Great UX is an Unconditional Need For mHealth Success

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Great UX is an
Unconditional Need For mHealth Success
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Great UX is an Unconditional Need For mHealth
Success
There is a severe shortage of physicans and
healthcare practitioners across the globe. In the
United States alone, this shortage could reach up
to 120,000 physicians by 2030. The patient to
doctor ratio is extremely worrisome with only 40
doctors per 100,000 patients in rural areas and
53 physicians per 100,000 people in the urban
areas at present. This alarming gap is one of the
key factors that are driving healthcare industry
to adopt digital ways. mHealth or digital health
seems promising for bridging the gap between
healthcare providers and patients by eliminating
distances and enhancing accessibility. Mobile
health apps can be substantial in enabling
real-time communication between the doctors,
patients, and other care providers. 40 of
doctors trust that mHealth applications and tools
can reduce the number of on-site clinical visits,
a recent report revealed. As per the same report,
more than 25 of American physicians are using at
least one mHealth app currently, and 93 of
doctors believe that mobile apps can enhance the
quality of patient health. Although popularity of
mHealth tools for telemedicine is still in its
nascent stage, they are widely used by millions
of people for tracking health and fitness, heart
rate, and sleep patterns. The prevalence of
smartphones and tablets is propelling the surge
of mHealth market, which is expected to generate
approximately 111.1 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of
around 38.26. Despite all the hype and
projections surrounding mHealth, 98 of digital
health startups bomb with poor usability as one
of the main reasons. 1 in 5 products fail due to
an unfriendly product experience, which stands
true for mHealth products as well. Usability
testing can prevent such disastrous results but
getting it right can be tricky, especially in the
healthcare domain where there is more
apprehension than acceptance due to sensitivity
of the information involved and stringent
compliance regulations.
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Great UX is an Unconditional Need For mHealth
Success
The potential of mHealth or Telehealth In an
age where the average consumer manages nearly all
aspects of life online, its a no-brainer that
healthcare should be as convenient, accessible,
and safe as online banking, said Jonathan
Linkous, CEO of American Telehealth Associations.
Linkous predicted, Who nowadays would ever use a
bank that makes you come into a branch to access
your money? Five years from now the question will
be Who is going to go to a doctors office that
makes you come in every time you have the
sniffles? mHealth tools such as Digital Health
Records (DHRs) can positively impact the
experience of both patients and physicians. Not
only do they levitate the quality of care
provided, but also improve the satisfaction
levels among both healthcare professionals and
patients. mHealth applications allow both parties
to track valuable information. Physicians can
access data regarding medical history, emergency
contact information, allergies, and ongoing
medications of a patient before recommending a
prescription. Having an insight on the patients
holistic health history, practitioners can gain a
better understanding of their patients
condition. Similarly, patients can keep a tab on
their medical examination reports, past
prescriptions, and received diagnoses. These
applications support critical decision-making for
both patients and care providers by streamlining
data entry and facilitating smooth communication
between them. Future Health Index 2019 indicates
that about 74 of patients use digital health
technology and expect an improved care quality in
exchange for their data, whereas 76 of
healthcare professionals utilize DHRs in their
hospitals/practice.
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Great UX is an Unconditional Need For mHealth
Success
The abandonment issue of mHealth users Even with
all the encouraging statistics, saying that
healthcare industry is a little apprehensive
about mHealth practicality would be an
understatement. Many patients, physicians and
other healthcare professionals think of mHealth
tools like EHRs as an additional task to
manage. Majority of them abandon the telehealth
applications after the first use citing the
reasons of poor usability and unintuitive design.
Due to bad UX interface, the basic purpose of
establishing a continuous channel between care
receivers and providers is defied. In a survey,
patients outlined ease of use and enrollment,
visual appeal, mHealth literacy, inclusion of
social support system, and use of personalized
health information as the key traits required in
an mHealth application. The surveyees revealed
that if an application is too difficult to use or
download, they would abandon it. Engagement and
personalization are indispensable features that
motivate patients to use such apps. The McKinsey
design index established a strong correlation
between high design, revenues, and total returns
to stakeholders (TRS). In their Business Value of
Design report, McKinsey revealed that over 40 of
the companies do not communicate with their end
users during the development phase in spite of
the fact that only 5 users can effectively
capture up to 80 of all the usability issues.

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Great UX is an Unconditional Need For mHealth
Success

Choose UX Testing over excuses for poor UX The
usability issues within an mHealth application
are mostly due to bad fit between the patient
needs and the service offerings. Both
pre-deployment and post-deployment usability
testing are vital for the applications health
and success. Usability testing assesses and
analyses a product or application for ease of use
and validates whether it aligns with the overall
purpose or not. In addition to simply testing the
application from a design perspective, the
mHealth solution providers must incorporate value
proposition of the app while evaluating
usability. Before implementing the product at a
larger scale, real-world feedback under simulated
settings should be obtained to understand its
impact in actual conditions. The employment of
usability testing notably improves the chances of
applications acceptance. The healthcare
usability testing approach while developing an
mHealth application promotes a user-centric,
value-driven design with a practical outlook. A
final word User interface is the face of an
application, which should be presentable,
appealing, aesthetic, and intuitive. Due to the
amount of apprehension and hesitancy among the
users of healthcare IT solutions, it is all the
more important to instill the qualities and
features as per the users wants. Driving
awareness and spending time in making the users
familiar with the apps design can be significant
in driving success and scalability.
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Great UX is an Unconditional Need For mHealth
Success

Cigniti offers Healthcare and LifeSciences
software testing solutions for diverse
lifescience and healthcare players such as
hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare
services, clinical labs, diagnostic centers,
third-party administrators (TPA), payers, medical
equipment manufacturers, healthcare ISVs, and
research organizations. With our healthcare
application testing experience, you can add
customer centricity and agility to your assurance
approach for improved customer satisfaction and
increased business. Connect with us to build
applications that offer the much-needed high
performance healthcare user experience.   Read
Full Blog at https//www.cigniti.com/blog/mobile
-healthcare-usability-testing-ux/
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