For the past couple of years, the health app market has been constantly growing. From exercise apps to telemedicine apps and mental health apps.

These apps can be divided into two big categories:

  • Wellness apps: including all apps related to physical and mental well-being such as yoga, meditation, and fitness apps.
  • Medical apps: including telemedicine apps, apps that monitor your body, medication tracking apps.

It is estimated that 60% of smartphone users have downloaded a healthcare app at some point. Most of them in the wellness apps category, but the medical apps category has also been steadily growing. Covid 19 has certainly created an impulse for the latter.

But it's not only healthcare users that have switched to mobile: physicians have also started to become more and more digital. According to research from Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information for healthcare professionals:

  • 72% of physicians access drug information from their smartphones.
  • 63% of physicians access medical research from their tablets.
  • 44% of physicians communicate with other medical staff through their smartphones.
  • 42% of physicians access clinical reference tools at the point-of-care with patients through their phones.

Mobile apps not only change the way we communicate, but they also help improve our lifestyle by revolutionizing industries like healthcare. But how have healthcare apps affected the industry?

1.  Accessibility

Mobile apps provide easy and instant access to medical information, consultations, and well-being services without having to go to a specific clinic or hospital. Now, users can access healthcare services that may not even be on the same continent as them.

2. Lower Costs

Without the cost of a physical location and staff (in some cases), mobile apps can provide value to users without charging astronomical fees or even for free in some cases.

3. Avoid Crowds

The shift in the users' behavior towards health apps can reduce the number of visitors at hospitals and clinics, reducing the saturation of these locations and providing faster solutions for patients.

4. Real Time Tracking

Instead of having to go to the hospital and pay for an expensive study, mobile apps on smartphones or wearables can now monitor different things in your body constantly. For example your blood pressure or glucose levels. Fitness apps, as well, can now provide specific and personalized metrics tailored for you.

5. Motivation and Reminders

Using notifications, gamification, and other similar tools. Health and wellness apps can help you craft a routine to take care of your body and mind every day in an effortless way. They can take care of your daily medication reminders, physical exercise reminders or meditation reminders, among others.

These are a few of the benefits of the growing trend in healthcare mobile apps use, but we are sure there are much more and some we are not even aware of yet. Luckily, technology has a way of improving our lives continuously and health is, for us, a huge part of this.