The World Health Organization estimates that at least 1.8 billion people worldwide have skin issues. Any ambitious company can help them by choosing to go into teledermatology app development and create solutions that make medical care easier and cheaper. Such apps make diagnosing more precise, allow remote check-ins, and reduce the cost for healthcare providers.
Today’s guide will tell you all about making a teledermatology mobile app and show you why these solutions matter. We’ll break down the process, introduce you to vital features, and talk about the role of AI in these apps. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Why Invest in Teledermatology App Development?
There are a few core reasons to put your efforts and money into creating a teledermatology app:
As you can see, all sides are covered here, as teledermatology benefits patients just as much as doctors. It is possible to create an app that advances medicine while also saving money, which will definitely leave a lasting impact. Studies show that around 71% of the global population has embraced telemedicine and that around 68% of the surveyed patients used it for active treatment. This demonstrates an increase in teledermatology usage, boosting demand.
The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) surveyed nearly 600 dermatologists regarding their use of telemedicine before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
- 14% of dermatologists had used telemedicine before the pandemic
- 97% of dermatologists used telemedicine during the pandemic
- 58% of dermatologists will continue to use telemedicine after the pandemic
A teledermatology app makes the services of respected doctors available to people outside of the metropolitan areas. It also serves as a space to learn more about their conditions, review the doctor’s orders and prescriptions, and track their recovery. Meanwhile, clinics can process patients faster, store visit data in a more secure manner, and spend less on admin work.
Key Considerations for Developing Teledermatology Apps
To make sure your teledermatology app creates real value for patients and doctors alike, you need to design it well. While technologies and popular features change with time, certain core aspects always matter. Here’s a brief rundown of what your teledermatology app simply must have.
Visual Examination Capabilities
Refining the video compression algorithm for your app is absolutely essential, as the picture quality has to be very high for doctors to be able to work. It’s important to find a balance between having a good resolution and limiting media size to make transfers easy.
There’s also the fact that your teledermatology app needs to have extensive picture controls. Doctors must be able to zoom in, adjust display settings, and capture still images from a video feed. That way, diagnosing can be more precise.
Self-Assessment Tools for Early Detection
As noted above, a teledermatology app should also serve as a knowledge base and educate patients. This includes their ability to analyze their condition and assess the potential threat, such as scanning skin formations or discolored patches. Functions such as these help spot skin diseases early, making treatment far easier and preventing undesirable symptoms
Real-Time Teledermatology Consultations with Specialists
Another reason why your teledermatology app must have excellent video quality and data stream conversion is live doctor calls. For one, the calls must accommodate slower internet connections while still presenting good enough visuals to make dermatological assessment possible.
It’s also important to provide session recording tools and a live chat option. This way, doctors can efficiently relay instructions, check in on patients, and leave notes. Although the focus should be on the teledermatological features, flexibility is very valuable here.
Remote Patient Treatment Tracking
The utility of a teledermatology app doesn’t stop at live interactions, though, as doctors can use them to keep tabs on patients. For instance, to confirm they’re taking medication or to share news about their condition. Thus, the app becomes a great way to receive status updates. This enables more involved patient-doctor interactions at a fraction of the cost of traditional hospital visits.
How to Develop a Teledermatology Mobile App
Now that we’ve established what your teledermatology app development should accomplish let’s talk about how to do it right. This will be a step-by-step journey into producing an app that can revitalize a hospital’s dermatology department and make a difference for patients.
Step 1: Understanding User Needs and Pain Points
Before you fully start the technical part of teledermatology app development, it’s crucial that you study the market and find the spot you can take with your product. No matter how fierce the competition may be, there are gaps to fill. It’s your job to know those pain points. With this, you can market the app better and implement features aimed at a specific audience.
Step 2: Choosing the Right Technology Stack and Platform
While platforms should be easy enough to choose, as you want to cover the two core mobile ones and make a desktop version for doctors’ convenience, the stack is more nuanced. You’ll have to make difficult choices, prioritizing either speed and scalability or performance. It’s important to consult your team and assess what they think is best.
Step 3: Designing a User-Friendly Interface
Consider this the start of the technical part of teledermatology app development, as your designers must create a refined and intuitive UI/UX for the app. Focus on making the app accessible to anyone, as well as keeping the design minimalistic and easy to navigate.
Step 4: Incorporating Advanced Features like AI and ML
Getting ahead of the competition means always being at the forefront of trends. Nowadays, that includes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). They make teledermatology more powerful — we will describe the specific benefits later.
Step 5: Testing for Accuracy, Security, and Reliability
Make sure your teledermatology app does what you set out to do by testing it on real-life cases. Verify that its algorithmic predictions don’t degrade over time. It’s important to confirm that the app is suitable for high-precision diagnostics and doesn’t confuse patients or doctors. Also, pay attention to security testing to ensure the sensitive data of your users is well protected.
Step 6: Launching the App and Providing Continuous Support
Once the app is ready for the market, launch it with an appropriate marketing campaign, perhaps partnering up with medical institutions to gain a customer base right away. After the launch, study the available metrics and determine a roadmap for future updates. Providing new functionality and patching bugs is just as important as the initial release.
Essential Features of a Teledermatology App
Building a teledermatology app isn’t just about adding your own ideas. No less crucial is a solid base of core features. Here is what we’d currently consider essential.
AI-Driven Visual Diagnosis
We’ll talk about its utility later, but it suffices to say that AI is an integral part of modern solutions and can streamline visual analysis substantially. It can detect skin conditions faster than the human eye and help double-check a doctor’s verdict.
Appointment Scheduling and Virtual Consultations
Hospitals can use a teledermatology app to make patient registration and visit scheduling much faster, with pre-filled information and a simple interface. Plus, doctors can get in touch with patients virtually, conducting the whole consultation online. Follow-up info can also go through the app.
Integration with Electronic Health Records (EHR)
All relevant patient information is stored in EHRs, which means you need to make your product compatible with them during teledermatology app development. Most hospitals will have unified standards for these records, which makes the task easier. However, storing and processing data from them should be done with care, as this data is subject to HIPAA and similar regulations.
Treatment Plans and Reminders
Outside of one-off visits, doctors must have the ability to lay out treatment plans for patients, configure their medication intake, and set reminders for it. Conversely, patients must have access to this information, as well as a way to ask follow-up questions or relay changes.
Secure Messaging for Continuous Patient Support
Your teledermatology app is a link between a patient and a doctor, so it needs to have encrypted messaging, where they can discuss the patient’s state and consult their treatment. Live chat makes it easier for the doctor to check in and quickly assess whether intervention is required.
Benefits of AI in Teledermatology Apps
AI is an excellent tool in teledermatology app development, creating new opportunities for the apps. This section will illustrate just what this technology can bring to your product.
Automated Visual Diagnosis
The use of trained AI Models can allow doctors to automatically hone in on and diagnose skin abnormalities, from tiny discolorations to more noticeable abrasions. While AI still requires human oversight, it can be quite accurate in detecting common conditions.
Predictive Analytics for Personalized Treatment Plans
Since one of the points of a teledermatology app is cutting costs, predicting possible changes in a patient’s condition is vital. It can prevent negative outcomes, save money on later treatment, as well as guarantee that everybody gets a truly personal approach.
Continuous Learning and Improvement
As time goes on, your AI model can take on new data and become more precise and autonomous. This allows it to tackle niche cases and provide an analysis with more parameters and output. Thanks to that, doctors’ jobs become easier, while diagnoses have the potential to be faster and with a lower chance of error.
| Aspect | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Automated visual diagnosis | Faster diagnosing, automated data processing |
| Predictive analytics | Ability to prevent the need for expensive procedures, easier personalization for all patients |
| Continuous learning | Higher-quality analytics, further automation |
How to Choose the Right Development Partner for Teledermatology Apps
As you can tell, a focus on quality is vital when you go into teledermatology app development, as people’s health depends on your product. While our guide has hopefully given you a better sense of direction and some inspiration, JetBase never leaves a job halfway done. So, if you want to create an app for teledermatology that makes a difference, we’d be happy to help.
With more than a decade of experience and a portfolio that features plenty of healthcare projects, including telemedicine, JetBase is the perfect team for such projects. Our engineers put the client’s needs first and create polished custom software that surpasses all expectations.
A teledermatology app from JetBase will not only help reduce operating costs for hospitals but also provide better healthcare quality for patients. It’s a win-win situation, all thanks to our work ethic and willingness to try new things. If that kind of quality is what you’re looking for, simply send us a message, and let’s schedule a consultation today.
