Discussion About Gap Between Necessary Healthcare Trends and Apps Used

Abstract

The fast pace of technological improvement and the rapid development and adoption of healthcare applications present crucial challenges for clinicians, users and policy makers. [39] Pandemic forced everyone to explore options that require minimal human interaction. This brought a surge in medical and health related app development. When initially conceived, these mobile medical applications performed basic functions e.g., BMI calculator, accessing reference materials etc; however, increasing complexity offers clinicians and patients a range of functionalities. [2] With more awareness amongst people, the apps started incorporating more features pertaining to healthcare. Even with the increase in medical apps usage today, it cannot be determined if the apps are enough to replace real doctors and adopt a completely app-dependent system for healthcare. In this paper, all the new trends that became increasingly popular related to medical apps have been explored. Then, these trends have been discussed and also what distinguishes them compared to the already existing features. We then take a look at the data of 130 existing apps that provide support for the mentioned trends in one way or another from a list of most used apps of last year in the Indian android market. With the analysis of the features in the apps, we take a look at what support is already provided. We then take a look at what could be done further to improve the already existing apps. With the combination of apps analysis and discussion on improvements, we can also draw a conclusion if the treatment of real doctors can be substituted with such apps.