The struggles of building mHealth apps, solved by expert teams

Data from the Google and Apple app stores reveal 36,000 Android-based healthcare apps available for download in Q1 of 2024 and 35,000 iOS apps in Q2. Interestingly, these numbers fluctuate significantly quarter by quarter. The demand for mHealth apps – and their production – soared at the pandemic's peak. But now, we experience a downward trend in their releases. 

This is not to say we've abandoned mHealth apps. Quite the opposite. Some people cannot imagine life anymore without the convenience of managing their doctor’s appointments on their smartphones. And for many others, step counting or sleep tracking has become an integral part of their wellness routine. As I am writing this, new health and disease management app ideas emerge, bringing solutions no one could imagine a year ago. 

The shifting numbers in healthcare-related mobile apps highlight the intense competition in this market. While thousands of apps are launched yearly, most have a short lifespan. 

That’s because several vital factors must align in a successful mobile health app that storms the market and stays relevant for years. Besides delivering its core feature, such an app must ensure strong data security and comply with various regulations. It should also work well with other apps and devices and have a simple and engaging user interface. Today, successful apps often incorporate AI and machine learning features, such as image recognition, speech-to-text, image enhancement, and generative AI. Finally, a successful mHealth app must ensure great performance and readiness to scale up quickly as needed.

Wellness and fitness mobile apps aim at improving physical and mental well-being. Leading apps like Calm, Strava, MyFitnessPal, and Nike Training Club effectively track activities, sleep, and body vitals, providing personalized, guided advice on exercise, rest, meditation, and nutrition. 

From a technical standpoint, creating them involves operating on vast amounts of historical and real-time data and ensuring smooth, secure integrations with wearables, maps, and payment systems. Many also use powerful AI-based features for tailored meal and workout recommendations.

Ensuring efficient scaling to accommodate the growing user base is another key consideration, highlighted by Les Mills fitness program’s explosive 300% user increase during the pandemic. Without elastic cloud computing services and robust auto-scaling capabilities, the mobile app would have inevitably crashed when faced with sudden spikes in demand. Skilful design made it resilient to this surge.

Mobile apps for managing chronic diseases have a tremendous potential to revolutionize healthcare and tap into a giant market. In Europe, one in three people reports having a long-term health problem. In the USA, the ratio is similar, with an estimated 129 million Americans facing at least one chronic disease. 

Chronic disease monitoring apps like MySugr, Propeller Health or Bowelle empower millions of users to manage their health, monitor symptoms and adhere to treatment and medication plans. They also facilitate communication with healthcare providers, saving thousands of hours on facility visits.

However, to achieve these outcomes, mHealth apps must overcome several technical challenges, such as seamless data integration across multiple systems and devices, as well as the meticulous handling of highly sensitive and legally protected information. 

Additionally, creating an engaging and intuitive interface is crucial, especially for users who may not be tech-savvy or who face accessibility issues due to their conditions. Combining appealing features with a user-friendly design is essential for widespread adoption.

Who hasn’t googled their symptoms at least once, raise a hand! While health professionals frown upon them, symptom checker apps remain popular. They can be an effective triage tool, helping reduce unnecessary doctor visits while encouraging individuals to seek medical advice when symptoms are confirmed.

Applications like WebMD Symptom Checker or Symptomate connect and analyse extensive data collections to cross-reference user-reported symptoms, delivering a list of potential causes. Applying advanced AI models, they interpret user inputs using natural language processing, navigate expansive medical knowledge databases, and map the reported symptoms against collected data to generate the most accurate diagnoses.

However, two major concerns are related to the mass use of symptom checker apps. First, their accuracy is low, ranging from 19-38%. Secondly, there are critical issues surrounding data security and protection. Vital data security and protection issues in mHealth apps can be mitigated by a cross-functional team with expertise in software development, data science, analytics, and AI technologies.

Skipping medication is a significant issue that consistently needs to be addressed. While some people intentionally avoid taking the prescribed drugs – particularly in the USA – many simply forget to do it amidst their busy schedules.

Mobile reminders and medication adherence apps like the Medisafe app aim to help by notifying users when it’s time to take their medications. But they usually provide more than just reminders, featuring more advanced functionalities that use sophisticated tech. For instance, some medication adherence apps allow users to scan drug labels to create comprehensive medication lists, track prescriptions, and even automatically order refills.  

To deliver even the basic functions, these mHealth apps must provide secure data encryption, storage and transfer. They must also comply with regulations such as HIPAA in the United States or GDPR in the EU. Depending on their features, they may need to integrate with wearables, pharmacy databases, medical records, and e-commerce platforms, including an image recognition system for scanning and reading medication labels.

Nurses also have their mHealth apps designed to tackle critical challenges in healthcare amidst the alarming nursing shortages (experienced by 15 out of 27 EU countries currently). A key solution is patient wandering and monitoring apps, which empower overworked nurses to manage unruly patients by integrating wearable devices, GPS/location tracking, and mobile applications.

Our Nortal experts have played a pivotal role in developing an app tailored for one of our long-standing clients, a Belgian health tech provider, Televic. As integral members of the client’s R&D team, they have contributed to innovative core solutions that relieve the burden on nurses, including a comprehensive wandering prevention and detection system linked directly to the nurses’ mobile devices. 

The solution equips patients with a trackable IoT wristband that connects to a server via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or cellular networks. If a patient exits a designated safety zone or remains inactive for a set time, the nurse’ receives an alert with the patient’s exact location. The app integrates smoothly into other tools to enhance communication between patients and nurses and improve care efficiency.

mHealth apps also include solutions that support administrative tasks in healthcare. One example is shift scheduling and workflow management applications. ShiftMed, NurseGrid, and similar solutions have become centralized hubs for the workforce and shift management.

The biggest challenge in delivering these mobile applications is the real-time synchronization and data exchange between various systems and devices. More advanced versions of these solutions also offer proactive shift and resource management, helping hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities optimize their employees’ schedules to prevent under- or overstaffing and rota conflicts. Doing that requires implementing machine-learning predictive algorithms and ensuring frictionless, real-time data flow.

In addition to the mHealth app types mentioned earlier, several others effectively promote health and wellness. These include:

• Telemedicine and telehealth apps like Teladoc Health or Amwell. They offer 24/7 access to doctors of various specialities, allowing online consultations from home.
• Mental health and therapy apps. Services like BetterHelp connect users with licensed therapists, while apps like Headspace offer guided meditations. Tools like Daylio and Woebot help with mood tracking and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy support. 
• Clinical communication and collaboration apps tailored for healthcare professionals combine chat, calls, file sharing, and task management while adhering to strict compliance and privacy standards. Examples include TigerConnect or Stryker.
• Drug information applications. These solutions, like Drugs.com or Epocrates, provide detailed medication information on over-the-counter and prescription drugs, including dosing calculators and clinical guidelines.  

While the technical and business challenges of developing these apps differ slightly, common hurdles often arise. Understanding them is crucial if you plan to create your own mHealth application.