Top-10 must-have features of telemedicine software

The COVID-19 pandemic forces the world to live in socially distancing times. In turn, millions of individuals start practicing virtual doctor consultations. That makes each telemedicine app development company find new ways of managing treatment, improving the patients’ experience, and lowering healthcare costs. After all, both doctors and patients agree that telemedicine software is more efficient to track and treat chronic illnesses compared to a 15-minute face-to-face appointment. 

In this case, telemedicine app development serves as the priority for multiple healthcare organizations. They wish to provide patients with an effective virtual, remote experience. Thus, modern healthcare software companies, including Exoft, make great efforts to build high-quality telemedicine apps for clinicians and patients. That allows transforming their communication significantly. 

Below, we will briefly analyze the top ten features the appropriate telemedicine software must have: 

1. An easy registration process

The first critical step should be the patients’ registration. For example, patients prefer a secure authentication process that requires minimum details and, at the same time, is quite easy and reliable. Also, they want to have some advanced features like the opportunity to upload photos of additional documents. 

After registering in a certain telemedicine app, patients should choose the doctor depending on their health needs and book an appointment. Besides, they can upload information, such as medical records, insurance verification, or different previous prescriptions. 

2. A user-friendly dashboard for patients

Providing a user-friendly patient dashboard is also an advantageous feature for doctors that allows making an immediate treatment plan. This dashboard represents an outline that encompasses the patient’s medical and private data, which helps physicians make diagnosis easier. Also, the particular feature allows highlighting the basics and filtering patients due to their medical problems. An appropriate patient’s dashboard should involve: 

  • the latest information regarding patient condition
  • previous prescriptions
  • main health-related complaints 
  • insurance data
  • history visits 
  • the highlights from a remote patient monitoring system

3. A catalog of doctors

Both healthcare professionals and their patients consider the doctors’ catalog as the efficient time savior. It provides the match-making process with better accuracy, which brings benefits to the two sides. Similar to a patient’s profile, telemedicine apps should implement a doctor’s profile features. Meanwhile, this catalog should include the following information about physicians: 

  • address
  • education & qualification
  • area of specialization
  • work experience
  • availability schedule
  • allocation & management of clinicians

4. Appointment management

Integrating a calendar, along with reminder notifications, allows reminding patients of their upcoming medical appointments via their telemedicine app only. Besides, this appointment scheduling feature keeps physicians up-to-date regarding the appointment status. That helps doctors consider appointment requests and analyze a patient’s profile before communicating with him. In addition to that, telemedicine software may display the patient queue and enables doctors to filter profiling. After all, physicians can cancel appointments if needed. 

5. Video/audio/text consultation

According to the McKinsey & Company research, almost 30% of respondents show their interest in telemedicine software that offers features of video/audio consultation sessions with physicians or an in-app chat. In addition to that, the opportunity to keep medical records in the cloud and make such information, along with recorded video consultations, HIPAA-compliant, can ensure the appropriate app data security. Among the key benefits of video/audio/text consultations are the following:

  • Such communication allows patients to ask critical questions about their symptoms;
  • It replaces the in-person assessment with relevant photos and videos;
  • Cloud solutions applied by telemedicine software development companies help facilitate real-time communication and enable doctors to diagnose patients remotely.

6. Geolocation

In the USA, for instance, medical-legal acts require telemedicine software to link patients to clinicians geographically. It means that both must be based in the same state. The ability to find a patient’s location correctly allows locating pharmacies near patients. Also, it provides directions and predicts the estimated time necessary for reaching the hospital in the case of an emergency. If a telemedicine app contains hospital maps with relevant images, it will be much easier for patients to find the right department. 

7. Payment gateway

Today, among the most demanded features in each telemedicine app is the option to pay medical bills via the smartphone. Thus, integrating payment systems is crucial for all types of telemedicine software since that brings the following advantages:

  • automating invoices for all patients
  • automating appointment adherence
  • numerous payment methods
  • developing pay-slips for clinicians
  • payment records
  • securing payment compliance
  • a safe payment process
  • low rates

8. E-prescription

This feature can benefit not only prescribing doctors and patients but also pharmacies, which makes healthcare services faster. For example, doctors can create and send prescriptions without errors. That allows saving time, enhancing communication, and satisfying patients. Also, doctors can access health records from a medical insurance form, which provides all necessary data in electronically linked pharmacies. But using e-prescription in telemedicine software must comply with several regulations, including HIPAA, EPA, FDA, or HHS. 

9. Electronic health record (EHR)

Integrating an EHR system can improve the feasibility of telemedicine software. EHR allows storing digitally all the critical work information, laboratory test results, radiological images, along with prescriptions and treating clinicians. That helps save time for physicians and doctors for monitoring health progress and inspecting when needed. Therefore, a telemedicine app, integrated with an appropriate EHR system, makes it possible to streamline patient record processing and consolidating. 

10. Rankings

The patient’s opportunity to rank doctors should become the crucial function for all telemedicine software. Such feedback is considered a critical element of improving treatment quality and advancing the professional skills of clinicians. Besides, that helps multiple new patients to book an appointment with the doctor whose specialization suits their preferences best. After all, providing rankings bring the following advantages:

  • people with similar diseases will know the most suitable doctor
  • increased confidence in treating physicians
  • improved healthcare outcomes

Conclusion

Telemedicine apps for healthcare providers can significantly improve the quality of relevant services for both doctors and patients. Nowadays, the competition in telemedicine software development continues to increase due to the growing demand for mobile applications. 

With the efficient telemedicine software in place, the treatment of particular medical conditions becomes much faster. That is because patients receive such treatment from competent clinicians who provide them with accurate information regarding their symptoms. Ultimately, thanks to the discussed advantages of telemedicine software, the relevant apps are already adopted by numerous healthcare providers. 

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