Future of Healthcare: Mobile Medical Diagnostic Apps
Personal devices such as mobile phones are ushering in a new epoch for the healthcare sector, completely transforming how and where medical decisions are made and the way we get treated.
Especially after the covid pandemic, healthcare professionals have finally realized the importance of treating patients remotely.
This rising trend of remote healthcare MDM has caused a quiet stir in the development of smart medical applications, either by connecting medical devices/wearables or integrating virtual clinics/treatment programs to mobile apps.
Mobile Medical Apps are revolutionizing every facet of healthcare, allowing more precise and timely administration of treatments, reducing the cost of intervention, and at the same time improving the quality of patient care.
With these apps at your service, you no longer have to spend long hours sitting at clinics waiting for your turn. Now you can get expert advice and treatment from the comfort of your home!
What are Mobile Medical Apps?
The applications designed for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, that assist in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, or monitoring of a disease or disorder are referred to as Mobile Medical apps.
The apps used for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and overall physical and mental well-being are also included in this category.
Healthcare Technology App Market:
One of the top priorities of the modern world is to provide quality healthcare for all, resulting in a great deal of pressure on hospitals and medical professionals.
In order to relax this pressure, the medical industry is shifting towards remote setups to provide more efficient and accessible healthcare. The development and prevalence of mobile medical applications are playing an active role in enabling this transition.
In fact, the use of health apps is becoming so popular that the Play Store has recently added a separate “Medical” category.
Top Mobile Medical Diagnostic Applications:
Current Mobile Medical Apps available on the Playstore range from simple fitness/diet programs to diagnosis and prevention of life-threatening diseases like cancer.
However, not all the applications provide what they promise, which is why we have created a comprehensive list of effective apps in each of the following categories;
- Symptom Checking and Diagnosis
- Fitness, Nutrition, and Physical Well-Being
- Mental Therapy and Wellbeing
- Reproductive Healthcare
- Skin Cancer Detection
- Genitourinary Tumors Assessment
Symptom Checking and Diagnosis Apps:
Early diagnosis opens the door to future care and treatment, research has verified four apps currently available in the market safe and effective for diagnosis of certain health issues when provided when relevant info.
Detailed study at: Journal of Medical Internet Research – Evaluation of Four Artificial Intelligence–Assisted Self-Diagnosis Apps on Three Diagnoses: Two-Year Follow-Up Study (jmir.org)
You can take these apps simply as a replacement to your general physician.
- Ada– uses artificial intelligence to help people understand, manage and get treatment for their symptoms.
- Your.MD – provides symptoms diagnosis, treatments, and personalized medicine along with focused physician attention.
- Babylon – healthcare app for booking online appointments with general physicians, therapists, nurses, pharmacists, and physiotherapists
- Buoy Health– a dynamic and interactive app that helps people in figuring out health issues and provides guidance for either self-care or professional intervention.
Fitness, Nutrition, and Physical Well-Being Apps:
Physical activity and a good diet are essential for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. There are a number of apps available to monitor our activities and help us in achieving these goals.
Some successful apps are:
- Samsung Health– an app for overall physical health, includes diet plans, fitness programs, glucose, vital signs, sleep, and anthropometric parameters control, education, and training.
- Health & Fitness Tracker with Calorie Counter– helps in healthy diet, physical activity, sleep monitoring, vital signs and anthropometrical parameters control. Also provides health education.
- FITTR: Fitness & Weight Loss -an app for physical fitness, weight loss and anthropometrics regulations.
Mental Therapy and Wellbeing Apps:
With the development of medical apps now it’s possible to achieve peace of mind through your mobile phones. Apps that provide great mental health services are listed below:
- Betterhelp– online therapy application
- Bearable– symptoms tracking app for overall issues related to health
- PTSD Coach– designed for helping individuals who have or may have post-traumatic stress disorder. Includes information about professional care, tools for stress management, and self-assessments
- Depression CBT Self-Help Guide– an app for helping people suffering from sadness and depression. Include interactive features like cognitive library and mood logs that aid in identifying the cause of distress and better treatment planning with a therapist.
For more apps and detailed info read: The Best Mental Health Apps of 2022 (verywellmind.com)
Reproductive Healthcare Apps:
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of stigmas associated with sexual health. People shy away or feel judged talking about these issues, hence end up compromising on their well-being. Medical apps are a safe way to find solutions to these problems in secrecy.
- Biem-an online sexual healthcare service, private health tests for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
- Maven Clinic– a virtual clinic for family planning, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and postpartum-related concerns
- Myflo– a menopausal and menstruation cycle tracker. This app collects cycle data and translates it into health information, and suggests lifestyle changes for better reproductive health.
- Itmatters– an app for youth and teens, addressing their sexual and healthcare concerns with confidentiality, leading to in-person health services in their comfort zones.
- ibreastcheck– provides real-time breast cancer diagnosis, which is critical for successful breast cancer treatment.
Skin Cancer Detection Apps
Skin cancer or melanoma is a growing public health concern, the only way to tackle it is early and precise detection. Mobile health apps could be a powerful tool to reduce morbidity of skin cancer in general public.
Detailed research at: JMIR Dermatology – Development of Smartphone Apps for Skin Cancer Risk Assessment: Progress and Promise
Some promising apps are:
- SkinVision– a skin cancer detection app
- SkinScan– A portable library verified by scientists for automated melanoma detection on handheld devices.
- SpotMole– An app that checks and scans skin for any abnormal spots/moles and detects signs of skin cancer through machine learning.
Genitourinary Tumors Assessment Apps
25% of all cancers are genitourinary cancers, these include prostate and bladder cancer for men and cervical and uterine cancer for women.
Even though these cancers are the leading cause of deaths, early detection and diagnosis can improve the chances of survival.
- Ball Checker-With early detection, testicular cancer is curable but late diagnosis results in unfavorable outcomes. This app provides information and self-exams resulting in early testicular cancer diagnosis.
- Kidney cancer manager- Helps patients with renal carcinoma manage their treatments and medications. Also, provide preventive measures to patients recovering from kidney cancer.
- Rotterdam Prostate Cancer Risk-A prostate cancer risk assessment app, developed By Prostate Cancer Risk Research Foundation, Rotterdam
- Ovarian cancer (Personal Remedies LLC)-Anovarian cancer preventive app, consisting of comprehensive nutritional guidelines and lifestyle changes to reduce risk, combat, and prevent ovarian cancer.
- Global Pap App– Helps in cervical cancer prevention when provided with information like age, cytology result, and HPV result.
Future forecast and challenges:
The Global Mobile Medical Apps Market was valued at USD 3.65 Billion in 2019 and it is expected to reach USD 17.61 Billion by 2027.
Even though there are a number challenges that hinder in the development of these apps but the benefits outweigh them all. And in order for mobile medical apps to become fully and widely acknowledged, further research is needed to verify their positive impact on the medical sector and the user population.
Let’s hope that the healthcare industry and developers come up with new innovations to build more beneficial and useful apps in the future.
