Software Engineering Insights

Blockchain technology is making the headlines, almost everywhere. It is likely to have a mention about it, irrespective of the industry. However, setting aside the massive scope of opportunities that Blockchain brings in, its prominent use cases are still concealed under Bitcoin.

Internet has found its relevance in all fronts and is poised to disrupt almost every sector with its benefits. Amongst the various domains that exert the influence of internet is healthcare.

With internet, evolved the concept of Internet of Things (IoT), which involves connecting anyone, anything, any service, or any network, via internet. Basically, IoT deals with interaction between machines, devices, or applications for solving or automating tasks, without human intervention.

“Over 2.3 billion users across the world are using smartphones. There are 4 billion mobile apps and 325 million connected wearable devices used worldwide.”

This steep rise in adoption of mobile platforms and smart devices has broaden up ways for physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare associations to deliver real time care and information to the users.

For 2018, the mHealth market is forecast to be valued at around 33.59 billion U.S. dollars and it’s expected to reach 58.8 billion USD by 2020. Moreover, the number of telehealth users are expected to reach 7 billion by 2018. These figures unveil the fact that people confide in mobile applications and devices to manage their health and fitness routines.

Despite the fact that our brain has got immense storage and processing power, we prefer storing our data on digital space. In consequence, the digital data is enlarging in size and is estimated to reach 44 trillion GB by 2020. Surely, such big data is impossible for humans to handle and thus Artificial Intelligence (AI) would be needed to track, manage, and probably, process it as well.

With evolving technology and awareness about healthcare, mHealth apps have become a necessity than an option. If a research done by statista is to be believed, the number of downloads in health care, medical, and fitness apps have seen a steep rise from 1.7 billion to 3.2 billion. This clearly forecasts the fact that mHealth apps are being accepted, used, and trusted by users worldwide.

Thanks to the evolving modes of connectivity, virtually delivering patient-centric care has been made possible. There are virtual health kiosks and portals, EHRs, remote consultations etc. that are bridging the gap between the patients and physicians in the most prominent way.

Technology is smartly revamping the model of healthcare industry. Thoughtful ideas are introduced to develop mobile apps, wearables, and other health monitoring devices. This has eventually brought an impressive change in how people maintain fitness, stay informed about their wellness, diagnose health issues, and connect with medical resources at distance.

Healthcare is one of the world’s largest industries. Collectively, the size of the healthcare market is estimated to be between five trillion to six trillion dollars. As one of the examples for how large the healthcare industry is at global level, consider this: All spending on products and services concerning the heart (pharmaceuticals such as beta-blockers, cardiovascular surgery procedures etc) is greater than the entire automotive industry. Therefore, there is nothing to be surprised with the fact that both entrepreneurs and investors have traditionally looked at healthcare as a lucrative industry to invest in.

In the dawn of a technological era, mobile apps for medical and health care is no out-of-the-blue concept. From physicians to patients to clinics, these apps are embraced for diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, and delivery of care. Considering the upsurge of smartphones and consumer interest in improving their health, there is a consequential opportunity to present mHealth solutions in more innovative ways. While development has got huge dependency upon the technologies available, half the job is done when framing the medical app development idea.