5 Types of Cost-Saving Hospital Mobile Apps

For the third year in a row, cost reduction has been named as the #1 concern for hospital CEOs. Among various cost reduction strategies employed by hospitals, many are turning to branded mobile apps.

The timing is great! In 2014, health app usage increased 89 percent. Less than 2 percent of U.S. adults own a wearable; but more than 70 percent carry a smartphone. It makes sense for providers to engage patients on mobile.

But how can apps save costs? Here are some proven app examples from MobileSmith customers:

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 75 percent of all health care costs are linked to chronic conditions. Branded condition-specific apps can contribute to cost reduction in the following areas:

• Post-discharge communication

• Educational content (can be updated on-the-fly)

• Automatic prescription reminders

• Interactive symptom trackers, and more!

A connected patient-facing app can not only boost hospital brand, but empower patients to take responsibility for their condition. The key to usability and retention is to empower stakeholders – clinicians, marketers, case managers – to prototype and test multiple use cases and quickly get them to market.

A branded Urgent Care app offered by their trusted provider can be a handy mobile tool, allowing patients to:

• Check dynamically updated ER and Urgent Care wait times;

• Find and map the nearest Urgent Care facilities;

• Get GPS directions, hours, and tap-to-call.

By providing a branded app like that, a healthcare system can significantly reduce its ER traffic and route some of the potential ER clients to more affordable Urgent Care facilities within their reach.

These are great tools for both patient and physician. An instant mobile directory, like the one provided in the UCLA Health app, helps foster physician relationships and streamline appointment-setting. Users can:

• Search physicians in the system by name, location or specialty;

• Request appointments or contact physicians;

• Explore services, insurance & billing.

A branded, native app is great for patients on the go, or with limited or no Internet access.

Missed appointments, or patients being late due to getting lost, can result in wasted time and money for a hospital. Many organizations are exploring wayfinding apps to solve this problem. With a user-friendly hospital wayfinding function, you can:

• Assist your visitors with indoor and outdoor navigation and parking;

• Enable automatic check-in, queue placement, check-out, etc.;

• Push relevant location-based text messages pointing to specific app pages;

• Track time spent by your visitors or staff at various locations,

• And much more!

Mobile Wayfinding is a hot item right now, but most organizations perceive it to be a very costly and lengthy project. MobileSmith has integrated with a low-cost, disruptive beacon and geofencing technology that is much less expensive than the newly available digital wayfinding solutions and does not require deploying and maintaining a costly infrastructure. Presently, it's an optimal solution for organizations that want to get into mobile wayfinding quickly and at low cost, while providing a truly satisfying mobile user experience.

Last year, 2,610 hospitals were hit with readmission penalties. One of the top problems identified as contributing to preventable readmissions is poor adherence to prescribed medications and regimens. Mobile apps can empower patients to take better control of their health and improve adherence:

• Track medication dosage/intervals;

• Set and receive timely reminders;

• Learn more about your medication and save a photo; and more!

A customized Medication Tracking app is not only a great cost-saving tool, but also a potential community-building resource. Include health tips, interactive gallery and social media – let patients get hooked!

Despite the power of mobile apps, they are still perceived to be an extremely costly and troublesome endeavor. A custom-developed native app may take months to complete – only to disappoint in the end.

A great alternative many hospitals have discovered is a code-free mobile app development platform that allows non-programmers to easily prototype, test, launch, and manage a variety of useful apps. This way, a hospital not only saves considerable costs, but also brings the process closer to the people who know their patients best – and who can quickly measure whether an app is working or not. After all, mobile technology is only as good as it delivers on key business metrics. With apps that deliver, CEOs can breathe a little easier!

Author: Janna Badalian, Marketing Director at MobileSmith

MobileSmith is an enterprise-class mobile app development platform that enables healthcare providers to rapidly create, deploy, and manage custom, native apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android without writing code. Our clients create award-winning mobile apps, easily integrate their data sources, securely manage each app from a dedicated online CMS, and implement a variety of proximity messaging scenarios using beacons and geofencing. MobileSmith is HIPAA certified.