How to Develop a Remote Patient Monitoring Mobile Application: Step-by-Step Process Overview

The modern medicine ecosystem is something unique and bright, with a promising future in upcoming years. This is primarily due to the inclusion of technologies in most healthcare spheres. For instance, 64 percent of patients use different kinds of mobile apps to measure health metrics. Since physicians have an opportunity to monitor patients remotely and record their vitals, it is an effective integration, especially when medical services remain in high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, you won’t be surprised that world giants and startups alike start to consider developing a remote patient monitoring app. This article hopes to show you the why’s and how’s of creating medical apps, outline the main points that should be followed, and let you explore what customers want to see in 2021. Also, healthcare app development with our high-skilled team to make an RPM app depending on every minor point you want us to follow.

Why Invest In Remote Patient Monitoring App Development

Just imagine that over 133 million Americans representing 45 percent of the US population, suffer from at least one chronic disease, and these health issues kill more than 1.7 million US residents every year. We also know that COVId-19 infected the biggest part of the world, with 12,007,150 active cases for today. These numbers are growing every day, causing more deaths and requiring more medical equipment than ever before. 

Although companies started developing new tech solutions for the healthcare sphere almost 5 years ago, only today do people consider medical applications a life-saving opportunity. Thus, remote patient monitoring (RPM) mobile apps have been scientifically proven to be effective in early symptom management, allowing healthcare providers to monitor patients with chronic diseases easily. These apps can significantly help reduce medical costs, create the next step in care quality, and give access to the healthcare industry for patients in impoverished areas. 

This ultimate convenience became a go-to option for both patients and healthcare organizations. Risk-bearing companies started to invest in RPM solutions to value-based care by supporting patients whose conditions are at high risk and unstable for hospital admission. Customers downloaded such applications to control coronavirus symptoms, check heart rate, diabetes, skin conditions like eczema, and even pregnancy.  

Experts believe that this hype won’t stop in the next few years because people are now more aware of their health than previously. This gives developers a chance to jump into the money carriage and build app for remote patient monitoring. 

4 Main Types of Remote Patient Monitoring Apps

1. IoT Medical Applications

These applications are designed to collect data from wearable devices, like smartwatches via complex sensors, trackers and send the patient’s data to the monitoring entities for treatment. These apps are beloved by users due to real-time notifications and alerts that offer them to control their symptoms and health conditions.

2. Questionnaire Apps

Another famous RPM type is questionnaire apps. This is exactly what its name suggests, allowing healthcare organizations to collect personal data about people’s conditions and overall well-being through a series of questions. Since these apps require less complicated software implementations, they are usually cheaper than the previous ones.

3. Live Video-Conferencing

These apps are now one of the most well-known types of RPM apps. It allows doctors to have a live video-based conference with their patients. This is because, during the pandemic, many hospitals and other organizations started to use these apps as regular medical practice. Such apps are beneficial for both parties as they reduce stress in patients and eliminate commute time.

4. Mobile Health (mHealth)

These represent smart devices and other health-based software apps that are intended to support continued healthcare. The majority of these applications can now monitor everything from a blood sugar level to a patient’s daily water intake. Although they are not as medical-oriented as others, Mobile Health apps can encourage healthier lifestyle behaviors.

4 Key Features that Your Remote Patient Monitoring Application Should Include

Modern RPM solutions are designed to track a wide range of vitals and serve many purposes. This is why there is no rough guideline on what to include in your app. However, there are the most crucial features that can help you go the extra mile in providing healthcare support for users.  

Medical data tracking

During regular medical procedures, physicians usually track vital signs as a standard practice. However, outdated technologies don’t allow doctors to connect with patients remotely and are pretty slow in work. Luckily, RPM apps can improve this process, making main trackers ongoing and automated to give certified healthcare providers a clearer picture of patients’ symptoms and conditions. Some of the essential metrics you can include in your patient monitoring systems are following:

• pulse;
• oxygen saturation (SpO2);
• blood pressure;
• body temperature;
• physical activities;
• prescription medications and supplements uptake;
• stress or anxiety levels.

It should also be emphasized that this list is not complete, as it depends on the type of device. Bringing out various software and analytics tools, developers can create lifestyle management apps for people suffering from chronic diseases or solutions to assist treatment for patients with common ailments.

Data exchange

This feature can be one of the most vital for doctors, as it can help collect data through sensors and send it to the patient’s local physician or a clinic. The implementation gives the ability to transfer the personal data directly to the cloud server, requiring an LTE or WiFi adapter for smooth work. However, you can choose to include a Bluetooth module if other options don’t suit your budget.

Bear in mind that your mobile application should support BLE (Bluetooth low energy) communications in order to send patient data and integrate with other medical software products through a secure API faster.

Various communication tools

Healthcare organizations now have an opportunity to develop a remote patient monitoring app with audio and video conferencing features, thus, encashing communications between remote consultations and patients. This boosted functionality can turn the RPM system into a viable telehealth platform for online visits that is more comprehensive and create active participation of relatives and caretakers if necessary. 

Real-time notifications & alerts

New RPM solutions can help patients ease treatment programs and medication uptake with automated reminders on their phones. Important alerts like changes in sugar levels, blood pressure, health condition, and medication alerts can be included as in-app alerts, emails, regular SMS, or even voice messages or calls to patients, relatives, and caretakers. This feature can help people stay informed regarding their vital metrics that can affect the quality of life and prevent worsen disease situations. 

How to Develop a Remote Patient Monitoring App and Not to Fail

While there are numerous RPM apps available in the market, not all of them are successful. But you don’t need to worry, as below we have listed out main points on how to create a remote patient monitoring app and be on the top of the game. 

Since the mobile RPM landscape is crowded today, you have to understand that your application will be competing against many others. According to the market research, you need to build a clear and unique value proposition and list key features. To come up with a significant value, try to be guided by the rivals’ analysis and user-generated feedback. In addition, do not hesitate to implement non-standard ways as statistics show; they come with excellent potential. 

Recognize and learn your target audience

Remote patient monitoring app development is not a vacuum process. Your key goal in the first stages of the research should begin with recognizing and learning the future users of your app. Here you need to collect the basic information by asking the following questions:

• Where are they based (it could be only US states or worldwide)? 
• What needs and preferences do they have? 
• What is the health situation of the population in the country you choose?
• What is the health situation of the population in the country you choose?
• What wellness goals do they have?
• What sort of devices do they have now, and what do they want to see in new?

When sacrificing the step-firming grasp of your target before building a product, you risk that your RPM solution doesn’t find a product-market fit and fails.

Make leading technology choices

Before the custom RPM mobile app development process, you need to decide which devices you want your application to support. Modern devices are divided into smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, laptops, and computers. 

Although they all come with their own pros and cons, you need to understand what best suits your budget and purposes. And based on our expertise, a combination of mobile and desktop technologies shows the best results.

The second critical decision is choosing the platforms your app will support. It will affect the number of users downloading your app. However, building applications for Android and iOS operating systems alike are very costly. This is where your market and target audience research comes in handy, as you will probably know which platform prospective customers prefer. Therefore, you can create your RPM app for only one platform, and once it attracts attention, expand to another one. 

Reach out to us for crafting a user-centric app that is worth a thousand downloads!

Get in touch

Comply with privacy and compliance guidelines

When it comes to mobile healthcare apps, privacy and compliance regulations should be rigorously researched and strictly followed according to the latest criteria. These apps are always subject to intense legislation in order to protect patients and organizations. 

Depending on the kind of healthcare app and geographical or operational location, you might need to obtain certifications that ensure patient data protection. 

Some standards for RPM solution include:
SOC2 Type2;
HIPAA;
FDA;
IEC 62304;
ISO27001.

Also, the information gained from your privacy research will help you to identify the type of mobile development platform you should choose. This is because iOS and Android come with various security advantages and disadvantages, so learn about them carefully before making your choice. 

Choose how to design your app with users in mind

Knowing that RPM apps often deal with sensitive information, it’s vital that you integrate these development practices. This will significantly ease the process and help you avoid common design pitfalls, and boost customer’s loyalty and trust in your product. 

Below we have listed a few best practices you can implement to create a successful product:
When building design, try to focus on consistency and streamline the process.
Make sure you have a seamless experience in your product and create a user-friendly design. 
Minimize the number of interaction points for users to decrease the cognitive burden of your app.
Deliver primarily features and information at the beginning of the user’s journey. 
Create an uncomplicated graphic design for your app. 

Hire the expert development team

The next step is hiring high-skilled developers who know how to create a telehealth app and realize your idea. You need to remember that not every development team is able to build a app for remote patient monitoring. This is because it is not only about the right background and technical skills but also deep knowledge and expertise in the healthcare industry. 

You should also remember that you have to benefit both patients and healthcare organizations. This means developing mobile apps for patients and a web app for the care team. Each of them will have its own characteristics, key features, require specialists for every step, and high speed in seamless workflow for increased efficiency. 

Check and test your App 

Last but not the least step of the whole development process is to identify and fix the bugs in your RPM solutions before deploying them to the web stores. Testing your product before releasing it to the market will ensure your applications are safe, stable, and free of bugs and crashes. 

Also, do not forget to update your app regularly and periodically test run your processes with implemented updates to make sure everything is working smoothly. 

And if you are planning to outsource the entire development work, ensure that the company you choose has enough experience in working with clients from the healthcare industry. We, at Interexy, have a carefully selected team of professionals for you to help achieve your business goals. Get in touch with our managers to make your idea come true and create an app that will take the world by storm.  

Developing a Remote Patient Monitoring App With Interexy

Interest is an experienced IT company that strives to bring the difference in mobile app development. Our expert team uses an innovation-driven approach to help all customers create an RPM app, optimize internal processes, and a smooth workflow at every step of the process. 

With our deep expertise and team with a vast background in the healthcare industry, you will get an app that allows doctors to collaborate across departments, remotely monitor and plant patient’s treatment while saving time on administrative tasks. 

As one of our most beloved products, MedKitDoc became a trusted and well-recognized application that is now used by millions of people worldwide. This is a brand-new telemedicine application focused on the B2B market with innovative Bluetooth-based MedKits. 

During our development process, we faced a challenge with the UX part of the product: creating a separate flow for doctors and adapting it to the highest standards of healthcare software tools while keeping the design beautiful and clean at the same time. Therefore, we decided to implement our iOS app with a modern design approach, providing the following features:
clear & clean physician flow;
UX with existing software healthcare products;
responsiveness to save specialists’ time.

Interexy’s team successfully went through the most challenging parts of the final product to fit the customer’s objectives and users’ expectations. We chose Swift as a development language that helps us meet market standards and be the best out of many competitors with robust UI & app responsiveness. The MedCitDoc has been tested by our team and released on the market. It quickly gained popularity and is now a renowned telehealth application across the globe. 

Still not sure about RPM mobile app development by yourself? Do not know where you can find a team? Interest has got you covered. Now you don’t need to do it on your own; welcome on board! 

Final thoughts

Thanks to the advancement in mobile & cloud technologies and demand for healthcare services, RPM apps show immense potential as a future in the healthcare industry. Follow this step-by-step guide; you’re bound to develop a remote patient monitoring app that will definitely achieve success on the market. As a telemedicine app development company we will be excited to create a top-notch telemedicine solution for your business as well! You are welcome to share your ideas with Interexy!