Entrepreneurs and investors are obsessed with the idea of starting a business. It’s an ingenious way to provide value and invest their talents while earning profits. But, a business has to start from an idea.
The world is teeming with business ideas and the tech industry isn’t new to that. Most of it, however, goes to the constant improvement of business operations, processes automation, lifestyle e-commerce, and on-demand services, remote collaboration, and educational tech.
And so, this article aims to focus on the healthcare industry, with its current exponential growth. Here are three ideas centered on healthcare products and services that you can use for your next tech startup. Understand the need for each category, what products and services you can develop from that need, and learn how to apply it to your business.
Online Pharmacy
Market experts are expecting a 19% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) for the online pharmacy market for the years 2020 to 2026, according to a Globe Newswire report. The prescription-based and mobile app-based sectors, and online stores of brick-and-mortar pharmacies largely contributed to this expected growth.
An estimated 76% of the online pharmacy market share came from the prescription-based sector with experts expecting $132 billion in sales by 2026. Significant factors in this growth are convenience and cost-efficiency. Consumers find it cheaper and more convenient to purchase prescription drugs online compared to brick-and-mortar pharmacies.
Meanwhile, because of the growing e-commerce trend, experts predict $80 billion in revenue for online branches of brick-and-mortar pharmacies by 2026. The mobile app-based sector, on the other hand, is also expected to grow annually by 19% from 2020 to 2026.
All this growth is attributed to the market’s shift to the direct-to-patient model, which is influenced by most of the digital world’s move to provide new services and online experiences for consumers. This consumer-centric approach has attracted millions of patients looking for virtual options for medications and wellness.
To start an online pharmacy business, it’s key to adopt direct-to-the-patient sales of medicines, automated customer relationship management, and automated prescription filling.
Health Management Software
You have two options when pursuing this route. First, you can focus on health informatics, or instead, try your hand on individual health management. Both involve software development and are consumer-centric.
Consumer health informatics is a branch of health informatics, a field of science and engineering that studies patient data gathered from different sources and modalities. Because the world is in the age of hyper-connectivity, there is the proliferation of unverified health information, creating the need for consolidated valid information.
Consumer health informatics enables information technologies to combine health and communication. Its aim is to make it easy for patients and doctors to share information with each other and help them create health decisions. For example, behavioral health integrated services help behavioral healthcare providers to coordinate with hospitals, social services, and law enforcement officers to track a patient’s progress and address issues.
If this sounds interesting to you, you’ll need to analyze requirements from the patient. And then, you will include these user preferences into health information systems. Finally, you need to develop, test, and implement the best possible strategies to deliver health information.
On the other hand, individual health management systems are focused on monitoring patients’ health. It is best applied through app development.
Healthcare and Health Management Apps
According to a Deloitte survey, patients today are using more technology to monitor their health and share this data with their physicians. In fact, there were 90,000 healthcare apps developed in 2020. These apps are divided into categories that include fitness apps, health monitoring apps, workout apps, weight loss apps, wellness apps, and different variations of these apps.
However, Deloitte has found out that consumers are using healthcare apps mostly to manage their conditions rather than using them for therapeutics and self-care. An estimated 47% of healthcare apps focus on consumer disease management. Cardiovascular, diabetes and mental health are the most sought-after disease management apps.
To develop healthcare apps, you need to include instant medical aid and appointment scheduler. You should also consider features, the type of application, functionalities, size, app platform, complexities, third-party integration, and work model. You can also add advanced features such as reports, diagnosis, audio chat, and video conferencing.
Now is the Time to Start
Consumers have quickly adapted to the changes brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. This has turned the healthcare system upside down. While patients are now more concerned with their online privacy, more are also open to communicating with their physicians. This continues to prove the influence they have on the country’s healthcare system. Your decision to start a healthcare tech start-up is just ripe.
Hopefully, these ideas can help you get inspired to extend your products or services, or better yet, start your own business. While there are existing businesses with the same ideas, you can offer a more improved version of what’s already available in the market. You can use any of these ideas or put them together. Whatever your choice is, keep in mind to define your goals first and then start right away.