Despite significant progress, maternal mortality remains a global health challenge. Over 800 women die daily from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Lack of access to quality maternal healthcare is a major contributing factor. Bridging gaps in the availability, accessibility, and quality of antenatal, delivery, and postpartum services could significantly reduce maternal and newborn deaths worldwide.

Advancements in mobile technology have transformed healthcare delivery around the world. Mobile health (mHealth) solutions like healthcare apps are becoming invaluable tools for providing care and health information to underserved populations. The surge in mobile phone access globally creates new opportunities to leverage these technologies to strengthen maternal health outcomes.

Mobile health apps provide a promising way forward in overcoming barriers to high-quality maternal healthcare. Features like educational content, gestational trackers, and telemedicine offer innovative approaches to reaching women in their homes with potentially lifesaving care and advice throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. This article analyzes the current landscape of mHealth apps targeted at maternal health and demonstrates their vast promise in making motherhood safer across the globe.

Mobile Health Apps for Maternal Health

Dozens of mobile apps today provide a variety of features to support women during pregnancy and postpartum care. Some apps simply offer guidance on baby names or nursery decoration, while more advanced ones provide specialized maternal healthcare services like gestational calendar reminders, fetal kick counters, contraction timers and period trackers, live nutrition analyses, 

3D model fetal development breakdowns, postpartum care instructions, breastfeeding tips, and more. Some apps even facilitate audio/video telemedicine consultations with certified medical professionals. As the industry matures, maternal health apps are becoming more comprehensive and patient-centered. Let’s dive into how these apps can help support maternal health.

Access to Information and Education

Maternity apps grant expectant mothers continuous access to crucial health information throughout pregnancy that promotes positive behaviors and outcomes. Women can learn about critical topics like nutrition needs, lifestyle precautions, danger signs, and more at any time of day through their mobile devices. Digestible content through text, videos, and graphics makes key recommendations easy to consume and retain.

Educational content on prenatal and postnatal care

Apps educate women through each phase of maternity care—preconception, antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal. Some apps provide week-by-week guides on developmental milestones and self-care practices from conception through the year after birth. Others focus specifically on birth preparation, breastfeeding techniques, newborn and postpartum care, immunization, and more through visual explainers.

Interactive features for understanding pregnancy stages and fetal development

3D model applications allow mothers to visualize fetal growth and gain familiarity with anatomy. Fetal kick counters that use phone sensors let mothers monitor movement milestones. Menstrual and ovulation trackers provide fertility insights preconception. Such interactive tools sustain engagement while imparting knowledge.

Remote Monitoring and Telemedicine

Remote monitoring allows providers to intervene early when abnormalities arise and gives women greater control over tracking their health indicators. Apps can sync with wearable devices, tracking vitals and connecting patients directly with their healthcare teams for telescreening and consultations. Enabling this intervention access removes geographic and systemic barriers.

Integration with telemedicine services

Partnerships with telemedicine providers within apps facilitate audio/video consultations with certified obstetricians/gynecologists, nurses, and health coaches. Direct provider interactions build trust and care continuity while still lowering access barriers for underserved groups. It also reduces unnecessary facility visits through remote triaging of complications. Expanding such e-consult models is impactful.

Tracking and Managing Health Metrics

Closely monitoring key biometrics and symptoms from prenatal through postnatal periods enables the early detection of potentially dangerous abnormalities like gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, or iron deficiency anemia. 

User-friendly mHealth apps allow women to thoroughly track critical metrics like blood pressure trends, blood glucose levels, weight gain patterns, hematocrit levels and more themselves, synced from Bluetooth-enabled home health devices. Aggregating such data longitudinally provides much richer insights versus sporadic in-clinic readings. This strengthens clinical decision-making for just-in-time interventions.

Features in apps for monitoring weight, blood pressure, and glucose levels

Rather than rely on manual/self-reported data inputs, which can be inaccurate, the latest apps seamlessly sync with connected devices like smart scales, wrist blood pressure monitors, and glucometers to track progress. Users only need to open the app to automatically log readings. 

Backend analytics visualize measurable trends over time and flag any concerning fluctuations through automated alerts. Overdue measurement notifications also increase adherence. More advanced apps even offer real-time analysis, risk assessments, and triaging recommendations when dangerous thresholds are crossed.

Alerts and reminders for medication and appointments

Configuring customizable app alerts that nudge users via push notifications facilitates better compliance with care protocols, saving lives. In addition to medication and supplement reminders, apps can prompt women to log health metrics, attend upcoming checkups, prepare for delivery through hospital bag checklists as due dates near, and provide postpartum healing guidance. Such friendly automated nudges foster more disciplined self-care where focus, organization, or health literacy are persistent barriers, especially for first-time mothers.

Enhancing Doctor-Patient Communication

Maternity apps allow for seamless, ongoing dialogue between patients and their obstetric care team in between appointments. Secure in-app messaging replaces playing phone tag, with group chat functionality looping in all specialists on a case simultaneously. 

This saves substantial time for both parties by creating a continuous digital conversation thread on non-urgent queries while still triaging medical emergencies faster through automated symptom checker alerts. Patients can also snap photos of concerning symptoms for remote diagnosis.

Sharing health data for better clinical decision-making

Digitizing key biometric data like vitals along with recording risk assessment survey results, health history, medications, past obstetric complications, and psychosocial issues within specialized apps creates more holistic, longitudinally-rich patient profiles. 

This arms providers with better insights to determine proper interventions based on detecting patterns in historical trends rather than relying solely on snapshots from infrequent in-person appointments. Streamlined data integration with electronic health records is also helping providers access patient app data faster at the point of care.

Impact on patient engagement, satisfaction, and health literacy

The convenience, transparency, and expanded provider access mobile platforms facilitate dramatically improved patient satisfaction rates and engagement in their own care plans. Sustained mHealth app usage can foster stronger patient-provider relationships, trust in healthcare teams, positive perceptions of care quality, and greater awareness of health threats–ultimately catalyzing better compliance with care protocols, preventative health behaviors, and self-efficacy in managing complicated pregnancies. 

Pregnant and postpartum women’s digital health literacy similarly expands from apps disseminating bite-sized guidance 24/7, leading to measurable knowledge gains, particularly for first-time mothers.

Addressing Postpartum Challenges

Too often overlooked, maternal mental health requires proactive monitoring because approximately 1 in 7 women suffer from postpartum depression. Apps can facilitate regular depression and anxiety screenings with validated scales and then instantly analyze responses to detect clinical warning signs early. Around-the-clock chatbots and on-call counseling provide affordable first-line support between appointments while women manage newborns. 

Online peer groups foster understanding and solidarity when struggling. By centralizing mood-tracking history within apps through weekly self-evaluations, both patients and clinicians better recognize negative thought and behavior patterns so treatments can be quickly optimized, preventing cases from becoming severe through data-driven follow-up care.

Resources for breastfeeding and infant care

Comprehensive apps dedicate entire subsections to evidence-based infant feeding best practices, including techniques and positions for proper latching, pumps, and milk storage guidance, decoding newborn cries, introducing age-appropriate balanced solid foods, managing infections, tracking developmental milestones, plus recommended immunizations through interactive checklists. 

Sleep pattern analysis tools log night wakes and naps to inform schedule adjustments. Augmented reality can even demonstrate how to bathe, swaddle, and soothe the baby. Such wraparound support and clinical expertise nurture more confident, skilled first-time parents in areas today’s stretched healthcare systems do not have the bandwidth to educate thoroughly on.

Community support features in apps

Stress for an expectant or new mother can be all-consuming, but strong social ties protect maternal mental health. Enabling anonymous peer discussion groups within apps provides solidarity through shared experiences, creating safe spaces to ask judgment-free questions. 

Social networking feeds allow families to crowdsource local childcare or pediatrician recommendations. Logging multigenerational family health history within specialized apps can analyze hereditary traits, too, personalizing health insights. Over time, these supportive tools cultivate tight-knit digital communities so mothers never feel alone on the parenting journey.

Overcoming Barriers and Challenges

Ensuring inclusivity and maximum access to maternal health apps requires concerted efforts to minimize economic and technological barriers at scale. Apps should be free or low-cost to users, funded by public health agencies, nonprofits, impact investors, and public-private partnerships. 

Offline functionality assists populations with limited internet connectivity. Governments can especially tariff data costs to essential health apps and fund device access either through direct provision or microfinance partnerships. Annually evaluating differences in usage patterns by income group and geography will inform efforts to close remaining gaps.

Data privacy and security concerns

To build user trust that encourages the input of sensitive pregnancy-related personal information, apps must reassure women through terms of service communications and easy-to-understand consent flows that explain end-to-end data governance. Encryption to global security standards, secure access portals, multi-factor authentication, and low-risk anonymization protocols should protect her private medical data. 

Transparency on the backend analytics performed is essential, allowing mothers to control preferences. Independent ethics audits can validate that privacy contexts do no harm. Ongoing safety improvements and responsiveness to new threats should be a cornerstone of app development.

Overcoming cultural and educational barriers

For success, maternal health apps must be context-aware through an in-depth understanding of target users’ cultural touchpoints, languages, health beliefs, lived realities, and literacy skills. This guides tailored content and design choices that feel familiar and relevant, overcoming engagement barriers more generic tools face. 

All instructions should provide visual guidance with graphics given varying text comprehension levels across end-users. Vernacular scripts, dialects, and colloquial phrases resonate most strongly. Apps pre-tested via focus groups ensure appropriateness. The impact depends on these human-centered approaches to dismantle sociocultural barriers endogenous to regions, making lifesaving health support accessible to all.

Future Directions and Innovations

Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to personalize and optimize maternal healthcare app features shows enormous promise. As these apps collect more user data over time, predictive algorithms can offer better-tailored recommendations, risk assessments, and notifications for each woman based on patterns in her own health history and demographics. Chatbot capabilities are also continuously expanding.

Compatibility with inexpensive, accessible wearable trackers and sensors allows maternal apps to collect biometrics like heart rate in real-time rather than rely on manual data entry. Syncing data from smartwatches, bands, and rings provides richer, more reliable trend analysis. As wearables evolve, tighter integration will emerge.

Widespread adoption of thoughtfully designed, inclusive maternal health apps over the next decade has the potential to revolutionize women’s access to vital prenatal through postpartum support and advice globally. Apps promise to nurture mentally and physically healthier mothers and babies by connecting them to the formal health sector, their communities, and health knowledge in unprecedented ways, significantly driving down preventable morbidity and mortality.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Mobile Health Apps for Maternal Health

1. What are mobile health (mHealth) apps for maternal health, and how do they assist expectant and new mothers?Mobile health apps for maternal health are digital tools designed to support women through their pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care. They offer a range of features such as educational content, health tracking, telemedicine consultations, and interactive tools for understanding pregnancy stages and fetal development. These apps provide continuous access to vital health information, assist in tracking important health metrics, and enable remote consultations with healthcare professionals.
2. How do educational features in maternal health mobile apps benefit pregnant and postpartum women?The educational features in these apps provide women with crucial information on various aspects of pregnancy and postpartum care. They offer guidance on nutrition, lifestyle precautions, danger signs during pregnancy, and postnatal care. Interactive tools like 3D models and gestational trackers help women understand their pregnancy stages better. This continuous access to information promotes positive health behaviors and outcomes.
3. Can maternal health mobile apps replace regular visits to healthcare providers?No, these apps are not intended to replace regular visits to healthcare providers. Instead, they supplement traditional care by providing additional resources and support. They enable remote monitoring and telemedicine consultations, which can be particularly beneficial for women in remote areas or those with limited access to healthcare. However, regular in-person check-ups are crucial for a healthy pregnancy and should not be replaced by app-based care.
4. What kind of health metrics can maternal health mobile apps track, and how does this help?These apps can track a variety of health metrics, such as blood pressure, blood glucose levels, weight, and fetal movements. By syncing with Bluetooth-enabled health devices, these apps allow for accurate and continuous monitoring of these metrics. This can lead to early detection of potential health issues like gestational diabetes or hypertension, enabling timely intervention and management.
5. What future innovations are expected in the field of maternal health apps?Future innovations in maternal health apps include the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning to personalize care and optimize app features. These technologies can enhance predictive capabilities and provide more tailored recommendations and notifications. There is also a growing trend towards compatibility with wearable trackers and sensors, allowing for real-time collection of biometrics, which can offer more comprehensive health monitoring and analysis.

The healthcare industry is embarking on a new digital transformation. Innovations in health technology over the past decade have paved the way for improved care through more accurate, efficient, and engaging services. At the forefront of this transformation are advances like the electronic prescription and the digitized patient health record. These two technical innovations are changing the game in healthcare administration and delivery.

Digital prescriptions allow doctors to send accurate prescription directives straight to pharmacies electronically, avoiding any confusion from illegible handwriting. This reduces dangerous medical errors and allows patients to seamlessly manage prescriptions across different pharmacies using smartphone apps. Likewise, electronic health records compile a comprehensive medical history in one place to coordinate care between different providers. This improves accuracy and efficiency compared to paper files.

Beyond just administrative upgrades, new health technologies also empower patients to more actively participate in their own care. Features like patient portals, telehealth visits, and wearable device integration engage people in monitoring and managing their health from anywhere. As digital healthcare continues to expand its reach, it promises more accurate diagnoses, lower costs, and better patient outcomes. The emerging infrastructure paves the way for a more consumer-centric model of healthcare going forward. Clearly, innovations like e-prescriptions and digital records are vital first steps in this digital health transformation.

After reading this article, you’ll:

• Grasp the fundamentals of third-party API integration in healthcare apps, including types of APIs, their protocols, and how they function in different healthcare contexts.
• Gain a balanced understanding of the pros and cons of using third-party APIs in healthcare applications, enabling informed decision-making for secure and compliant integrations.
• Acquire practical guidelines and best practices for successful API integration, from choosing scalable and trusted APIs to setting up backup API providers for uninterrupted service.

In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, the integration of APIs and third-party services is becoming increasingly vital. These integrations facilitate seamless data exchange, enhance functionalities, and provide opportunities for healthcare apps to be more versatile and user-friendly. This article outlines the best practices for integrating APIs and third-party services in healthcare apps, covering the types of APIs, selection criteria, pros and cons, and compliance with healthcare regulations. Whether you are a healthcare provider, a software developer, or a stakeholder looking to optimize healthcare operations, this guide offers key insights to make the most out of your API integrations.

Integrating APIs and third-party services with the help of a healthcare app development company is not just a technical exercise; it is a critical strategy for delivering high-quality, efficient, and secure healthcare services. By doing so, you can extend your app’s capabilities, ensuring a better user experience, greater operational efficiency, and compliance with various healthcare regulations.

What are APIs?

APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, act as intermediaries that allow different software applications to communicate with each other. In the context of healthcare, APIs facilitate the exchange of information between various systems and applications—be it electronic health records (EHR), billing systems, or patient engagement platforms. By leveraging APIs, developers can quickly add functionalities like data storage, prescription fulfillment, and analytics to healthcare apps without having to build these components from scratch. Thus, APIs offer a streamlined approach to enhance both the service scope and the efficiency of healthcare applications.

Types of APIs

Understanding the different types of APIs is crucial when developing healthcare apps. The choice of API can have implications for functionality, scalability, and security. Here’s an overview of the common types of APIs you’ll encounter in the healthcare sector.

Public APIs

Public APIs are openly available for developers and other users with minimal restrictions. They are designed to be easily accessible and provide a piece of software that can be readily integrated into different projects. In healthcare, public APIs might offer functionalities like symptom checking or generic drug information. However, due to potential security risks and limited customization, public APIs are often not suitable for handling sensitive healthcare data.

Partner APIs

Partner APIs are designed for specific business use-cases and require special rights or licenses to access. They offer more robust security measures and are often tailored to specific healthcare needs, such as integrating electronic health records or insurance billing systems. These APIs usually have restricted access to pre-approved parties, ensuring a more controlled data exchange environment, which is essential in the healthcare industry.

Internal APIs

Also known as “private APIs,” these are developed for internal use within an organization. Internal APIs can be extremely useful for healthcare providers who use multiple software systems that need to communicate with one another. For example, a hospital might use an internal API to connect its patient records system with its billing software. Since these APIs are not exposed to external users, they offer the highest level of security but lack the broad-scale efficiencies gained from public or partner APIs.

Composite APIs

Composite APIs allow developers to access multiple endpoints in one call, effectively combining different data and service APIs. These can be used to create more complex functionalities like simultaneously updating patient records, billing for services, and notifying healthcare providers of changes. In a healthcare setting, composite APIs can optimize workflows and improve operational efficiency by executing multiple tasks with a single API request.

Choosing the right type of API depends on multiple factors such as the required functionality, the level of security needed, and how widely the API will be used. Understanding these types is the first step toward effective integration.

How do APIs work: protocols and architectures

APIs operate on specific protocols and architectures that dictate how data is exchanged between systems. Understanding these technical foundations is essential for selecting the most appropriate API for your healthcare app’s unique needs. Below, we explore some of the most commonly used protocols and architectures, namely REST, SOAP, and RPC.

REST (Representational State Transfer)

REST is one of the most popular API architectures due to its simplicity and scalability. In a RESTful API, each URL represents an object, and HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) define actions on those objects. REST APIs are stateless, meaning each request from the client contains all the information needed to process it. RESTful APIs are often preferred in healthcare for their ease of integration, modularity, and wide community support. They are commonly used for web services like patient portals and health information exchanges.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)

SOAP is another widely used protocol, especially in enterprise settings that require robust security and ACID-compliant transactions. Unlike REST, SOAP operates through XML-based messaging and involves more rigid standards and operations. SOAP APIs are well-suited for complex operations, such as those requiring high levels of security and transactions that involve multiple steps. In healthcare, SOAP is often used for exchanging information in a secure and standardized manner across different healthcare systems.

RPC (Remote Procedural Call)

RPC is one of the older protocols for APIs and is based on the concept of executing a program or procedure on another system across the network. Unlike REST, which is resource-centric, RPC is action-oriented, focusing on what actions to take. RPC APIs can use multiple data formats, including XML and JSON. However, they are less common in modern healthcare apps due to their rigidity and the prevalence of REST and SOAP, which offer greater flexibility and standardization.

Choosing the right protocol and architecture for your API depends on various factors like security requirements, the complexity of tasks, and integration needs. Understanding the capabilities and limitations of each will help you make a more informed decision.

How to Choose the Right API Protocol for Your Third-Party Integration

Choosing the right API protocol is a pivotal decision when integrating third-party services into your healthcare application. Your choice will impact not only the functionalities you can offer but also the app’s performance, security, and compliance with healthcare regulations. Here are some key considerations to guide your decision-making process:

1. Functionality Needs: Evaluate what you need the API to accomplish. REST is often more suitable for web services and applications that require CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations. SOAP is more apt for complex transactions that involve multiple steps, like certain billing operations in healthcare. RPC may be beneficial for action-specific tasks, though it’s less commonly used nowadays.
2. Security Requirements: Security is of paramount importance in healthcare. If you require stringent security measures, SOAP’s built-in security features via WS-Security may be advantageous. REST can also be secured but would usually require additional layers of security protocols.
3. Interoperability: Consider how well the API needs to play with other systems. SOAP has been around for a longer time and is often used in legacy systems, which may make it a better fit for integrating with older healthcare systems. REST is generally easier to work with and has become the standard for most new web services.
4. Scalability: If your app will require scaling, RESTful APIs are generally more flexible and easier to scale. Their stateless nature and modular architecture allow for better load balancing and simpler caching mechanisms.
5. Ease of Use: If speed and ease of development are critical, REST is usually simpler to implement, requiring less rigid contracts and formalities than SOAP.
6. Compliance: Last but not least, make sure the API you choose is compliant with healthcare standards and regulations like HIPAA in the U.S. or GDPR in Europe. Both SOAP and REST can be compliant but check if the third-party service has necessary certifications.
7. Community and Support: Finally, consider the ecosystem around the API. A larger community often means more extensive documentation and a greater pool of experienced developers.

By carefully weighing these factors based on your specific needs, you can choose the API protocol that best suits your healthcare app’s third-party integration requirements.

Pros and Cons of Third-Party APIs for Healthcare Apps

Third-party APIs can be a game-changer in healthcare apps, enabling rapid development, extended functionalities, and enhanced user experiences. However, while they come with several advantages, there are also downsides to be aware of, especially in a sensitive field like healthcare.

Pros of Third-Party APIs for Healthcare Apps

1. Rapid Development: Leveraging third-party APIs allows developers to implement complex functionalities without having to build them from scratch, thus speeding up the development process.
2. Cost-Efficiency: Developing custom functionalities can be expensive and time-consuming. Third-party APIs often provide a more cost-effective way to add specialized services to healthcare apps.
3. Scalability: Many third-party APIs are designed to handle a broad range of scales, making it easier for your app to grow and adapt to increased user demand without requiring substantial changes to the underlying architecture.
4. Feature-Rich: APIs can bring a plethora of features that may otherwise be too resource-intensive to develop, such as advanced analytics, telemedicine capabilities, and real-time data synchronization.
5. Compliance and Security: Reputable third-party APIs in the healthcare sector often come with built-in compliance for regulations like HIPAA, making it easier to maintain high levels of data security and patient privacy.
6. Interoperability: With APIs designed to interface smoothly with existing healthcare systems like Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM), integration challenges can be significantly reduced.

Cons of Third-Party APIs for Healthcare Apps

1. Security Risks: While many third-party APIs offer robust security, introducing external services can create vulnerabilities, especially if the API provider does not meet healthcare compliance standards.
2. Limited Control: When you use a third-party API, you’re dependent on another entity for that segment of your service. If they experience downtime, make unfavorable updates, or discontinue their service, it directly affects your app.
3. Cost Over Time: While third-party APIs may reduce upfront development costs, their subscription or usage fees can add up over time, making them potentially more expensive in the long run.
4. Data Privacy: Utilizing external services often means that you’re entrusting sensitive patient data to a third party, which could raise concerns about data ownership and privacy.
5. Complexity and Learning Curve: Each API comes with its own set of rules, documentation, and intricacies that your development team needs to learn, which could slow down the development process initially.
6. Vendor Lock-in: Some APIs may use proprietary data formats or protocols that make it difficult to switch providers later on, thereby limiting your flexibility.

Understanding these pros and cons will enable you to make a more informed decision when integrating third-party APIs into your healthcare app. It’s critical to assess each API’s capabilities and limitations in the context of your specific requirements and constraints.

Best Practices for Third-Party API Integrations

Successfully integrating third-party APIs into your healthcare app requires more than just selecting the right API. Following best practices can help you get the most out of these integrations while mitigating potential risks.

Look Through The API Documentation

Before integrating an API, it’s crucial to thoroughly read and understand its documentation. Good documentation should provide clear information on how to set up the API, its functionalities, required parameters, and security features. This will give you a solid foundation for successful integration and help you identify any limitations or special requirements upfront.

Only Work With Trusted and Well-Tested APIs

Given the sensitive nature of healthcare data, it’s essential to only work with reputable API providers. Look for APIs that have a proven track record in the healthcare sector and are compliant with regulations like HIPAA. Checking reviews, case studies, and asking for recommendations can help you find trusted providers.

Select Scalable APIs

Your healthcare app will likely grow over time, so choosing an API that can scale to meet your future needs is vital. Scalable APIs should offer robust performance and quick response times, even as request volumes increase. They should also allow for easy addition of new features without requiring a complete overhaul of your existing system.

Test The API Yourself

Never assume an API will work perfectly with your healthcare app without testing it first. Run the API in a controlled environment to evaluate its performance, reliability, and security. This not only helps you identify potential issues before they become major problems but also allows you to better understand how the API will interact with your existing infrastructure.

Have a Backup API Provider

Even the most reliable APIs can experience downtime or other issues. Having a backup API provider can help you maintain service continuity in such scenarios. It’s good practice to have contingency plans and failover mechanisms in place, so you can switch to an alternate provider with minimal disruption.

By adhering to these best practices, you can greatly increase the likelihood of successful API integration, ensuring that your healthcare app remains reliable, secure, and capable of delivering high-quality service to its users.

Top 3 Use Cases For Third-Party APIs in Healthcare Apps

The use of third-party APIs can significantly extend the capabilities of healthcare apps, making them more robust, feature-rich, and user-friendly. Here are three compelling use cases where APIs can make a significant difference.

Healthcare Data Storage API

Storing healthcare data securely and efficiently is crucial. Third-party APIs specializing in healthcare data storage often come with built-in security features and are HIPAA-compliant, reducing the burden on developers to build these features from scratch. Such APIs offer scalable solutions to store patient records, test results, and other sensitive information securely in the cloud, thereby enabling seamless access for authorized personnel and enhancing patient care.

Prescription Fulfillment API

Prescription fulfillment APIs enable healthcare apps to integrate directly with pharmacies and medication distribution networks. These APIs facilitate electronic prescription services, allowing doctors to send prescriptions directly to pharmacies, which can then notify patients when their medication is ready for pickup or delivery. This adds a layer of convenience and efficiency, making medication management easier for both healthcare providers and patients.

Analytics API

Analytics play a crucial role in healthcare for tracking patient outcomes, resource allocation, and treatment effectiveness. Third-party analytics APIs can be integrated into healthcare apps to provide advanced data analysis and visualization capabilities. These APIs can help generate real-time reports, dashboards, and alerts, enabling healthcare providers to make more informed decisions based on comprehensive data insights.

By leveraging these types of third-party APIs, healthcare apps can offer more comprehensive services, from secure data storage to efficient prescription fulfillment and advanced analytics, thus providing immense value to both healthcare providers and patients.

Integrating third-party APIs into healthcare apps can offer numerous benefits, such as rapid development, enhanced features, and cost-efficiency. However, it’s crucial to approach this integration with due diligence, given the sensitive nature of healthcare data and the regulatory landscape. By understanding the types of APIs available, choosing the appropriate protocol, weighing the pros and cons, and adhering to best practices, healthcare apps can successfully leverage third-party APIs to deliver robust, secure, and highly functional services. With the right approach, these APIs can significantly elevate the quality of care and patient experience.

• CRM in healthcare is a comprehensive approach to managing patient data, interactions, and relationships, offering numerous benefits such as personalized care, improved patient engagement, efficient operations, and increased revenue for healthcare organizations.
• Implementing CRM in healthcare can be challenging, but by following best practices such as developing a clear strategy, involving end-users, prioritizing data privacy, and providing robust training, organizations can successfully implement CRM systems and maximize their benefits.
• When choosing the best healthcare CRM software, it is crucial to consider factors such as goals, needs, budget, features, compliance, and security. Partnering with a company like Dogtown Media can help healthcare organizations develop a custom CRM app tailored to their specific requirements, ensuring seamless integration, compliance, and user-friendly design.

What does CRM stand for in Healthcare?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management in the context of healthcare. CRM is a system or a set of strategies and technologies that healthcare organizations use to manage their interactions and relationships with patients. It helps healthcare providers offer personalized care, improve patient engagement, and enhance overall healthcare outcomes. Dogtown Media works closely with healthcare organizations to develop a variety of mHealth apps.

What is CRM in Healthcare?

CRM in healthcare is a comprehensive approach to managing patient data, interactions, and relationships, leveraging technology and data analysis to deliver better, more personalized care. Healthcare CRM systems typically include tools for managing patient records, appointment scheduling, communication, and marketing activities, helping providers maintain a continuous and meaningful relationship with their patients. CRMs can be incredibly useful in remote patient monitoring as well. The importance of CRM in healthcare can be attributed to the following factors:

Enhanced patient experience: By streamlining communication and offering personalized care, CRM systems improve patient satisfaction and experience.

Improved patient engagement: CRM systems enable healthcare providers to proactively engage with their patients, promoting adherence to treatment plans and increasing the likelihood of positive health outcomes.

Data-driven decision-making: CRM systems collect and analyze patient data to provide insights that inform decision-making, leading to better healthcare delivery and resource allocation.

Efficient operations: By automating routine tasks and centralizing patient information, CRM systems help healthcare organizations reduce operational inefficiencies and save time.

Increased revenue: CRM systems help healthcare providers identify opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling services, leading to increased revenue and business growth.

Types of patient data collected through CRM

Healthcare CRM systems collect various types of patient data to create a comprehensive profile of each patient. Some of the common types of patient data collected include:

Demographic information: This includes the patient’s age, gender, address, contact information, and insurance details.

Medical history: Information about the patient’s past medical issues, treatments, medications, and surgeries.

Health behaviors: Lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet, and substance use that can impact the patient’s health.

Appointment and visit history: Records of past appointments, visit reasons, and outcomes.

Communication history: Details of past interactions between the patient and the healthcare organization, such as phone calls, emails, and text messages.

Billing and payment information: Financial details related to the patient’s insurance coverage and payment history.

Importance of patient data management

Patient data management is crucial in healthcare CRM for several reasons:

Personalized care: Having a comprehensive understanding of a patient’s history and preferences enables healthcare providers to tailor care plans and treatment options.

Continuity of care: Effective patient data management ensures that all healthcare providers involved in a patient’s care have access to the same information, leading to better coordination and continuity of care.

Improved outcomes: Data-driven insights can help healthcare providers identify potential health risks, leading to early intervention and better health outcomes.

Regulatory compliance: Proper management of patient data is essential for meeting data protection and privacy regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States.

Enhanced patient trust: Efficient patient data management demonstrates an organization’s commitment to protecting patient information and respecting their privacy, leading to increased trust and loyalty.

Benefits of CRM in healthcare

CRM systems offer numerous benefits to healthcare organizations, allowing them to improve patient care, enhance operational efficiency, and foster stronger patient relationships. Some of the key benefits of CRM in healthcare include:

Customized communication with patients

CRM systems enable healthcare providers to tailor their communication with patients based on their individual needs and preferences. By segmenting patients based on factors such as demographics, health conditions, or treatment history, providers can send targeted messages, updates, and reminders, increasing the relevance and effectiveness of their communication efforts. Customized communication also helps build trust and rapport, leading to better patient-provider relationships.

Enhanced patient engagement

CRM systems facilitate proactive engagement with patients by tracking their health status and care journey, allowing healthcare providers to intervene at the right time with the appropriate support. This can include reminders for appointments, medication refills, or preventive screenings, as well as personalized health tips and resources. Increased patient engagement leads to better adherence to treatment plans and improved health outcomes.

Improved patient experience

By centralizing patient information and automating routine tasks, CRM systems streamline healthcare operations, reducing wait times, and ensuring a smoother patient experience. Additionally, CRM tools can help healthcare providers identify areas for improvement in their services, such as appointment scheduling, communication channels, or billing processes, ultimately leading to increased patient satisfaction.

Efficient appointment scheduling

CRM systems often include appointment scheduling tools that enable healthcare providers to manage appointments efficiently and minimize scheduling conflicts. Patients can conveniently book, reschedule, or cancel appointments through online portals or mobile apps, while providers can optimize their schedules to ensure optimal patient flow and resource utilization. Automated reminders also reduce the likelihood of no-shows and last-minute cancellations, improving overall operational efficiency.

Effective patient education

CRM systems can be used to deliver targeted educational content to patients based on their specific needs, health conditions, or treatment plans. By providing relevant information and resources, healthcare providers can empower patients to take an active role in managing their health and make informed decisions about their care. Effective patient education can lead to improved understanding of health issues, better adherence to treatment plans, and ultimately, better health outcomes.

Implementing CRM in Healthcare

Implementing a CRM system in a healthcare organization can be a complex and challenging process, requiring careful planning, coordination, and execution. Understanding the potential challenges and adhering to best practices can help ensure a successful implementation and maximize the benefits of the CRM system.

Challenges of implementing CRM in healthcare

Some common challenges associated with implementing CRM in healthcare include:

Data privacy and security: Ensuring the protection of sensitive patient information is a top priority for healthcare organizations. Implementing CRM systems must be done in compliance with data protection regulations, such as HIPAA in the United States, which can be a challenging and time-consuming process.

Integration with existing systems: Integrating the CRM system with other healthcare IT systems, such as electronic health records (EHRs), billing systems, or laboratory information systems, can be complex and may require significant customization and development efforts.

Change management: Implementing a CRM system may require changes in organizational processes, workflows, and employee roles, which can be met with resistance from staff. Effective change management strategies are necessary to address these challenges and ensure a smooth transition.

Staff training: Ensuring that healthcare staff are trained and proficient in using the CRM system is critical for its successful implementation. However, training can be time-consuming and may require additional resources.

Data quality and accuracy: For a CRM system to be effective, the data it contains must be accurate and up-to-date. Ensuring data quality can be challenging, especially when data is sourced from multiple systems or entered manually by staff.

Best practices for successful implementation

To overcome the challenges of implementing CRM in healthcare and ensure a successful outcome, organizations should follow these best practices:

Develop a clear strategy: Begin by defining the objectives and goals of the CRM implementation, identifying the key stakeholders, and outlining a detailed project plan.

Involve end-users in the process: Engage healthcare staff and other end-users in the selection, design, and implementation of the CRM system. This will help to ensure that the system meets their needs, is user-friendly, and is more likely to be adopted.

Prioritize data privacy and security: Conduct thorough risk assessments, establish strict data protection policies, and ensure that the CRM system complies with relevant regulations to protect patient information and maintain trust.

Test and validate system integrations: Rigorously test the integration of the CRM system with existing healthcare IT systems to ensure data consistency, accuracy, and seamless workflows.

Implement a robust training program: Provide comprehensive training for healthcare staff on the use of the CRM system, including ongoing support and resources for continuous learning and improvement.

Monitor and evaluate progress: Regularly assess the performance of the CRM system and its impact on patient care, engagement, and operational efficiency. Use these insights to inform continuous improvement efforts and adjust the CRM strategy as needed.

By following these best practices, healthcare organizations can successfully implement CRM systems, overcome common challenges, and realize the full potential of CRM in enhancing patient care and organizational performance.

Common features of healthcare CRM software

A healthcare CRM system typically includes a range of features designed to improve patient care, enhance operational efficiency, and foster stronger patient relationships. Some common features of healthcare CRM system include:

Patient database: A centralized repository for storing and managing patient information, including demographics, medical history, and communication preferences.

Appointment scheduling: Tools for managing patient appointments, reducing scheduling conflicts, and optimizing resource utilization.

Communication tools: Features that facilitate seamless communication with patients, such as email, text messaging, and secure patient portals.

Marketing automation: Tools for creating and managing targeted marketing campaigns, tracking patient interactions, and measuring campaign performance.

Analytics and reporting: Features that provide insights into patient behavior, preferences, and health outcomes, enabling data-driven decision-making.

Task management: Tools for managing and tracking tasks, such as patient follow-ups, appointment reminders, and billing activities.

Integration capabilities: The ability to integrate with existing healthcare IT systems, such as electronic health records (EHRs), billing systems, and laboratory information systems.

How to choose the best healthcare CRM software?

Choosing the best healthcare CRM software for your organization involves considering various factors and evaluating different solutions based on your specific needs and requirements. Here are some tips for selecting the best healthcare CRM software:

Define your goals and objectives: Determine the primary goals and objectives of your CRM implementation, such as improving patient engagement, enhancing operational efficiency, or increasing revenue.

Assess your organization’s needs: Evaluate your organization’s specific needs, such as integration with existing systems, scalability, or customization capabilities.

Consider your budget: Establish a budget for your healthcare CRM implementation, taking into account software costs, implementation services, staff training, and ongoing maintenance.

Evaluate features and functionality: Compare the features and functionality of different healthcare customer relationship management systems, focusing on those that align with your organization’s goals and needs.

Check for compliance and security: Ensure that the CRM software complies with relevant data protection and privacy regulations and has robust security features in place.

Request product demonstrations: Request demonstrations or trial periods for the healthcare CRM solutions you are considering, allowing your staff to evaluate the software’s usability and effectiveness.

Read user reviews and seek references: Research user reviews and seek references from other healthcare organizations that have implemented the CRM software to gain insights into the solution’s performance and potential challenges.

CRM in healthcare has emerged as an essential tool for improving patient care, enhancing operational efficiency, and fostering stronger patient-provider relationships. By leveraging CRM systems, healthcare organizations can better manage patient data, deliver personalized care, and engage patients more effectively.

The future potential of customer relationship management in healthcare is promising, with ongoing advancements in technology, data analytics, and artificial intelligence paving the way for even more sophisticated and personalized patient care experiences.

When choosing a healthcare CRM software, it is important to consider factors such as goals, needs, budget, features, compliance, and security. By following best practices and carefully evaluating potential solutions, organizations in the healthcare industry can successfully implement CRM systems that deliver significant benefits for both patients and providers.

Healthcare organizations should embrace CRM as a valuable tool for improving patient care, engagement, and satisfaction. By investing in the right CRM solution and following best practices for implementation, healthcare providers can unlock the full potential of CRM to enhance their operations and drive better health outcomes for their patients.

Dogtown Media, a leading mobile app development company, specializes in creating custom healthcare CRM apps tailored to the specific requirements of healthcare organizations. With a deep understanding of the healthcare industry and a track record of delivering innovative, secure, and user-friendly mobile solutions, Dogtown Media is the ideal partner for organizations looking to develop a CRM app that meets their needs and drives better health outcomes for their patients.

By working closely with healthcare organizations, Dogtown Media can help identify the key features and functionality required in a healthcare CRM app, ensuring seamless integration with existing systems and full compliance with data protection regulations. Additionally, Dogtown Media’s expertise in user experience design ensures that the CRM app will be intuitive and user-friendly, promoting high adoption rates among staff and maximizing the benefits of the healthcare CRM system.

Heart disease is a serious and widespread health concern, with millions of people suffering from one or more heart-related conditions every year. While there is no single cause of heart disease, there are several common risk factors, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise. 

To help address these issues, a number of new strategies have been developed to support and promote cardiovascular health. These include everything from new medications and surgical procedures to dietary supplements and lifestyle changes. Innovations in medical wearables and apps have allowed us to track our heart rate, monitor our sleep patterns, and identify potential risks for developing cardiovascular issues.

Using a combination of wearable technology and healthcare applications, healthcare organizations can improve patient cardiovascular outcomes. Dogtown Media works closely with healthcare organizations to develop a number of mHealth applications for various purposes. 

Moving Towards Wearables and mHealth Apps

In today’s digital age, healthcare is rapidly shifting towards a more data-driven approach. Many hospitals and clinics are increasingly relying on medical wearables and health apps to track patients’ vital signs and monitor diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. These devices allow doctors to closely monitor cardiac health and track trends over time, giving them valuable insights into individual patient needs. What’s more, many apps can also automatically sync with electronic medical records, allowing for easier sharing of information among providers.

These tools can not only provide important insights into a patient’s health, but they can also alert doctors or other care providers if there are any abnormalities or potential risks. For example, devices that measure heart rate variability can identify excessive stress in the cardiovascular system and help to identify patients who may be at risk for heart attacks or strokes. Additionally, apps that track food intake and physical activity patterns can provide valuable information on dietary habits and exercise regimens that may be contributing to poor cardiac health. 

How mHealth Apps can Improve Cardiac Health

mHealth apps can be incredibly beneficial for cardiac health, as they allow users to monitor, track, and analyze their heart rate and other important cardiovascular markers. Not only do these apps help to identify potential issues via real-time data collection and analysis, but they also empower users to take control of their own cardiac health.

By providing personalized recommendations and interventions based on each user’s specific needs, mHealth apps can help individuals improve their heart health through better diet, exercise, and sleep habits. Additionally, these apps can be used in conjunction with other medical treatments to help monitor and optimize their effectiveness, providing invaluable support for patients coping with cardiac issues.

Challenges to this Trend

There are a number of challenges that currently hinder the widespread adoption of smart, wearable technologies in clinical practice for cardiac health. One major obstacle is the accuracy of these devices, which can be lacking when it comes to sensing and monitoring important data such as heart rate and blood pressure. 

Additionally, these devices must be clinically validated in order to provide reliable data on a patient’s cardiac health status. Furthermore, there is a lack of standardized regulatory policies governing the development and use of mHealth apps and wearables. Without clear guidelines, it is difficult to ensure that these devices are both user-friendly and secure from potential privacy risks.

However, despite these challenges, there are many reasons why designing effective mHealth apps and wearables for patients with cardiac health concerns is crucial. For one, these devices have the potential to improve outcomes for patients by giving them easier access to their medical records, testing results, and therapies via intuitive interfaces that are also easy to learn. 

Additionally, ensuring that these technologies maintain high levels of data security can help patients feel more confident sharing their information with clinicians as well as other users of the app or platform. In order to successfully overcome the obstacles facing mHealth applications in cardiology and improve patient outcomes, it will be essential to continue investing in research and development efforts aimed at improving device accuracy with clinical validation, standardizing regulatory requirements for optimal usability and safety, and enhancing privacy protections through encryption tools that safeguard sensitive data. 

Through collaboration between technology companies and healthcare providers, we will be able to design truly effective solutions that facilitate improved heart health management for patients living with chronic conditions such as coronary artery disease or atrial fibrillation. Dogtown Media works with healthcare organizations to develop iPhone applications and Android applications to meet the needs of patients.

Here are five healthcare applications that emerged before the pandemic but are now being accelerated by the coronavirus.

The Patient Experience

The vast majority (85%) of leaders polled think that technology has become inseparable from the human experience. And they’re correct; patients expect more from digital experiences today across retail, social media, and even healthcare services like online appointment booking and telehealth appointments.

Patients want more personalized experiences from their healthcare providers, and they want to feel important and seen. Not only that, but they also want to feel protected by the healthcare system. 70% of healthcare consumers polled were concerned about commercial tracking and data privacy in their online behaviors, activity, interests, and location. 70% of healthcare consumers polled said they expect their relationship with technology to become more prominent in the next three years.

Dr. Kaveh Safavi, a Chicago-based physician and lawyer, is a senior managing director of Accenture’s Health team. He says that the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the intersection between healthcare experiences and digital technology. According to Dr. Safavi, “Leading the future of care will demand rethinking core assumptions about the intersection of people and technology.”

Because people’s relationship with and perceptions of technology are evolving, the healthcare system must adapt by redesigning digital experiences.

AI in Healthcare

Many leading healthcare organizations are using AI and other algorithmic technology to improve their existing workflows and automate their operations processes. With well-designed human-AI collaboration, the patient and provider experience can blossom into a fruitful and long-term relationship.

Accenture’s research found that 69% of healthcare executives polled are already adopting or piloting artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Patients interfacing with AI will experience fluid interactions between themselves and the machine.

But we must be careful to consciously design AI medical applications with human-centered design principles and easy-to-use features. Indeed, only 39% of executives polled said they’ve included human-centric design principles or inclusive design to support a large variety of patient interactions.

A Growing Internet of Medical Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) encompasses a wide variety of devices, sensors, software, and industries. And now there’s a subset of IoT development that includes the vast amount of equipment, sensors, thresholds, and procedures involved in healthcare and medicine. Industries outside of healthcare are beginning to launch products that can be updated with the ability to expand experiences and services in the future, which affords customers flexibility when their needs, expectations, and demands change.

Healthcare should be the next industry to offer this new type of product to customers, working to offer patients adaptable products and ecosystems that can accommodate ongoing changes and updates. This type of “co-ownership” product, wherein the company and the customer are connected closely throughout the lifetime of the product, is becoming indispensable in the race against the pandemic.

Disruptive DNA Innovation

Innovation DNA differs from regular human DNA in that it has nothing to do with genetics. Instead, innovation DNA refers to an organization as it grows to accommodate the future: scientific advancements that are disruptive but discrete; maturing digital technology that is accessible and more commoditized; and the use of emerging technologies like blockchain, augmented and virtual reality, AI, and quantum computing to scale rapidly.

Helpful Robots

Robots are no longer confined to warehouses and factory floors. They’re a major lifeline for hospital staff these days, offering sanitization, vital measurement, and visitor information for hospital patients and visitors. With the imminent rollout of 5G technology and the ever-decreasing cost of hardware, robotics will become more and more ubiquitous outside of the warehouse and other production facilities.

71% of the executives polled think that robotics will enable the next generation of products and services for patients in the physical world. In healthcare, staff is stretched extremely thin already, so there is no end to the potential for robotics applications. But 54% of executives polled believe that their employees will face challenges in figuring out how to work with them. Dr. Safavi adds, “As robotic capabilities extend beyond controlled environments, healthcare organizations will face new challenges around talent investments, data collection, and human-machine interaction and collaboration.”

Healthcare’s Finally Evolving With the Times

Technology, especially outside of healthcare, is evolving and becoming more necessary for our lives. That’s why it is so impactful when applied to healthcare: it augments and greatly improves a service of which we’re already lifelong customers. 78% of leaders polled said they believe the stakes for innovation are the highest they’ve ever been, and “getting it right” is going to necessitate new innovations with organizations across many industries.

The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating technology to break new boundaries more than ever before. To stay in the game, healthcare organizations must explore and apply emerging technologies to their products and services to improve the patient and medical experience.

What do you think of COVID-19’s effect on medical technology? As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

There’s no shortage of hype surrounding 5G. Per the June 2019 Ericsson Mobility Report, “No previous generation of mobile technology has had the potential to drive economic growth to the extent that 5G promises.” Now, this potential is finally becoming a reality. 5G is poised to disrupt practically every industry. But the fifth generation of cellular technology may not be here as soon as you think. A few obstacles stand in the way of 5G’s arrival. Still, opportunities abound for ambitious entrepreneurs.

How 5G Will Usher in a New Era for Numerous Industries

Qualcomm claims 5G will reach initial download speeds of 1.4 gigabits per second. That’s about 20 times faster than 4G. Latency, the lag you experience when issuing a command to your smartphone, is also important to consider. A lag of a few hundred milliseconds is common with 4G. 5G will trim this down to a couple of milliseconds, making data transferring much more reliable.

This unprecedented speed and reliability will change the landscape of technology. 5G will open up a multitude of avenues for developers to build new mobile app features. It will also enable new capabilities in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

By allowing algorithms to expand their training datasets and run analyses concurrently, 5G will foster faster innovation and growth for AI and machine learning applications. The enriched insights and heightened precision that this produces will immensely improve the orchestra of sensors that IoT relies on.

Various sectors will benefit from these advantages. Smart cities and connected autonomous vehicles will become more viable. Virtual reality goggles will dwindle in size to resemble the devices we’ve seen in science fiction. We’ll be able to experience augmented reality in real-time. And manufacturing supply chains around the world will be able to optimize every step in their process.

5G will also transform healthcare applications. MRI machines and blood pressure monitors will be able to transfer data without delay. Surgeons will be able to operate remotely with no latency between their movements and those of a corresponding robotic arm. 5G will also save you a trip to the doctor’shttps://www.dogtownmedia.com/app-development-services/healthcare-app-developer/ office; telemedicine is expected to grow at an annual compound rate of 16.5% from 2017 to 2023, thanks to this technology. All of this adds up to better experiences and outcomes for patients.

Tempering Expectations

To reach the reality described above, we must address a few substantial challenges. Building 5G applications simply isn’t practical yet. Only the most prominent telecom companies have access to 5G kits, and only a handful of phones are 5G-enabled. In fact, 44% of telecom companies that responded to a survey by JABIL don’t have the proper tools for testing and managing 5G applications.

In a survey of 204 executives working at telecommunications companies with over 1,000 employees working on 5G network development, Jabil found that 53% of respondents believed 5G’s sheer complexity would be the greatest challenge to overcome. This problem becomes more convoluted when you consider that mobile carriers are providing different iterations of 5G as they try to capture market share as quickly as possible. Consequently, developers can’t define what 5G actually is; we’re stuck playing a guessing game.

To make matters worse, the vast majority of developers don’t have access to 5G infrastructure. Besides new software and devices, 5G requires hundreds of thousands of cell sites. Installing this infrastructure easily amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars in costs.

So when should we really expect 5G to become mainstream? According to 60% of Jabil’s survey participants, that should happen by 2021. 20% think it will occur in 2022. And 11% are patiently waiting until 2023 for 5G to become ubiquitous.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining to all of this.

How Entrepreneurs Can Get Ready for 5G

Regardless of when 5G arrives, entrepreneurs can take steps now to prepare for this new mobile era:

1. Practice with Simulations

You may not have access to true 5G network capabilities. But that doesn’t mean you can’t replicate them. For instance, Dogtown Media, my mobile technology firm, has used tools like the Raspberry Pi device and DIY kits such as Framework to simulate 5G’s rapid data transfer capabilities in a development environment. Beyond this, Qualcomm and some telecom consulting companies now offer services that enable developers to simulate 5G experiences.

These substitutes are usually much slower than the real thing. But they still give you a great way to practice.

2. Plan for Two User Experiences

5G adoption will be piecemeal. Major telecoms aren’t incentivized to make the costly infrastructure investments necessary to bring this technology to rural areas immediately. So a large amount of the U.S. population will have to make do with slower networks.

To bridge this digital divide, development teams should plan on creating 4G and 5G experiences of their products. By tailoring your offerings to this reality, you can capture more of the market share.

3. Brace Your Budget for More Work

All of this extra work to make two user experiences requires more time, effort, and money. So plan ahead accordingly by increasing your development budgets by 20% to 50%.

Users who travel across coverage areas may instantly downgrade or upgrade to different networks as a result. To accommodate this and provide a seamless experience, technologies must be flexible and capable of automatically detecting connectivity. This creates even more work for your development team.

5G has tremendous potential to create new value chains, unlock new business opportunities, and fundamentally change how we interact with technology. There’s no doubt it will bring radical transformation. But getting to this point still requires significant investment and serious work.

Don’t let this dissuade you from preparing for this new mobile era. While many people are patiently waiting for this future to come, others are working on making it a reality. At Dogtown Media, we’re creating the mobile future every day. Get in touch with my team for a Free Mobile App Consultation. If you can dream it, we can build it!

Original article featured in ReadWrite.

Apple has gone beyond its original vision in many ways through the years, and one of the most significant is its moves into the healthcare space. CEO Tim Cook recently shared that he believed it will be his company’s “greatest contribution to mankind.” But the fact that it’s moving in this direction now might be exactly what Apple needs to rekindle the spirit of innovation it once had.

Healthcare could be the key to making tech innovation again.

Apple’s newfound pivot toward health is leading to more competition in the wearable health space. Fitbit recently teamed up with Bristol-Myers Squibb-Pfizer Alliance to develop a way to detect irregular heart rhythms in a pursuit to compete with the Apple Watch.

The tech competition in healthcare will certainly lead to exciting innovations.

Apple is seeking to reignite the creativity and disruptive work it was known for in the Steve Jobs era. Unfortunately, too many of its projects just aren’t excelling like they used to. Its driverless car unit, for example, wasn’t great for a number of reasons, including its inability to capitalize on the data being pulled in by Apple Maps. The innovation simply wasn’t there.

Because Apple operates as a publicly-traded company, it doesn’t have total freedom to take bold risks at any point in time. 

Like other tech giants, the company is beholden to the vicissitudes of the markets, hedge funds, pension funds, private equity analysts, and other institutional investors. Innovation is more of a challenge when you have to show shareholders a predictable revenue stream and a regular uptick in profits quarter after quarter to maintain support.

Long-term goals take a backseat to achieve short-term growth that’s easily provable.

Short-term growth prioritization inevitably results in bold, creative ideas taking a back seat as well. While Apple has undoubtedly gotten caught in this cycle, an opportunity is looming for it to move into the healthcare space, where the innovation the company was built on is in high demand.

How Tech Is Transforming Healthcare

As Baby Boomers enter retirement, our society will be increasingly reliant on and powered by high-tech healthcare solutions. People are living longer than ever before, and there aren’t enough caregivers, doctors, nurses, and senior living facilities to take care of the aging population.

More than that, Baby Boomers don’t necessarily want to move into assisted living facilities or rely on other people to take care of them. They’d rather age at home. Thankfully, technology is making it possible for them to do just that.

Because of remote health monitoring tools, wearable devices, and telemedicine, the idea of “aging in place” is becoming more of a reality.

Imagine being in your 70s or 80s and having a blood pressure machine and a smart scale that sends all of your health data to the cloud. AI will track it in real-time to determine whether the data is trending up or down. If it’s the latter or if a new issue is spotted, you’ll be alerted and invited to the hospital where you can receive preventative care.

The Shift

Until the past few years, our healthcare system has been set up in such a way that it provides reactionary care. Hospitals, physicians, insurance companies, and the federal government have been laser-focused on treating illness, disease, and discomfort. Healthcare issues are treated when they occur rather than preventing problems before they become a problem.

Providers are focusing more on prevention.

A paradigm shift among providers to focus on prevention is being bolstered by startups that offer groundbreaking devices, cloud solutions, mobile technology, and more for seamless, personal, and efficient healthcare. 

For instance, in the span of just a few years, we’ve managed to move medical records from paper and carbon to the cloud.

Patient records can now be stored securely, accessed easily, updated when necessary, and shared among providers instantaneously. The claim is that all of the information is leading to better patient experiences and outcomes.

The technology sector is finally undergoing momentous change.

The change in the technology sector creates huge opportunities for Cook and other entrepreneurial spirits who have a desire to innovate and leave a mark on the world.

Solutions need to be addressed now.

They’ll find no shortage of problems that need solving — an aging population, fewer caretakers, rising costs, increased demand. As the healthcare transformation picks up speed, the potential for technology to be a part of that transformation is growing.

The critical need for innovative technology in the healthcare space makes getting back to the creativity of the Steve Jobs era more possible than ever before. Now is the time for technology companies to rise to the challenge.

Want to leverage emerging technologies like 5G, AI, and IoT in your organization? Get in touch with my team for a Free Consultation.

Original Article Featured in Forbes.

The 5G era is upon us. At Dogtown Media, our team constantly discovers new ways technology can profoundly impact the world, and 5G will be the rising tide that raises all ships. According to the June 2019 Ericsson Mobility Report, “No previous generation of mobile technology has had the potential to drive economic growth to the extent that 5G promises.”

In just five years, 5G is predicted to carry 35% of global mobile data traffic and 60% of mobile subscriptions in North America. From a consumer standpoint, it’s certainly exciting. But it will be far more than faster access to Instagram Stories that’s going to ignite the trillions of dollars in economic growth that PricewaterhouseCooper predicts will come as a result of the next-generation network.

Imagine a hospital in which medical devices such as blood pressure monitors, wearables and MRI machines are all sending and receiving information without any delay. Thanks to 5G-fueled medical tech development, surgeons will even be able to conduct operations remotely with virtually no latency between their own movements and those of a robotic arm actually conducting the surgery miles away. Sound like science fiction? It’s not. The technology was successfully demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The 5G Future

Healthcare is just one industry in which 5G will impact the future, and much more is to come. The network is still in its infancy. Thus far, it’s only been rolled out in densely populated areas like Chicago and Los Angeles, where telecoms get the best return on their infrastructure investments and the most publicity. Even if you’re in one of the few areas that actually have a 5G network, taking advantage of the futuristic speeds requires using a device that supports 5G.

To date, there are only a few Android devices with 5G capabilities, and iPhone users will likely have to wait until the end of 2020 to start tapping into the next-generation network. There is a silver lining, however. Your business doesn’t have to wait for years to start preparing for the 5G future — you can get started now.

Instead of passively waiting for the 5G era to arrive, you can be the one shaping tomorrow’s breakthrough technology. Simply start by following these three steps today:

1. Run simulations.

Unless you want to establish a temporary development office in the Los Angeles Convention Center, there aren’t many ways to experiment with 5G network capabilities. In order to get around this obstacle, our team has conducted experiments using a Raspberry Pi device to simulate what it’s like having rapid data transfer capabilities in a developing environment. Similarly, Qualcomm works with Android app developers by simulating 5G network speeds for them as they build. And beyond that, some telecom consulting companies offer services that allow users to simulate 5G, but those services are paid and not nearly as home-brewed as using a device like the Raspberry Pi.

Until you can access the devices and infrastructure necessary for real-world testing, simulations are a great way to get practice.

2. Prepare for two user experiences.

Adoption of 5G won’t just happen with the flip of a switch. Instead, teams should create separate 4G and 5G experiences in order to bridge the digital divide. A huge portion of the U.S. population will be stuck on slower networks because telecoms lack the incentives to make expensive infrastructure investments in sparsely populated rural areas. It’ll be necessary for developers to deliver a two-tiered experience in order to appeal to users in 5G areas while still attending to their 4G audience in the meantime.

3. Build more work into your budget.

All that extra development takes time, so plan on increasing budgets by 20% to 50%. Not only will different users have access to different networks, but the same user might also travel across coverage areas and need to seamlessly downgrade or upgrade to a different network. This flexibility will require technologies that automatically detect connectivity strength and speed, creating even more work for development teams — and a need for more development workers.

5G is coming and will bring with it radical transformation. But it will demand a significant investment in order for consumers and industries to leverage its true potential. To avoid being left behind, start preparing your team now. If you run into difficulties, don’t give up. 5G is here to stay, and it will be changing the world in the blink of an eye.

At Dogtown Media, we’re creating the mobile future every day. Get in touch with my team for a Free Mobile App Consultation. If you can dream it, we can build it!

For many clinics and healthcare facilities at the moment, the cost of unlimited data does not beat current operating costs. Additionally, the strain that healthcare puts on current network speeds and latency is massive, and it seriously impacts patients’ experiences and outcomes. This issue isn’t unique to healthcare, and it affects any company doing business with IoT (the Internet of Things) implemented in its operations.

But 5G promises to repair the network strain, improve patient experience, and introduce more seamless transfer for large files. Here are five ways that 5G will help healthcare organizations provide better experiences for patients and their providers.

1. The Doctor Will See You… Right Now!

Video telecommunication can be laggy and difficult to connect in rural areas. Even in urban areas that have slow Internet speeds, video chatting quality isn’t great. But with 5G and IoT, telemedicine is forecasted to grow at a compound rate annually of 16.5% from 2017 to 2023. These huge growth numbers are attributed to the increase in demand for healthcare in rural areas and government initiatives in implementing 5G and IoT across the nation.

In telemedicine, patients and providers cannot afford any miscommunication through broken audio or laggy video; for most patients, this technology requires 5G as a foundational system upon which it can grow and expand. With telemedicine, patients can get faster treatment, prescription orders, and appointments with specialists.

2. Better AR, VR, and Spatial Computing

We know that robotic surgery has existed for the past decade, but with the addition of AR, VR, and spatial computing, doctors can train independently to offer less invasive and more innovative treatments.

Many critically ill and mentally unwell patients have been trialed with AR and VR headsets to introduce post-operative therapy and relaxation exercises. This approach is working well for many patients, and it can save these patients the discomfort and stress of physically going into an office once a week.

Dallas-headquartered AT&T is one of the mobile companies at the forefront of 5G, and they’re working with VITAS Healthcare to study how 5G-enabled AR and VR affect patient engagement. AT&T’s ultimate goal is to lessen anxiety and pain for patients with terminally ill conditions by giving them distracting and calming content through their AR and VR headsets.

Even if the patient is video conferencing a doctor across the world, a translator could join and act as the intermediary communicator between the patient and provider.

3. Sending Files Faster

Generating giant images with the tiniest details showing clearly is very important when doctors are trying to find signs of cancer, bone loss or break, and other conditions. Although an MRI can take the photo, it is often sent to a specialist in a different facility for analysis. This data transfer costs time, money, and network resources. Often, the image takes hours to upload, only to output a notification that it could not successfully send the image.

For the patient, however, waiting for news about potential cancer or immediate surgery is nerve-wracking. The image transfer process creates a bottleneck in the process for both the provider and the patient.

With 5G, however, sending large image files or large patient electronic medical records should become a thing of the past. We will be able to stably and reliably send massive amounts of data to specialists all over the country with 5G technology. In particular, for rural and elderly patients, this will transform their experience with medicine and doctors by introducing faster access to care and better quality of care.

Jason Lindgren is the CIO of Austin Cancer Center, which has a PET scanner that creates massive files: up to 1 gigabyte per patient per study. This adds up very quickly, but Lindgren says that 5G has helped the Austin Cancer Center overcome this bottleneck.

“We used to have to send the files after hours,” he says. “Now, as soon as the patient leaves the scanner, the study is already on its way. It’s beneficial to doctors because they can get the results that they need quicker.”

4. Remote At-Home Monitoring in Real-Time

Wearables are growing in popularity with consumers, and these connected devices will be key in remote monitoring. Wearables are projected to save hospitals 16% in costs over the next five years.

Moreover, an Anthem study found that 86% of doctors surveyed said that wearables increase patient engagement with their health and care.

With 5G and IoT, providers and insurance companies can monitor and encourage patients remotely and in real-time while gathering data to incorporate into the patient’s treatment plan. This data generation can also help personalize care, and providers can rest assured knowing that the data is accurate and current.

5. AI’s Impact

AI is already helping healthcare analysts determine patient treatment patterns, find potential diagnoses, and predict which patients will have postoperative complications. By giving each patient a risk score, providers can devote more time to those who need it. And for those patients who are determined to have preventable issues, providers can work earlier to mitigate any risks.

5G will allow AI algorithms to expand their training datasets, add new data in real-time, and run analyses concurrently without taxing the facility’s network.

Healthcare app developers can also create data-rich dashboards for providers to check using their mobile devices.

2020 and Beyond

5G will introduce so many different medical applications that it’s hard to fathom what they’ll be. The possibilities are truly endless for innovation in this space. With 5G in healthcare, we look forward to better quality of care, patient experiences, and patient outcomes.

Costs should go down as a result, and providers can (hopefully) expect to experience a much better work-life balance, while treatment and care will become more preventative, personalized, and predictive.

How do you think 5G will impact healthcare? Which of the items on this list was your favorite? As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below!