Custom EMR Mobile App Development
The introduction of mobile phones and their innovation into smartphones has literally changed the way we approach life these days. Over the last decade, smartphones have become part of our day-to-day lives, becoming our escape from boredom and our instant connection to the workplace.
Trying to bring that same thing to the healthcare landscape, many have tried to ingrain healthcare delivery through mobile phones. However, it was easier said than done. Having said that, these attempts have managed to create its unique space in the market where almost 60% of patients use mobile health applications and other digital healthcare devices to manage their health.
Recognizing this and capitalizing on this stat as well as the idea, don’t you think developing clinic-specific mobile EMR solutions can improve the care delivery process for both patients and providers?
Indeed, yes, since most clinical and administrative tasks revolve around EMR, it can bring efficiency, improve accessibility, and create a win-win situation for both patients and providers. However, its success will majorly depend on how the mobile EMR software development company develops and your staff uses it.
In this article, let’s explore the several benefits of custom EMR app development for healthcare practices and a sneak peek into the development process for you to get it right!
So, without further ado, let’s get started!
Key Considerations for Tailored Mobile EMR Software
Unlike the system that you have at your practice, mobile EMR is slightly more difficult and might lack some of the essential functionalities that you might find on custom EMR software.
Keeping that in mind, here are some of the key aspects of mobile EMR development that you need to consider:
1. Functionality: The first thing that you need to determine in mobile EMR development is its features and functionalities. You see, an EMR software system differs by a margin from a mobile EMR, and naturally, despite its capacity, it would be inefficient to use mobile EMR for almost all of your clinical needs. That is why it is important to identify your target audience and their needs and develop the entire mHealth app accordingly. Some of the common functions that work both for patients and providers are the telehealth platform, patient portal, medication refill requests, etc.
2. Security and Compliance: Since the mobile EMR will also mostly deal with sensitive patient health information, you need to ensure its security and compliance with certain regulatory bodies such as HIPAA, GDPR, etc. And just like the implementation of robust security features like data encryption and user authentication protocols in EMR software development, you also need to implement those to develop a secure mobile EMR solution.
3. Usability and Design: The convenience and usability of mobile technology are what have made it most popular over computer systems, right? Well, you need to align your practice with the EMR mobile app with easy navigation. The best way to do this is to design a user-friendly interface with intuitive navigation and easy accessibility features.
4. Integration and Interoperability: The healthcare delivery process is very sophisticated and yet very dependable compared to other healthcare service providers. That is why you need mobile EMR integration with disparate healthcare systems and achieve interoperability so that you are able to share data with your internal system as well as external systems.
5. Technology Stack: The technology stack for mHealth app development, whether native or hybrid, differs significantly from that of a custom EMR software system. In such a case, careful consideration is needed when choosing the technology stack. Some of the most essential things to consider in this are scalability and performance ability.
Key Features of Mobile EMR Development
Features define the functionality of any healthcare application or any application for that matter. And since the landscape of personalized mobile EMR systems is certainly a little different from custom EMR software, its needs and requirements differ slightly.
While you can include multiple features that support you in healthcare delivery, here are some essential features that you need to have in mind while developing mobile Electronic Health Record solutions:
1. Secure Data Access: Given the confidentiality and privacy of patient records on mobile devices from unauthorized access, you need to implement robust authentication protocols and take effective encryption measures.
2. User-friendly Interface: The success and usability of your mobile EMR solution will majorly depend on the ease of use of the mHealth app. This is why you need to design a user-friendly interface for healthcare professionals, which allows them to easily navigate through different tasks in its effective management and execution.
3. Real-time Updates and Synchronization: This is one of the most important features that you need to include in your mobile EMR solution. If you’re using a custom EMR mHealth app, then any change you make in your patient data must be updated across devices in real time. This seamless synchronization with the main EMR system for data consistency and care continuity is crucially important.
Benefits of Mobile EMR for Healthcare Providers
Most of the mHealth apps available in the market are majorly patient-centric, but since you are trying to make the lives of your healthcare providers easier by giving them access to EMR while they’re on the go, here are some of the benefits of mobile EMR software for small practice as well as the benefits of mobile EMR for large hospital systems:
1. On-the-Go Access to Patient Records: The first and major benefit of portable custom EMR applications on mobile devices is that they give healthcare providers the convenience of accessing patient health data. This means that even if the provider is traveling, with access to patient records, they can determine the future prospects of care delivery and can contribute to reducing the time to care delivery. This can also set the bedrock for providing better preventive care.
2. Streamlined Communication and Collaboration Among Healthcare Teams: Communication and connectivity are two things that mobile solutions have managed to bridge the gap between. The ease that streamlining communication and collaboration among healthcare teams has brought is simply incredible. This way, the healthcare teams can stay connected and ensure that informed decisions are made during care delivery.
3. Improving Efficiency in Diagnosis and Treatment Planning: The ease in accessibility that mobile EMR solutions provide can be used as an effective tool for diagnosis and treatment planning for patient care plans. By improving efficiency and diagnosis and treatment planning mobile EMR for healthcare providers.
Patient-Centric Features in Mobile EMR Solution
It would literally be pointless if the mobile EMR solution you are developing is just for your healthcare providers and clinical staff members. Making a mobile EMR solution not only improves their accessibility to care but also can be pivotal for improving their adherence rate. On that note, here are some of the patient-centric features that you must consider while mobile EMR development for patient engagement:
1. Patient Portal: The portal in your custom EMR software will be a point of contact for your patients. Through this, they can access their health data instantly at any time and anywhere. By improving accessibility to their health information, you not only improve their adherence rate but also keep them in the loop during care planning and decision-making.
2. Appointment Scheduling: A study showed that most patients use mHealth apps to schedule their appointments. Even if it was not in trend, you must include this feature in your mobile EMR solutions, as it makes it much easier for patients to access care, and the convenience it adds to that simply makes the process much more sophisticated and sorted.
3. Secure Communication Features: Communication is a must-have feature if you’re planning to use mobile EMR development for patient engagement. These features enable them to connect with their providers instantly and clear their doubts. Moreover, it can also be the first step for patients to proactively indulge in their care journey and take active measures to improve their health.
The Development Process
You must already have a healthcare system that you use for clinical and administrative purposes at the clinic. And if you have chosen a custom EMR software development approach, then you must be familiar with the development process. The process for affordable mobile EMR development remains the same, yet it differs significantly in some stages.
Here is a brief overview of the development process for the mobile EMR solution:
1. Discovery Phase: At this stage, you gather all the necessary information and other things that are necessary for the development of a portable custom EMR application. This stage is crucial because it helps you decide the features and functionalities of the mobile EMR solution, and that will act as the genesis for future development processes.
2. Designing Phase: The next phase is the design phase, where you design the application’s user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). This is very different from EMR software development because of the platform, and many things are considered, from patient engagement to usability and navigation. Having good mobile UI/UX designers on your team can be extremely beneficial.
3. Development and Testing Phase: Once your design is confirmed and tested, the mHealth app development phase moves to the next phase, which is development and testing. At this stage, you actually code the application; here, the development methodologies you choose can determine the flexibility in the development. For instance, with agile development methodology, you divide the development into small components, which gives you enough flexibility to make changes if there is a change of heart mid-way. Once the development is complete, you need to rigorously test the application so that all the desired features and functionalities of the application work profoundly and just as expected.
4. Deployment and Maintenance: Once the mobile EMR solution is developed and tested, it enters the deployment phase, where it is deployed into your healthcare practice for effective use. But the work doesn’t end here; once it is deployed, you need to conduct regular audits and provide support to the users to ensure that the mHealth app is working properly without any issues.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, mobile EMR application development can improve accessibility, add convenience to accessing patient data, and significantly reduce the time needed for care delivery. By adding the factor of convenience, mobile EMR solutions can transform the way you deliver care.
So what are you waiting for? Embrace the power of mobile healthcare technology to make healthcare more accessible and agile. Click here to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
Mobile EMR solutions empower healthcare professionals by providing real-time access to patient data, facilitating remote consultations, streamlining administrative tasks, and enhancing communication within the care team, ultimately improving patient care and workflow efficiency.
Custom mobile EMR applications implement robust security features to safeguard sensitive patient data. These features typically include:
- Data encryption: Both data at rest and in transit are encrypted to prevent unauthorized access.
- Strong authentication: Multi-factor authentication mechanisms are often employed to enhance security.
- Access control: Role-based access controls ensure that only authorized personnel can access specific patient information.
- Regular security audits: Regular security assessments and vulnerability checks help identify and address potential risks.
- Compliance with regulations: Adherence to healthcare regulations like HIPAA is crucial to protect patient privacy.
- Regular software updates: Timely software updates and patches help mitigate emerging threats and vulnerabilities.
Key measures for HIPAA-compliant mobile EMR development include:
- Strong authentication: Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is crucial.
- Data encryption: Both in transit and at rest.
- Device security policies: Remote wipe, password protection, and regular updates.
- Regular security audits and risk assessments.
Mobile EMR solutions offer several key benefits, including improved patient care coordination, enhanced patient engagement, increased access to patient data, improved efficiency and productivity, reduced medical errors, better data collection and analysis, increased revenue and reduced costs, and improved patient satisfaction.
Mobile EMR apps should be user-friendly and secure and offer features like appointment scheduling, e-prescribing, patient communication, and access to medical records.
Mobile EMRs are becoming increasingly popular, but they are unlikely to completely replace desktop EMRs. Mobile EMRs offer greater flexibility and convenience, especially for providers who need to access patient information on the go. However, desktop EMRs still offer a number of advantages, such as larger screens, more powerful processors, and greater storage capacity. Additionally, many healthcare organizations have already invested heavily in desktop EMR systems, and it may not be cost-effective to switch to a mobile-only solution. It is more likely that mobile EMRs will become increasingly integrated with desktop systems, providing a more comprehensive and flexible solution for healthcare providers.
Mobile EMRs can significantly boost patient engagement by:
- Easy Access: Patients can conveniently access their health information and schedule appointments anytime, anywhere.
- Remote Care: Facilitates remote consultations and medication reminders, improving adherence to treatment plans.
- Empowerment: Enables patients to actively participate in their care through self-monitoring and data sharing with healthcare providers.
Future trends in mobile healthcare and mobile EMRs include:
- Increased use of AI and ML: for personalized care and predictive analytics
- Enhanced patient engagement: through gamification and remote monitoring
- Greater integration with wearables and IoT devices: for comprehensive data collection
- Improved data security and privacy measures: to protect sensitive patient information
