Quick Summary: This blog highlights the unique benefits of mHealth solutions in chronic disease management. It also covers the easiest step-by-step process for mobile health solution development.
The rise of mHealth solutions in healthcare has transformed the way chronic diseases are managed. It is the outcome of the increasing investment of hospitals, medical institutions, and health professionals in mHealth app development that the global market for mobile healthcare solutions is projected to reach $396 billion by 2028.
mHealth or mobile health solutions have now become an integral part of both healthcare experts as well as patients. These apps enable doctors to streamline patient management and patients with efficient and effortless chronic disease management. Read on to know how.
What is Chronic Disease Management?
Before exploring the benefits of mobile health or mHealth solutions in chronic disease management, it is critical to get an idea of chronic diseases and their management.
Chronic disease management is a healthcare approach that focuses on managing long-term health issues like diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. Such management aims to improve the quality of life for patients living with these conditions. With efficient and effective management, they can prevent complications and improve overall well-being.
How Mobile Health Solutions Transform Different Components of Chronic Disease Management
Let’s take a look at various components of chronic diseases and how they are managed using mHealth solutions:
- Regular Check-ups
Regularly visiting healthcare providers can help to monitor chronic disease progression and adjust treatment plans.
How mHealth solutions can help:
Chronic disease management platforms or apps can help patients avoid physical visits. In other words, with a telemedicine or telehealth app for chronic disease management, patients can connect with healthcare professionals and track, record, and share medical records with a tap on their mobile screens. The best part is they can do all this without stepping out of their homes.
- Medication Management
Another key component of chronic disease management is managing medication. It involves ensuring patients take prescribed medicines and understand the potential side effects. Making required adjustments based on the effects of the medicines also falls under this management.
How mHealth solutions can help:
Mobile health solutions for chronic disease management can send medication reminders not just to take medicine but also to refill before it finishes. Some Chronic disease management apps even have the option to auto-refill the prescription by repeating previous medicine orders. They can also educate them about the drug and alert them about the possible side effects of the medicine.
- Lifestyle Modifications
Managing a healthy lifestyle by consuming balanced meals, exercising regularly, and managing stress effectively contributes to chronic disease management.
How mHealth solutions can help:
Telehealth and chronic disease management mobile apps can help achieve these goals by enabling users to track their calories and nutritional content in each meal and physical activity, monitor sleep, and provide personalized guidance on diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes. Mobile health solutions can even offer remote access to healthcare services when required.
- Patient Education
Educating patients can play a pivotal role in controlling diabetes, arthritis, and other long-term health issues. They should be enlightened about their condition, treatment options, and self-care ways to effectively manage their health.
How mHealth solutions can help:
Mobile health solutions for chronic disease management can help guide patients with content and resources tailored to a patient’s individual condition, needs, and learning style. They can access information associated with their illness in real-time. The more educated a patient is the higher the chance of effective disease management and adherence to medication schedules and healthy lifestyle habits.
- Support and Counseling
One of the important aspects that can expedite the process of healing or effective disease management is emotional support and the right counseling for patients living with a chronic illness.
How mHealth solutions can help:
Chronic disease management software and platforms improve accessibility to healthcare services. Patients can connect and consult with healthcare professionals remotely at their convenience. Moreover, some apps also offer the option to connect with other patients suffering from the same disease. They can create a social group or community that can help with emotional support.
15 Unique Benefits of mHealth Solutions in Chronic Disease Management
Mobile health solution development for chronic disease management is on the rise due to the immense benefits it renders. Let’s dig deeper to know what these advantages are:
#1 Improved Patient Engagement
Having a dedicated mHealth solution or app that understands its users’ unique needs and preferences is no less than a boon. On one side, it enables medical professionals to design personalized care plans and, on the other side, it improves patient engagement and motivation.
#2 Adherence to Treatment and Medication
Chronic disease management apps facilitate real-time patient monitoring to track their symptoms, medication adherence, and vital signs to ensure early detection of any issue or medication side effects. Moreover, they can even send patients reminders and alerts about when to take medication, schedule doctor appointments, and more.
#3 Enhanced Healthcare Accessibility
Telehealth for chronic disease management can help patients to connect with healthcare providers as and when required. They can communicate through secure messaging platforms and calls. Healthcare providers can also monitor patients remotely and prescribe their treatment plans and medications accordingly.
#4 Better Health Outcomes
Improved disease management, medication adherence, and one-click accessibility to healthcare services ensure better health outcomes and reduce the need for hospitalizations. It also improves the efficacy of treatment as doctors can regularly monitor their patients and alter treatment plans.
#5 Cost-Effective Care
Mobile health solutions for chronic disease management reduce healthcare costs with early detection of potential problems and minimizing hospitalizations. They also enable hospitals and medical facilities to streamline healthcare operations leading to the automation of time-intensive tasks that decrease the cost.
#6 Increased Emotional and Social Support
Both emotional and social support do wonders in helping patients live with their condition. Many mobile solutions offer features like online communities and forums where patients can connect with other patients to get support.
#7 Early Detection of Disease Exacerbations
AI-powered mobile health solutions can detect early symptoms of disease exacerbations by tracking patients’ symptoms. This can be really helpful for medical professionals to timely intervene and prevent the spread of the problem further.
#8 Improved Quality of Life
As aforementioned in this blog, mHealth solutions development for chronic disease management can improve the quality of life for patients. With continuous tracking, support resources, and personalized care, they can control or even reduce the impact of the disease.
#9 Increased Health Literacy
mHealth app development for chronic disease management can contribute to educating patients with relevant videos, articles, and other information. They can understand their condition thoroughly and make better lifestyle choices.
#10 Improved Self-Care and Disease Management
Using mHealth apps for chronic disease management empowers patients to become self-sufficient. They don’t necessarily need to connect with healthcare professionals even for general queries. In other words, it reduces reliance on healthcare professionals.
#11 Secure Medical Records Management
A patient living with diabetes, arthritis, or any other chronic condition need to maintain a record of their medical history. Doing this manually is definitely a daunting task. A dedicated mobile health solution makes it easy to capture, store, and, even, share medical records with doctors.
#12 Enhanced Healthcare Professional’s Efficiency
A hospital, medical facility, or individual doctor investing in mHealth solution development for chronic disease management can enjoy benefits like improved efficiency. They can streamline patient management, consultations, and other operations without compromising accuracy.
#13 Reduced Administrative Burden
Automation of critical patient management, payment-related, medical history management, and other records minimizes admin burden and the overall costs as well. Healthcare professionals can utilize the saved time in other productive tasks that require human judgment or intelligence.
#14 Optimized Medical Data
mHealth apps developed for chronic illness management can optimize medical data and also make them usable for research and development purposes. It can help medical researchers to find new cures or develop more effective drugs for a disease.
#15 Minimized Appointment Cancellations
Telehealth and chronic disease management can reduce the rate of appointment cancellations, which generally happens when a patient physically visits the hospital or medical facility to consult their doctor. It is because with telehealth patients don’t have to step out of their homes.
Examples of mHealth Applications for Chronic Disease Management
Here are some mHealth apps for chronic disease management:
Diabetes Management Apps
Such apps and solutions can help patients track their blood sugar levels, calculate insulin doses, and get dietary recommendations to manage diabetes effectively. MySugr and Carb Manager are two popular diabetes management applications.
Heart Health Apps
Mobile health solutions built dedicatedly for health-related problems enable patients to monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, and physical activity levels. Cardiogram and Health Mate are two examples of these apps.
Asthma Management Apps
With a dedicated healthcare app for asthma management, patients can keep a tab on the symptoms, avoid situations or things that can trigger it, and ensure complete medication adherence. Asthma Buddy and Breathe Easy are two renowned asthma management apps.
Arthritis Management Apps
Such mHealth apps can be helpful for the patients to identify triggers, know more about the problem, get arthritis-friendly diets, and access various exercises that can help relieve the pain. Arthritis Foundation Arthritis Manager and PainScale are two famous arthritis management apps.
Mental Health Apps
Mobile applications for mental healthcare provide users with cognitive-behavioral therapy, and relaxation techniques, and help manage problems like depression and anxiety. Calm, Mindful Happiness, and EsVedra are some examples of such applications.
You may also be interested in: Latest Mental Health Mobile App Ideas for Startups
How to Build a mHealth Solution for Chronic Disease Management
Considering the immense benefits of a mobile health solution for chronic disease management, if you are interested in building one, here is the development process for the same:
- Market Research
Firstly, figure out the chronic illness you want to manage with your mobile solution. Now, understand the challenges that patients face with that particular condition. Review your competition and what they are offering.
- Strategic Planning
Create a comprehensive development plan to define the app’s features, USP, technology stack, data security techniques, platform, design guidelines, and other crucial aspects.
- Build an Intuitive UI/UX
The next step is to design an intuitive and appealing UI/UX keeping in mind the target audience. Make the navigation simple and clear so that anyone can access the app’s features and services without any hassle.
- mHealth App Development
Build the front-end and back-end of the mHealth solution of the application using the appropriate programming languages, databases, and other tech stack. Before building the same, you can also create an MVP and get it validated by your targeted audience. It will increase the chances of your final application or mobile health solution.
- Testing
Conduct various tests to make sure the app runs perfectly on all devices and operating systems. Identify bugs and troubleshoot them before launching.
- Launch and Maintenance
Deploy the app on Android, iOS, or other platforms you want. Regularly monitor the app and review users’ feedback for continuous improvement and maintenance.
Make sure your app complies with required regulatory requirements for data security and privacy, such as HIPPA, and GDPR. Also, ensure it can be integrated with EHR and other existing infrastructure for seamless and secure data exchange. To differentiate your app from others, you can enhance its accessibility to users with disabilities and provide the option to use the app in different languages.
If you are not from a technical background, it would be good to connect with an experienced healthcare app development company or developer to build the same.
Similar Read: Healthcare Software Development: A Technical Guide
Mobile Health Solutions for Chronic Disease Management: Future Trends
Here are the future trends in mHealth app development we can expect to be popular in 2025 and beyond:
#1 Increased use of AI: We may witness AI becoming the core of every mobile health solution development. The technology facilitates personalized care, offers critical data-based insights, helps with predictive analytics, and ensures round-the-clock support via chatbots or virtual assistants.
Read More: AI in Healthcare: Drives Potential Enhancements across the Healthcare Sector
#2 Wearable integration: Wearable integration will continue to rise in mHealth application development. It will make all mobile health solutions for chronic illness management to be accessible via smart devices, such as fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more.
Read More: The Future of Smart Hospitals: Leveraging IoT for Improved Patient Care
#3 Remote patient monitoring: Remote patient monitoring is the current trend, but in the future, we may witness it as a preferred mode for patients to connect with healthcare professionals. It ensures enhanced care access, early detection of diseases with symptom tracking, and improved patient outcomes.
#4 Gamification: The implementation of gamification elements such as rewards, challenges, and leaderboards will make mobile health solutions engaging and motivating. It will also act as a motivational factor for patients to stick to a healthy lifestyle and adhere to their prescribed medication.
Learn more: Top Healthcare Technology Trends
Final Words
The demand for mHealth solution development for chronic disease management is growing multifold. Mobile solutions developed for managing chronic illness can help patients improve self-care and make better lifestyle choices, increase knowledge about their condition and prescribed medications, ensure cost-effective care, and enhance accessibility to healthcare services.
Apart from this, there are numerous benefits that mobile health solution development offers both to patients and medical professionals. These benefits, along with examples of mobile health apps for chronic disease management and how to build such an app, are thoroughly explained in this blog. In case, you don’t want to try developing a mHealth app development on your own, connect with a reputed and experienced healthcare app development company or developer.