The Significance of Telehealth
Telehealth technology allows patients to receive health services through a mobile device, removing the need to visit healthcare facilities to consult with a provider in person. As more patients start to seek out virtual healthcare services, more healthcare organizations and providers will need to adapt to the changing healthcare sector and introduce new technologies if they want to stay prevalent. Healthcare applications can be designed to meet a healthcare organization’s exact needs based on the services they provide and the patients they care for.
Healthcare applications allow healthcare providers to consult patients through a telemedicine platform using instant messaging, audio calls, or video conferencing. With the check-in process being performed virtually, including giving patients the option to fill out all necessary paperwork ahead of time, the patient will have a quicker and less stressful healthcare experience before the consultation.
Healthcare applications also serve as a reputable educational resource for patients looking for more information on their conditions. This will decrease the chance of patients coming across inaccurate information while conducting medical internet research. By offering a digital library full of health education materials, providers can empower patients to take an active role in their care.
Telehealth technology also makes it easy to integrate electronic medical records (EMR) into a provider’s practice. EMR technology allows providers to access medical records within healthcare applications, ensuring they have easy access to all historical and relevant health data previously gathered.
Advantages of Telehealth for Healthcare Providers
Telehealth services have clear benefits for patients, but what about providers? Let’s take a look at three benefits healthcare providers can experience by incorporating telehealth services into their practice.
Healthcare Provider Alerts
When using healthcare applications, medical professionals can be alerted when patients request or schedule appointments, change their health insurance, or need a prescription refill. Managing these processes through a telemedicine platform allows healthcare professionals to stay notified of their patients’ activity and needs without requiring an initial phone call.
When medical professionals can tend to patients’ requests without interruption or frustrations with wait times, patients are more likely to continue their care with that provider.
Simple Collaboration Among Providers
Telehealth technology makes it easier for healthcare providers to collaborate to improve patients’ care and outcomes. Providers can share insight into a patient’s medical history and potential care avenues based on noted health conditions.
Collaboration in the healthcare system makes it easier for providers to do their job, but managing these consultations are common pain points. With telehealth technology, providers can share medical images and provide consultations on their own time, without the difficulties that come with scheduling meetings.
Continuous or Frequent Monitoring
Remote patient monitoring allows healthcare providers to monitor a patient’s current condition with wearable devices connected to the telehealth ecosystem. These devices can monitor information like vital signs, activity levels, and sleep patterns.
Being able to track this information with a wearable device gives providers access to real-time medical data and can alert them when the patient’s health reaches a critical condition, allowing them to act quickly.
Key Factors to Consider When Designing Telehealth Interfaces for Healthcare Providers
The user interface (UI) design process involves creating user interfaces that allows users to interact with a software solution, like healthcare applications. What makes user interface design important? It’s an essential component of the software development process and is tricky in the healthcare industry, as both patients and providers use healthcare applications.
Here are eight key factors that software development teams must consider during the user interface design process to ensure it’s functional for healthcare providers.
Emphasize Functionality
As important as the appearance and visuals of healthcare applications are, the functionality and perceived efficiency of the app will always be more important. Building a user interface design that allows medical professionals to navigate the telemedicine platform and complete their work with ease should be a top priority.
Visual details are important, and we will cover those factors next, but the appearance doesn’t matter if the application doesn’t function. Create a user interface design that displays data in a simple and effective way while presenting clear workflows the providers are familiar with.
Ensure Ease-of-Use
Creating a user interface design that is intuitive and easy to navigate will have a significant impact on the user experience. Since healthcare professionals will be spending a large amount of time navigating the platform, building it to have streamlined workflows and be clearly organized will ensure providers can work out of the application with ease.
Consult the providers who will be using the telehealth application while building the user interface design to determine current pain points and build optimized workflows that fit the provider’s needs. Consider using existing mental models when creating the user interface design to ensure the platform is intuitive and easy to navigate.
Prioritize High-Security
Security is an essential component of healthcare apps to ensure they’re in compliance with HIPAA regulations. Most of these regulations are addressed in the code for the application, but there are some aspects that should be considered for healthcare UI design.
Consider simple details in the user interface design like not displaying any patient data on a home screen, having notifications in place to alert patients of privacy rules during video conferencing appointments, or a privacy disclaimer before screen sharing during an appointment.
Thoughtful Notification Designs
In healthcare applications, notifications serve an important role in user interface design since they provide healthcare professionals with reminders pertinent to their patients’ health. Healthcare apps will notify providers of upcoming appointments, prescription refill requests, and messages from patients seeking non-urgent support.
Software development teams should consider making the user interface design for notifications different from the standard applications. Also, consider giving the different types of alerts different designs to make them easily distinguishable for sorting.
Utilize Colors Effectively
To reduce stimulation and stress, the color palette of healthcare applications should be simple, calming, and visually appealing. Healthcare providers spend a large amount of time on the application, and having bright or intense colors can be stressful and result in eye strain.
The color scheme should take into account physical limitations like color blindness. Ensuring healthcare applications use high-contrast colors across all user interface design elements will allow all users to navigate the platform with ease.
Pay Attention to Fonts and Alignments
The fonts used in the application might seem like a small detail, but choosing a font that is simple and easy to read has a large impact on successful UI design. Using a high-contrast font color will improve the readability of the content and make it easier for users with poor eyesight to navigate the platform.
Ensuring the font size is appropriate contributes to the readability of the content, as many users could have poor eyesight or experience eye strain from staring at screens for long periods of time. Consider making the font size adjustable to accommodate the users’ preferences.
Responsibly Select Icons and Images
Icons and images are important for user interface design as they break up large amounts of text and give providers another way to communicate with patients. Using visual elements to replace or work alongside text will make the application more interactive and easier to digest.
Some examples of healthcare icons that improve the user interface design include service headers, appointment types, and menu options on the home page. Images can supplement the content through diagrams, medical equipment, and staff galleries to build trust.
Partner with Geneca Today
If your healthcare organization is ready to develop a healthcare application designed to streamline providers’ processes, reach out to Geneca today! We have a team of experts in the healthcare system and user interface design on deck, ready to work together and make your software dreams a reality.
