Medical App Development Industry Not Yet Producing Results

While medical app development has often been cited as one of the major growth areas of the mobile software industry, recent figures suggest there is a great deal of room for improvement. A recent global survey from Kentico Software found that 50 percent of users are not happy with the current generation of mobile health applications. One of the major problems is that 37 percent of polled users reported that they were not able to communicate with their doctors using mobile email platforms; for most users, ease of access is one of the most attractive features of medical apps, and it simply isn’t performing up to their expectations.

Other major findings of the Kentico Software survey highlight additional problems and insights:

• About 33 percent of polled users found it difficult to access and navigate medical websites from their mobile devices
• 43 percent of polled users said they exclusively used laptop or desktop computers to access medical websites, citing problems with mobile platforms
• Only 19 percent of users were able to communicate with their doctors via text messaging, though more than half of polled users desire this capability

The survey included more than 1,000 people from a range of countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

In a press release, Kentico Software founder and CEO Petr Palas said, “Using the web to communicate in regulated industries such as healthcare is challenging. However, healthcare providers seem to have made significant strides in recent years in the use of the web to connect with patients in meaningful ways…Patients are reacting positively to what they have seen thus far, but clearly they want much more.”

Dallas mobile app developers and software professionals the world over can draw on the insights generated by the Kentico Software survey to create products that fill patient needs that are currently underserved. Improving mobile website performance and enhancing communication capabilities are two key areas where a great deal of improvement is possible.