Healthcare App Ideas for Startups in 2023

The prevalence of healthcare apps has grown over the past few years. It is known that in the 1st quarter of 2015, Google Play Store contained 23,955 applications, and more than 54,000 health and medical apps are already available on Google Play during Q3 2022.

Today public hospitals need to have apps since they affect the efficiency of their operation. Another benefit for private clinics is rising competitiveness in the market. So how to keep up with trends, and what medical app ideas are recommended to be implemented?

Healthcare Mobile Apps Trends in 2023: what Should Startups Remember?

The world of technology is changing rapidly, and more and more interesting innovations are appearing. It is especially critical for mobile innovations where competition is high, including the medical industry.

That is why it is essential to follow the trends and take note of the promising ones. It is a must because trends are the foundation for generating efficient medical startup ideas.

According to experts, there will be 5 top technologies in healthcare in 2023:

• IoMT, Health IoT: Monitoring of wellbeing and activity with wearable sensors. Doctors can monitor a patient’s condition, for example, receive data on the risk of a heart attack using a heart monitor. Patients have access to checking vital parameters (blood pressure, heart rate), remote communication with doctors.

• AI: Processing and analyzing large amounts of data used for making informed decisions. According to Mckinsey, AI has the potential to significantly improve efficiency in the industry. Based on current data, doctors can diagnose faster and treat patients better. Chatbots and symptom checking programs provide patients with 24/7 consultations, and smart calendars remind them of medications and doctor visits. It reduces the burden on doctors and non-emergency response staff.
• EHR: Storing medical data in a single digital database available for employees of the institution. In fact, it is an electronic patient card with personal data: from the name, date of birth, and residence address to medical history, a chronology of visits, laboratory, and X-ray examinations. EHR ensures that data is accurate and up-to-date, reducing the risk of document loss and disclosure of confidential information.
• AR/VR: Solving problems related to treatment, safety, external and internal communications, marketing, and corporate training. These end-to-end technologies are often used to train staff, primarily surgeons, who study the body’s systems from the inside and perform complex surgeries in a virtual format. Diagnosis of eye diseases and rehabilitation of the locomotor system are often provided with these technologies.
• Telemedicine: Communication with medical professionals remotely in text, audio, or video format. It is one of the easiest and safest ways to advise and treat patients. There are no time and geographical barriers for telemedicine: everything is made online (registration, communication, payment, or exchange of documents) at any time.

Based on these trends, you can generate interesting ideas for building healthcare apps. Such a project will definitely be in demand among the audience since each technology described above can simplify the life of patients, specialized specialists, or clinic administrators.

10 Medical Startup Ideas: which will be Popular in 2023?

For Doctors

• Professional Education. An AR and VR powered app may revolutionize healthcare. Many novice and practicing doctors study and improve their qualifications at foreign universities. With these technologies, everything changes, as trainees can practice in local hospitals, studying the human body from the inside in a virtual format. Doctors and nurses can test new methods before applying them to patients. The simulation training reduces the probability of medical errors: according to Havaldar, it improves the doctors’ work with mechanical ventilation and hemodynamic monitoring.
• Background. This is one of the medical app ideas related to personnel education. It overlaps with the first idea but is based on big data and advanced analytics. The application provides complete and up-to-date information on medical topics. In fact, this is a huge encyclopedia presented in electronic format and constantly updated. It helps doctors learn about diseases, symptoms, methods of examination and diagnosis, the effectiveness and compatibility of drugs, and preventive measures. All data is based on industry research and expert opinion to ensure that it is reliable to practice.
• Tracking your wellbeing. Being in touch with patients is important during quarantine restrictions. This is why the mobile app connected to IoT is one of the best medical startup ideas. Moreover, the IoMT industry is one of the most promising: according to Deloitte, the market will grow to $158 billion in 2022, which is $117 billion more than in 2017. Wearable devices are mini-computers (bracelets, watches, glasses, etc.) with sensors and wireless connection to smartphones. They analyze the physical activity and parameters of the environment. The doctor always accesses the patient’s health indicators in real-time and can make decisions about emergency care, hospitalization, and treatment adjustments.

• Multilingual adaptation. Doctors often face language barriers in communicating with foreign patients. Due to a lack of information about the current state of a person, they cannot make an initial diagnosis and provide appropriate assistance, which is fraught with serious consequences. Multilingual applications remove barriers in communication with native speakers of other languages, allowing specialists to correctly interpret the symptoms and explain the medication regimen in an accessible format. The translation is done by experienced industry translators and practicing therapists.

Applications for patients

1. Psychological support. A mental health app is one of the ideas that will always be relevant. The fast and hectic pace of life leads to depression, and depression leads to deteriorated physical and mental health. How does the app help? First of all, it provides communication with specialized specialists: psychotherapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. IoT and AI-based software can track a user’s mood and activity, eliminate anxiety, improve mood with meditation and relaxing tunes, give advice on coping with panic attacks and nervous conditions, and set a daily routine.
2. Remote consultations. Timely medical advice can play a major role in the diagnosis and scheduling of examinations. The pandemic has made communicating with doctors 24/7 a vital necessity, but telemedicine programs solve this problem. It is enough to have a smartphone to contact a specialist of any profile, get a consultation in a convenient format (test chat, call, or video), and pay for it. According to Statista, the industry will grow to $175 billion by 2026, which underlines the promise of such ideas for healthcare apps.
3. Self-diagnosis and self-control of health. Each person should have the possibility to control their state of health independently at home. Self-diagnostic apps save a lot of time by avoiding re-examination. It can be a directory where the first symptoms of diseases are described in text form or a questionnaire where you select your symptoms to obtain information, for example, about a probable infection with coronavirus. The category of self-monitoring of health includes apps for women that track the menstrual cycle and pregnancy as well as programs with wearable devices (fitness bracelets, smart watches, etc.).
4. Treatment Reminders. The effectiveness of treatment directly depends on the timely taking of medications and passing examinations. A smart calendar app is an excellent medical app idea for patients treated at home. It is enough to schedule medications and additional tests, and the system will remind you of them. It may also offer advice on taking prescribed medications (for example, what foods and drinks should not be combined with them), getting tested (how to prepare for tests), and noting new symptoms and reactions to medications. There may also be options for creating reports in PDF format and sending them to the doctor by e-mail or instant messengers.
5. Control over the meal schedule. Keeping track of every meal by the hour or calculating everything eaten in a day manually takes a lot of time and complicates the task of healthy eating. Therefore, it is possible to create an app that makes a daily grocery list based on the user’s daily calorie intake. It also offers automatic counting of manually selected food grams/calories eaten. It is possible to expand and “decorate” the functionality of the digital solution with a database of recipes and popular dishes with the necessary data.
6. Home Gym. Online training apps will be relevant because of Covid restrictions and the transition of all areas of life to a remote format. They can contain paid and free lessons. For example, users will choose a sport, a trainer, and the intensity of classes. The system will select the best options and start a workout cycle according to the criteria. You can also add progress tracking, health and fitness recommendations, online group or individual workouts, and other sections.

There are many more ideas for healthcare apps that can simplify the lives of healthcare professionals and their patients and make a startup successful in 2022-2023.

For doctors: a social network for communicating with colleagues, a unified system for storing data, a questionnaire for assessing knowledge and skills, a database of drug suppliers, or news from the world of medicine.

For patients: a drug search engine, price comparison tool, a service for drug delivery from local pharmacies, a system for storing medical results, and much more.

The application should meet the requirements of the target audience and industry standards as well as be based on promising intelligent technologies.

AboutAnna Voznaya

Delivery Officer and VP of Sales with Glorium Technologies. My role is to constantly improve cooperation, integration, communication, customer relationships, and lead the department to success through sharing the company's vision among team members.