“We’re seeing an interesting convergence of technology, social issues, medicine, and human progress” – John Nosta, Digital Health Philosopher.
What is Teleconsultation?
The above quote perfectly sums up what teleconsultation means. It integrates technology to bridge the gap between quality medicine and human progress. Even when the health care systems faced the challenges of COVID-19, technology in the face of teleconsultation ensured timely medical assistance to the needy.
In simpler words, teleconsultation is a concept where patients connect to the doctors or other medical staff over phone calls, video calls, or texts. The first case of teleconsultation was documented in 1940. Back then, medical records were exchanged via telephone calls. Since then, this e-medicine concept has seen tremendous growth, with sophisticated technology and smart devices replacing wired telephones, desktops, and complex microwave technology.
Now teleconsultation platforms use the power of the cloud, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and big data to deliver remote healthcare services. The pandemic resulted in an uproar in the teleconsultation deployment. Statista reports a 30-fold increase in teleconsultation software adoption (as of April 2020) compared to the pre-pandemic times.
A quick sneak peek into some facts and figures of this promising industry:
- A recent analysis states that the global teleconsultation market is estimated to grow with a CAGR of 37.2% over the forecast period of 2019-2026. It was valued at USD 27.04 Billion in 2019.
- A report by CDC suggests that during January-March 2020, most patients who sought teleconsultation assistance had conditions other than COVID-19.
- As per a report published by medical economics, 83% of patients are likely to continue using the teleconsultation services post-pandemic.
- 93% of the patients use teleconsultation platform to manage prescriptions, 91% use it to fix appointments, manage prescriptions and refills, and keep track of health regimens prescribed by their doctors.
These figures indicate that teleconsultation is not just a buzzword pushed across by the pandemic, it has marked its growth in the healthcare industry during Covid-19. It is a product of scientific excellence that integrates the health sector and technology to benefit society. Therefore, it is high time health care centers and professionals leverage teleconsultation platforms, and be instrumental in bringing change to the world.
The Must-Have Features in Your Teleconsultation Platform
In these times of social distancing, teleconsultation marketplace apps are a blessing in disguise for people to reach out to doctors and health care services. Therefore, when you start building your teleconsultation software, you need to know the must-have features so that every user avails of the best medical services online.
A patient dashboard has all the up-to-date information about the patient’s medical condition
readily available. It is like a one-stop place to view the complete details of the patient’s ongoing and past medical conditions. The patient can view their dashboard, while the doctor can see it during the consultation call. This way, the data remains safe.
You must have a seamless user interface. It should enable patients to look through the doctors available for teleconsultation and book an appointment easily. It can also send reminders to both patients and doctors about an upcoming appointment.
Also, to help patients choose the best doctor for their ailment, you can add a doctor’s catalogue section. Here you can list out the doctor’s name, specialization, qualification, and experience. It would be a great time saver for the users of your application.
Hassle-free Patient Registration
Like any other mobile or website-based application, you need to have an easy and smooth patient registration process. It is the first step for users to access your platform, and having a simple registration process with just the required information for secure authorization makes your services look reliable.
Audio, Video and Text Enabled Consultations
Your teleconsultation marketplace app must support online consultation over audio, video, or even end-to-end texts. More people are likely to use a streamlined online consultation platform for both medical practitioners and patients.
E-Health Records (EHR)
You can integrate EHRs into your telemedicine application to bring more clarity and purpose to patient-doctor communication. It is different from the patient dashboard. Here, the health records like X-rays, blood reports, CT scans, etcetera can be stored and shared during a live online consultation.
Secure and Fast Payment Gateway
Losing money over fraudulent payment gateways is the last thing you would want your users to experience. Take utmost care and choose the right payment gateway that ensures fast payment of medical bills online. The health care provider can also use the payment portal to generate automated payslips for the staff and record all the transactions done through the app.
How to Create a Teleconsultation Platform: Two ways
A teleconsultation platform ideally should provide easy access to health care. Therefore, all your application development strategies and steps must focus on simplicity while integrating the new age technology and including the features that truly bring the best of the remote health system.
You can build your teleconsultation software in two ways;
- The Self development from scratch
- Using a ready-made solution like Panther
You can choose either of them as per your convenience. Let’s discuss how
1. The self development from scratch:
Here we have created a step-by-step guide that explains the process to build a teleconsultation software:
Step 1: Choose a Platform
You need to decide where you want to launch your teleconsultation services- is it going to be a mobile application? Will it support both desktop and mobile browsers? Or will it be exclusively built for desktop browsers? For mobile applications, you have a choice to make- iOS, or Android. It is always better to use cross-platform, so only one code is enough to make your teleconsultation software suitable for both platforms. However, if you want to include intensive graphics and high-end technology, native apps are a better choice.
Step 2: Design User-friendly Interface and Choose the Features You Want to Include
Once you decide the platform you want to launch the app on, you can start with the actual coding. Make sure the designs are user-friendly and have all the essential features for your target audience. You can choose the additional advanced features like IoT-enabled remote health monitoring, AR-based medical training, the list goes on. The focus should always be to build a simple, intuitive, and feature-rich teleconsultation platform that benefits the users- both patients and health care providers.
Step 3: Choose API
With APIs readily available in the market, you have countless options to choose from. You can integrate them easily, and it usually does not take more than 6 months to build a teleconsultation software with these ready-made APIs.
2. Using a ready-made solution like Panther
White-label apps are easy to implement, and you need not require any hard-coding skills to build a teleconsultation software of your choice. All you need is to choose a white-label solution. One that supports flexibility and allows seamless communication.
Panther’s teleconsultation solution is one such ready-made app that tailors all your requirements to build a feature-rich, mobile-friendly application. It is easy to use and understand, and you can start out your venture into your teleconsultation platform without worrying about developmental costs and time. With Panther, your platform will be ready in less than 24 hours.
Teleconsultation may have become the buzzword due to the pandemic, but it is here to stay. And as a health tech player, you need to gear up your presence in the market via a customized, robust teleconsultation platform. Now is the time to be part of the conversational marketplace and revolutionize the conventional ways of your practice.
If you want to start your online consulting services but have no coding experience and time to invest in building a teleconsultation platform from scratch, Panther is one of the best all-in-one solutions. With Panther, you can integrate all the required features and create a custom teleconsultation platform that matches your vision. All you need to do reach out to us.
You can launch your teleconsultation platform and be a part of the technological change in the medical industry. No need to wait for months and years to see your vision come to life. No need to spend thousands of dollars in creating a teleconsultation platform. Panther allows you to kick-start your online consultation services without going through all the pain.
So what are you waiting for? Book a consultation call with us, and we will guide you through the process.
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