Nowadays, we can witness the rapid development of the mHealth sphere that features a broad array of useful apps for doctors and their patients.
Among them is the great number of so-called social mobile apps thanks to which physicians and patients have a chance to share valuable information, get answers to somewhat tricky and awkward questions. To cite an example, Medscape allows employees of medical institutions ask clinical questions, discuss controversial issues, share videos and images, track medications and doses, and be alert to latest news, innovation, and surveys in medicine.
Moreover, we can see a sharp rise in the popularity of those mobile apps that provide effective communication channels for patients, doctors and medical centers. A bright example is Healow. This app allows reaching physicians, as well as medical records, medications, appointments, and other personal data.
Another similar app is FollowMyHealth, thanks to which users can relish communication with their care teams, connect healthcare organizations, and interact with providers.
What is more, today patients are granted an opportunity to directly chat with their physicians via Doctor On Demand, having a video visit at home. When needed, users can talk to a psychologist and discuss such burning and critical issues as stress, depression, fears, losses, relationships, disorders, insomnia, etc. They can also gain major advantages out of online meetings with other doctors, asking for a piece of advice, recommendations, or instructions.
Among other practical apps are those that allow carrying out calculations and assessing risks. With Medical Calculator by QxMD you will easily calculate ideal body weight, Body Mass Index (BMI) and Body Surface Area (BSA), will determine cardiovascular risks, water deficit, surgery timing, and more. For ordinary users, to be precise for those women who plan to make a baby, there had been launched such medical mobile apps, as Fertility Tracker or Pregnancy Weight Calculator that are aimed at tracking ovulation and monitoring the pregnancy progress, controlling unexpected modifications and giving accurate info on weight changes.
People who for one or another reason should swallow a plenitude of pills are likely to face some inconveniences. To overcome them they have at their disposal a vast number of digital reminders, for instance, Round Health that schedules doses and uses push notifications to help the patient remember to take medicines in time, Pill Alert that makes it easier to check upcoming due pills, allows snoozing reminder, turning it ON or OFF, or Pill Monitor that will also become the right hand in “refreshing patients’ memory” and navigating through the medication history without a need for a direct internet connection.
As you can see, there’s a multitude of mHealth solutions intended to provide patients/physicians with general information or to facilitate a communication process. But chronical patients face another trouble – tracking medicines expiration date, as sometimes it seems difficult to control that date by paying close attention to small-font information on the medicines package.
Here they can rely on the help of IT specialists in custom healthcare apps development, who are ready to create a mobile app with which you won’t worry that your pills are expired.
But how will this app be able to track the expiration date and what will be its mechanism?
1) The process of controlling the date can be eased: the patient won’t have to enter data manually, suffice it to scan the needed bar code via a mobile cam.
2) The future app will give the relevant information on the medicine, its application method;
3) The app will deal with automatic calculations, defining the dosage (per day/week/month);
4) The app will automatically plan alerts and will remind when the pills are expired.
Furthermore, such a program will be even more useful if it has the Questions and Answers (Q&A) section, where patients will be able to get answers to the matters of concern.
Another feature that may improve the app functionality is the ability to find relevant feedback from other patients who take or used to take the same pills.
You have been shown the example of the future apps usage by patients, but it should be taken into account that this app will be also helpful for doctors who take care of a considerable amount of sick persons and provide in-patients with medicines. With such a program physicians will get timely alerts when the date of present pills and those stored in the depot is expired.
Conclusion
Without any doubts, the featured app is specific, as apart from general functions that are characteristic for the majority of other applications it combines the roles of calculators, trackers, and reminders. Thus, to elaborate the app to track pills expiration date and have a positive outcome it’s indispensable to spend much time and pay efforts. Today, developers are becoming stronger and more experienced, so, why not to pose another exciting healthcare development challenge for them?
About the author:
Yana Yelina is a website design and development expert at EffectiveSoft, a custom software development company with 250+ specialists who boast expertise in different business domains. You can reach the author at: contact@effectivesoft.com
