Development of medical software for iPhone/iPad – our summary of experience

Our experience and impressions after one year of developing mobile applications in medical field (who are the customers? What are the typical issues? Which are the marketing solutions? Motivation to develop mobile medical applications. General impressions.).

Having opened a business for developing mobile applications for iPhone/iPad, Android more than a year ago, we decided to choose one of the key fields to be a medicine.

There were a number of reasons for this. Among the key ones – historical identification of this field (my parents and others are from this field), as well as a list of undiscovered possibilities which are potentially inherent for this field (strong potential for high profits in a long-term perspective).

Within one year we have developed the following types of medical applications for iPhone/iPad/Android/BlackBerry:

- publication of medical e-books for iPhone/iPad, based on our engine;
- solutions to provide users with a dynamic content, based on server client’s solutions (e.g. database of drugs with a possibility to update it dynamically from server, using web interface and smart client on iPhone and taking into account features of a particular user);
- systems of online medical surveys (knowledge testing) with the possibility to save results on servers and generate final ratings;
- training medical games (including those based on accelerometer);
- calculators and systems which allow for to apply more precise medical solutions, based on knowledge basis;
- and other more complex projects, which cannot be described here due to NDA;

All our clients can be divided into three groups:

1. Application development for iPhone/iPad/Android/BB for corporate clients (medical companies) which need it more for marketing program to promote their brand or services;
2. Development companies from the USA, UK, Germany (having good networking in medical field) which we provide with services as an anonymous outsourcing company;
3. Professionals in the field of medicine (individuals) who decided to establish a medical program, based on their idea, for the purpose of getting a profit;

Most common nuances while working with clients in medical field:

1. Private (individual) clients are often not ready to understand, that for substantial sales of developed application they need to invest the same amount (if not more) into marketing and promotion as into development itself (we warn everybody about this. It’s not possible to just publish an application and get $1 million in profits). ;
2. Short strategies of “Portfolio of one application and that’s it” do not work anymore. In order to get profits from selling medical (and other) applications in a long-term perspective one needs to create a range of applications for portfolio, build sales network including website, blog, social networks, interact with authors of popular websites and blogs, order reviews etc.
3. Applications without design (i.e. based on a mere standard elements) are sold and popularized much more difficult than those, developed with its own design; even though it’s true to development of standard applications costs at least half the price of those with their “own design”. This is why we often receive orders to re-develop homebrew applications made by a “student”.
4. Development of requirements specification and algorithms for medical applications often takes much more time than during development of ordinary applications for iPhone/Android/iPad (i.e. one needs additional knowledge in the field of medicine which are often quite unique; as well as due to necessity of a thorough thinking over of optimal options for interaction between application and its patient. Due to this we even established a fee for preparing such specification since it is often already 10-20% of total costs for project realization.

Most perspective segments(our point of view) among medical applications for iPhone/iPad and Android:

1. Publication of medical books for iPad, as well as for announced Android-tablets and their “interactivisation” (due to large display in iPad, as opposed to iPhone, it’s more comfortable to learn various materials and watch images);
2. Development of training applications based on iPad for medical schools etc.
3. Porting of corporate systems from medical companies to iPad or Android-tablets;
4. Development of mobile medical applications for companies which already have a substantial users base (medical portals, large companies with clients etc);
5. And, obviously, development of medical ingenious applications for amateurs in other fields (healthcare, travel etc);

We hope that our review was of a good use to you!

Sincerely yours,
Managing Partner at The VIactivity LLC
Vitaliy Goncharuk