature lets you request emergency help for yourself, friends or family members.
This feature notifies the trusted contacts and the hospital along with the precise location. You can also find nearby laboratories and pharmacies to seek help.
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Telemedicine
Telemedicine is an effective way to monitor and treat long term conditions rather than having a regular 10-minute one-on-one conversation. This includes in-app chat through text or video. Want to know how it works? It is a pretty simple process.
Patients just need to:
- Answer a few questions regarding symptoms
- Choose an available doctor from the list
- Choose a convenient time-slot for an e-visit
- Receive an e-visit confirmation from a doctor
- Make a video/voice call at an agreed hour
However, those treatments that rely on physical cues need an in-person examination, this process can be replaced with photo-based consultation. In photo-based consultation, the app allows the patients to take a photograph which gets stored on a separate server and only doctors can access it. This is for treatments like skin problems, bruises, eye infections, etc.
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Review pop up
Reviews and ratings are considered the most reliable factors to search on, while subscribing to any app right? So, for your medical app too, give users the chance to rate and review their experiences with the appointments and the app.
Review pop ups makes your application more trustworthy, as users are more sure about booking a specialist visit when they see real ratings and reviews from others.
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Audio/Video calls
This function became a necessary one in 2021, after the pandemic clear up the physical check-up tradition. It allows specialists to make diagnosis easier, and patients can grasp the doctor’s recommendations better.
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Chatbot
A chatbot is a must-install feature for any app that involves bookings. Users can easily schedule a doctor’s appointment by providing details like the specialist they want to appoint and the desired visit time. The chatbot will automatically check the availability and offer the best options to the patients.
Benefits of Medical Appointment App
Healthcare apps are making the process of appointing a doctor easy and real quick. This is not only benefit why medical apps are widely adopted by patients and doctors, there some more:
For patients:
- Quick and easy access to professional medical advice
- Access the suitable specialists and check their ratings
- Cost and time saving
- Opportunity to see all the essential info about the doctor’s experience and expertise
For doctors:
- Convenient tool for consulting people
- An ability to grow their patients base by self-advertisement
- An opportunity to work remotely
- 24/7 access to your patients
Wrapping Up
The reality is that medicine is never going out of demand any day right? And medical apps have advanced the industry by its rich features allowing virtual treatment possible. The last but most important tip would be to provide mobile support for your medical app. This will comfort your patients and for you, responding to the emergency notification will be easy.
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