What is a Telehealth application platform?
Telehealth application platform brings patients and healthcare providers closer together in a digital environment and improves care access. To simplify, it helps patients talk to doctors anytime and anywhere. In contrast, doctors can remotely evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients for a diverse range of appointment types, including consultations and follow-up.
Telehealth makes it easy for many healthcare specialties to offer patients a secure Telehealth experience. The App allows users to connect to healthcare providers and book appointments with doctors. Patients can select specialty and book an instant or scheduled appointment for consultations. The modes of talks are chat, but users can send audio and videos too. At the same time, doctors can write e-prescriptions, clinical notes and browse patient's medical histories.
Understanding the Need
As Telehealth becomes popular due to the pandemic, more and more patients are turning towards virtual alternatives. Healthcare institutions worldwide contend to equip their care providers with telehealth apps to extend their high-quality medical service, which is limited locally. The digital platform blossom the opportunity to help the needs of the worldwide population.
According to recent research, healthcare is growing; the market is expected to reach 1200 billion U.S. dollars within the following year. And as for Telehealth, Statista predicts the demand would increase to 42.2 billion U.S. dollars by 2021. That's why the healthcare market is looking for e-health solutions to compete in today's platform. Telehealth is gaining traction among patients, medical institutions, and investors.
Clients Goals
As the world braced for public health problems such as Covid-19, it exposed health care to certain loopholes concerning better health care routines for the people. And as the needs emerged, clients aimed to keep pace identifying modern technology to develop solutions that meet the following goals as an alternative method.
• Appointment booking (Instant/Scheduled)
• Multiple communication modes
• Multiple payment gateways
• Multiple doctors specializations
Wireframes
After understanding the features and flow of the App, our team of UX designers created an in-depth wireframe of the App for both iOS and Android App.
This app prototype helped our UI designers beautify the App by integrating the UI effects according to the user's mental model and expectations. Alternatively, this also allowed the developers to comprehend the UX and connect with the structure of the app flow.
Approach and Solution
Our development team built two individual mobile applications for iOS and Android, which core function is a chatbot. Along with that, we created an interface that would be understandable even to those who do not regularly use mobile apps, along with integrating gamification and a unique reward system.
In addition to the features mentioned above, we integrated an educational mechanic that uses quizzes to teach patients more about their health and body. To further help them keep track of health.
Our development team built two individual mobile applications for iOS and Android. Along with that, we created an interface that might be understandable even to those that don't regularly use mobile apps. In addition to the features mentioned above, we integrated blogs and articles that educate and quiz patients more about their health and body to help them keep track of health.
User Roles
Here you find user customization that provides certain privileges and grants access to the system features and functionality. There are three user levels within the Telehealth application platform: Patient, Doctor, and Admin. Let's take a look below.
Patients: They are the users with necessary permission who can request online consultation with a doctor. They can change profile photos, passwords, and personal data. Moreover, they can view previous and forthcoming appointments as well as arranging the next consultation.
Doctors: They are users who can view patient's profiles, medical records, lab results, view and schedule appointments. They can also transfer/refer the patient to other doctors and, most importantly, end the patients' consultation.
Admin: They have the highest administrative responsibilities and security level and permission to view and review every transaction within the App.
Patient Dashboard
When you log in as a patient, you find the list of navigation in the main menu.
- Profile
- Team of Doctors
- Choose your department
- Describe your problems
- Medical Records
- Notification
- Blogs/Articles
- Billing
With these widgets/options in the patient dashboard, you can view or perform specific App actions.
Doctor Dashboard
When you log in as a Doctor, this is the navigation list you find in the main menu.
- Profile
- Patients
- Appointments
- Waiting room
- Messages
- Payments
- Notifications
With these widgets/options in the doctor dashboard, you can view or perform specific App actions.
Admin Dashboard
As an Administrator, you can see the following navigation. You will be responsible for the following options that are presented in the main menu:
- Users
- Documentation
- Appointments
- Finances
- Reports
- Settings
High Fidelity Prototype
As we got the go-ahead for the wireframes by our client, our interaction designers were tasked with laying out the interactions of the merchandise. They created interactive hi-fi prototypes that encompassed an excellent range of design elements like aesthetics, motion, words, visual representations, and behavior. Here is how the general UX and UI design of the merchandise seemed like.
Features and Development
Patient App
Doctor App
Admin
Patient App
01. Easy Onboarding
Easy signup and log via email.
02. Profile Management
Users can manage profiles by updating personal details (name, location, contact, etc.)
03. Dependents Management
Users can add/delete/update dependents and their details.
04. Search Doctors
Users can search for doctors and view the lists of doctors.
05. View Doctor Details
Users can see doctors' profiles and consultation fees.
06. Book Doctors
Users can book appointments with Doctors, add additional details and medical records.
07. View Appointments
Users can view past and upcoming appointments, cancel or reschedule appointments.
08. Rating and Reviews
Leave ratings and reviews to Doctor's Profile post online check-up.
09. Medical Records
Upload and manage medical records in .pdf, .txt, .doc, .jpg/.png format.
10. Lab Test
Easy viewing of lab tests, prescription list, clinical notes in the past appointments.
11. Online Payment
Users can pay via mWallet or credit/debit card.
12. Notifications
Users will receive notifications and alerts via email, SMS, and push notifications.
13. LIVE chat
Patients can chat and send attachments in video/image, doc, text, or pdf format.
Doctor App
- Easy Onboarding
Doctors can quickly login through email.
- Create Schedule
Doctors can create instant and regular schedules, select date range, start and end time, and appointment duration.
- Manage Schedule
Doctors can view, edit and delete schedules.
- Dashboard
An insightful view of appointments in chronological order and graph view.
- View Appointments
View all upcoming and past appointment details, patients' info, and take action.
- LIVE Chat
Doctors can chat and send attachments in images, doc, text, or pdf format.
- Notifications
Doctors will receive notifications through email, SMS, and dashboard.
- Prescription
Ability to write an online prescription, view the lab tests, and make clinical notes.
- Medical History
Doctors can view patient-specific medical history.
- Refer
If the doctor is unavailable or feels the other doctor could do a better job, they could refer and transfer the patient to the other doctor with no additional payments.
Admin
- Signup/Login
Admin can log in through email.
- Dashboard
Admin can take an all-inclusive view of the total no. of appointments, practices, doctors, and patients.
- Manage Doctors
Admin can add, manage existing doctors and new doctor requests.
- Manage Patients
Admin can add/update/manage patients.
- Manage Specialties
Admin can add/update/manage different types of medical specialties.
- Manage Company
Admin can add a new company, no. of employees, view transactions and check its status.
- Manage On—Duty Doctor
Admin can select a date on the calendar and view doctors' on-duty, view their details and manage their schedule.
- Lab Test
Admin can add/update/manage different types of medical lab tests.
- Transaction Status
Admin can manage transactions search them by transaction id, date and patient name.
- Manage CMS
Admin has full capacity to manage both the app platforms, that is, the doctor and the patients.
- Manage Subscription
Admin can manage subscription plans of families and individuals.
- Logout
Admin can change the password when/if required and successfully log out.
User Flow
This graphical representation was used by the team to picture and identify the different elements of the process and the interrelationships among the various steps.
When requesting doctor consultation, the patient request is sent to the admin; the admin then checks all the necessary information of the patient regarding his problems and medical history and then, as required, forward them to the specific doctor for consultation. But if the doctor isn't available or wants to transfer the case to another doctor, s/he can do it on their own.
How to Make a TeleHealth App: Team and Technologies
The team required to create iOS and Android Telehealth applications are listed below.
- 2 Back-end developers
- 2 Android developers (senior & Junior)
- 1 UI/UX designer
- 1 Project Manager
- 1 iOS developers
- 1 Developer engineer (testing)
Telehealth apps require a scalable tech stack. For example, you need to use various programming languages for developing iOS and Android apps, Swift and Java, respectively. Also, you need a scalable database.
- Database: MySQL
- Back-end: Python, Django
- For Android: Java programing/ Android SDK
- Cloud storage: AW, ec2
- For iOS: Swift, iOS SDK
- Push Notification: Firebase
Time required making a Telehealth app
The total time it takes to build a telehealth app from scratch takes approximately 3 months. Here below are the exact times each individual involved takes in total.
|
Team |
Required time |
|
2 Back-end developers |
30 days |
|
2 Android developers (senior & Junior) |
30 days |
|
1 UI/UX designer |
10 days |
|
1 Project Manager |
30 days |
|
1 iOS developers |
30 days |
|
1 Developer engineer ( testing) |
15 days |
