Why healthcare mobile apps do not fare well sometimes?

Charles Darwin rightly said, ‘it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.’ And change is what we all have been witnessing in every walk of life, specially from a past few years! 

Nobody would have thought that medical help or healthcare services could ever become accessible, or assistive surgeries would ever come to life! But all that and more happened and is still happening! Technology is to be given credit here.

‘Mobile healthcare’ now a famous term, was inconceivable a thought, few decades ago… but not anymore. Mobile applications are helping people consult doctors and health professionals online and take care of their health. 

Innumerable people are struggling with health problems nowadays… social distancing is a must, but helping the ailing is important too. What a fix, right!

I was watching a panel talk about the same and then… it hit me… why not write something for those who wish to do the noble deed, help people and medical professionals by building a tech-laced solution. Hence, this article.

Before I delve into the reasons for the failure of healthcare applications, let us understand what are these apps and how they prove to be helpful…

What are mHealth apps?

M-health stands for Mobile Health. Recently only, WHO gave definition of m-health, which is “the use of mobile and wireless technologies to support the achievement of health objectives.”

These apps are tools that help in monitoring and sharing health data and information through mobile technology. They help to deliver prescriptions and care in a quicker way as well. 

These apps are designed to support diagnostic procedures, to aid physician decision-making for treatments, and to advance disease-related education for physicians and people under treatment. The development process of such applications is known as mHealth application development.

Why do such apps fail?

Not every medical app in the market is able to survive the tough competition. Businesses, along with app developers are coming up with new and better solutions every day. It is a difficult task to stay relevant and keep the customers happy. But why does that happen? Why and where do start-ups faulter? 

• The foremost reason for the failure is the inability to solve the problems of the target audience and cater to them properly. Most of the times, apps prove to be useless, without serving any real purpose!
• The demand of an application changes with time. What is not needed today might be required tomorrow. What seems relevant now, might prove to be obsolete a few months or days later! The present times are one such example. The apps that have come up since the pandemic hit, wouldn’t have worked at all, 2 years ago. Thus, relevance and presence of mind is important. Understanding the need of the hour is the real deal!
• Building a medical application is a big responsibility, a tough endeavour, to say the least. Complicated navigation, a complex interface can lead to incorrect data entries and miscalculations. This can frustrate the users and the admin. Then the inevitable would happen – a forgotten application. All efforts, down the drain!
• Some other factors also pay a part in application failure. They are poor usability, an absence or lack of clinical input, failure to solve a problem, privacy and security concerns of the users.

What do the users expect from such platforms?

It is highly important for an application to settle good with the users. That happens when developers take care of the expectations of the consumers. Let us learn what is it, that users or patients expect from healthcare apps…

1. The app should allow patients and doctors both to monitor the health status.
2. Of course, the scheduling part! The tool must provide an option to make appointments!
3. Notifications and reminders are a must!
4. People also expect different payment methods to choose from.
5. Users also expect security and privacy. Such platforms have access to a large amount of personal data. Users expect that data to be not forwarded or misused.
6. Integration with wearables is the trend these days. Thus, users expecting something updated is understandable.

How to move ahead…

The first and foremost thing to do is – to identify the problem and the target audience. The problem shouldn’t be something superficial or seasonal; rather, it should be a genuine problem requiring a solution. Think through and thorough, before deciding to build an app. Creating one, just for the namesake can prove to be disastrous. Remember, only those applications are relevant that have actual use and are liked by end-users.

Sit down with your team and ponder over some questions like:

- What is problem the app will solve?

- Does it actually require a solution like you have in mind?

- Who all would want to use your application and why?

- How will you make your idea stand-out?

- Who are your competitors?

- What new do you have to offer?

- What will be the monetization model?

The list of questions is not exhaustive. But it will enable you to arrive at concrete answers and conclusions; and might just help you think about other important questions and domains to work upon.

Remember…

The key lies in identifying the problem and looking for a concrete solution. If enough thought and time is given to studying the trends, determining target audience, analysing market and competitors, the idea of developing an interactive and easy to use platform – is bound to turn into a successful venture!