Liudmyla Pryimenko 
Healthcare tech has evolved greatly in recent years and this tendency seems to grow in 2023 too. Owing to the splash of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and the Internet of Things (IoT), healthcare app development has been drastically revamped. And as mobile technology advances, its impact on the healthcare industry becomes stronger – healthcare delivery improves and more people all over the world get access to high-quality healthcare.
In 2023, it’s expected that the healthcare app development market is going to be worth over $50 billion. But what trends will have a major impact? To ensure the success of your app concept, we have come up with this article covering the top trends in healthcare app development for this year.
Analysis of the Healthcare App Development Market in General
First, let’s talk about numbers. Recent research shows that currently there are about 350,000 mobile health applications spread throughout different app marketplaces (the main
categories are medical, fitness, and health apps). With that, the worth of the mHealth market was estimated at $63.88 billion in 2022 and is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 18.2% up to $243.57 billion by 2030.
What’s the impact of medicine apps on the healthcare industry? Mobile apps rapidly become the go-to solution for healthcare providers, patients, and stakeholders since they offer the utmost convenience, improved communication, and more efficient care delivery for patients. In addition, they securely store data and let healthcare providers or insurers access their patient records whenever and wherever. Mobile apps have also revolutionized the ways helping to access healthcare services (scheduling appointments, contacting doctors via chats or calls, searching for health information, etc). Besides that, numerous apps provide reminders for people to take needed medications, order laboratory tests, and view their results. The possibilities are nearly endless.
Admittedly, healthcare app development has really changed the world and its future looks very bright. And as technologies continue to evolve, mobile apps will become more advanced and indispensable.
The Growth of Mobile Health
Not surprisingly, the growth of mobile health remains one of the most important trends of 2023.
From offering remote monitoring to delivering educational content to patients, mobile health apps can shorten the gap between health professionals and patients, as well as provide more transparency between them. Additionally, mobile health apps can be vastly used to increase patient engagement with prescribed treatments (sending reminders when patients need to take their medication or keep track of their fitness goals). But what mobile apps will be on the rise this year?
Mental Health Apps
According to the WHO survey, 1 in 8 people (i.e. 970 million people around the world) live with some sort(s) of mental disorders like regulation, stress, bad sleep, anxiety, depression, etc. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, the rates for anxiety and depressive disorders have increased significantly – by 26% and 28%.
As it turned out, the great way to address mental disorders is to adopt apps with mindful activities. By the way, such apps have also proven to increase the IQ levels and cognitive decision-making abilities of their users.
Medication Tracking and Reminding Apps
Medication-tracking apps continue to be extremely popular among patients as well. The concept of such apps allows patients to add specific info or details about their medication and doses with a time scheduling. Moreover, some apps integrate with third-party pharmacies to ensure automatic re-ordering of pills when the time comes. Such apps can be a real salvation, especially for Alzheimer’s patients.
Women Wellness Apps
What will never go out of the medical tech world is women’s apps. Currently, feminine apps may include not only tracking of ovulation period, menstruation cycle, pregnancy period, and post-labor period but also personalized dietary plan and exercises created specifically for women. So, no wonder, the FemTech market is projected to grow to USD 50 billion by 2025.
Gamified Healthcare Apps
Actually, the elements of gamification in apps can make a difference by energizing the patients and motivating them to spend more time on the app and their health respectively. For example, gamification elements may motivate patients to log their daily activities or take group challenges by providing rewards and other perks.
Appointment Booking Apps
Appointment booking apps are also among the most popular mHealth solutions today. As the name suggests, these apps aim to help patients to book an appointment with a doctor from the comfort of their own homes. They rid you of the need for waiting in lines and remind you and your doctor of upcoming appointments. Pretty convenient, agree?
E-Prescription Apps
E-Prescription apps is another type of apps that can make life way easier. They eliminate the need for filling up paperwork manually and then carrying prescription documents from one place to another. E-Prescription apps enable care providers to easily track, renew, and cancel prescriptions at any time, anywhere.
“Connected Patient” Apps
One of the most interesting trends in healthcare app development is “connected patient”. Using mobile apps, wearable devices, and other related health technologies, patients can access their data to become fully aware of their medical condition.
Connected patient apps let users track their vital stats and reach their healthcare providers to get personalized advice and feedback. By using such apps, patients have a chance to take a more active role in managing their own health.
Telemedicine Apps
Telemedicine has already become extremely popular on the market and seems to see even a more significant uplift in 2023. Remote areas with insufficient access to medical facilities can benefit from telemedicine greatly. Nowadays, telemedicine software can help you get a video consultation from physicians, physical therapists, psychologists, and even lactation consultants. The fresh GrandViewResearch research shows that the worldwide telehealth market was estimated to be around $83.5 billion in 2022 and is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 24% from 2023 to 2030.
The Increase of Patient-generated Data
If more patients have their data collected online, healthcare providers will gain an opportunity to better understand their health, lifestyle habits, treatment progress, and behavior. Also, this information can help identify the causes of disease and, consequently, help improve the quality of care. Not to mention, doctors will be able to prescribe personalized treatment tailored to individual patients’ needs.
The patient-generated data can be gathered both from test results and wearable sensors. And doctors, in their turn, can use AI and ML technologies to analyze this data. For example, AI-powered apps can analyze large amounts to provide super-accurate diagnosis and treatment options.
The Need for the Cybersecurity
From all we said above, it’s easy to conclude that health companies that work with patient-generated data need to put emphasis on cybersecurity. As it’s essential to maintain integrity and confidentiality, healthcare organizations should think of an implementation of the highly-encrypted cybersecurity package. We bet no one wants to pay enormous fines as a result of unpleasant cybersecurity incidents.
The Adoption of the Internet of Things
Like many other industries today, the healthcare sector is also moving towards adopting IoT solutions. IoT-connected health apps may offer remote patient monitoring and remote therapy, which can be particularly helpful for patients with chronic medical conditions. And for the best results, IoT technology can be easily connected with cutting-edge medical equipment and gadgets.
The Growing Popularity of Healthcare Wearables
One of the most notable events in the healthcare industry was undoubtedly the introduction of healthcare wearables. Wearable devices can monitor heart rate, calories burnt, blood pressure, sleep, and other metrics to influence treatments, diets, and lifestyles in general. The most well-known fitness tracking apps that collect data from wearables are Google Fit, HealthifyMe, Samsung Health, and some others healthcare/fitness services.
Healthcare wearables are rapidly evolving and in 2023, they even promise to measure your BP, body mass, skin age, stress level, and more (along with the use of a selfie camera on your phone). So, we are sure that wearables will become even more essential in the healthcare industry and there will be a surge of investment into developing innovative wearables in the upcoming years.
The Rise of Cloud-Based Technology in the Healthcare Industry
Actually, storing huge amounts of patients’ data is one of the trickiest tasks out there. Yet, things get much easier with the introduction of cloud-based solutions. Recent studies show that the healthcare industry will keep almost 30% of all records digitally in the cloud, and by 2025, this number is anticipated to increase up to 36%, outperforming such important sectors as manufacturing, finances, and media.
With that, not only hospitals and patients will benefit from cloud-based solutions but health insurance providers as well.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Healthcare
As we mentioned in our previous article concerning predictions of healthcare trends for 2023, the healthcare industry (and healthcare app development in particular) can’t do without virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. VR and AR can be used to provide an immersive experience to patients and give doctors an opportunity to practice surgical procedures in a real-like virtual environment. VR-enabled systems are also increasingly used to help patients reduce stress and improve pain management. And as these technologies continue to develop, their application in the healthcare industry will grow. It’s even predicted that the adoption of AR/VR technologies in the healthcare industry will reach $19.6 billion by 2030.
(Source Precedence Research)
The AI Will Rule the Healthcare App Industry
AI is also expected to influence the healthcare app development sector in numerous ways:
- AI can aid in more accurate patient examinations.
- Cutting-edge AI apps can make the right judgments on their own.
- AI applications in healthcare can reduce human errors.
- AI helps with faster patient recovery.
- Owing to the AI technology called robotic process automation (RPA), numerous healthcare organization procedures (health payments, diagnosis, patient data analytics, data entry, etc) can be streamlined quite a lot.
- Chatbots built on AI can communicate with patients and answer their questions. Also, they can collect preliminary health data and analyze symptoms, and then make appointments with necessary doctors.
And these are just a few examples of how AI is transforming healthcare application development.
The Growth of Blockchain
Blockchain is not only about cryptocurrencies as you may think. Actually, this technology can bring many advantages to the healthcare sector – provide advanced patient data privacy and control or streamline administrative processes of the apps like verification of medical credentials. Also, blockchain technology can be potentially used for such tasks as medical records management, drug tracking systems management, AI-driven diagnosis & treatments, virtual consultations, and more.
All that being said, the healthcare sector is just starting to explore its potential. Yet, blockchain technology has all the chances to make healthcare application development systems more efficient, accurate, secure, transparent, and cost-effective.
Conclusion
The healthcare application development world is really exciting. And we hope that these trends and optimistic predictions have motivated you to design your own healthcare application. If yes, our team of experienced developers will eagerly help you with that.
Solvve can help you implement the latest technology trends in healthcare to help you stand out from the crowd and achieve business goals as fast as possible. Our team consists of skilled medical app developers with a great experience under the belt and, therefore, they know how to make the process smooth, seamless, and resultative. So, if you’re looking for a trusted development provider, contact us. Let’s embrace the trends and develop a meaningful healthcare app together!