50 Must-Watch Healthcare Apps That Could Be the Next Big Thing (Part I)

Competition among healthcare startup apps is fierce, includingTelemedicine, prescription management, clinical decision support, patient portals, and outpatient services, among many other specialized verticals,We still cannot predict who will become the Uber of the healthcare industry. The following 50 apps are among the best in class,VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) has compiled and organized its core advantages.Given the considerable length of the full text, we will present the report in two parts: Part I and Part II. This article is Part I.

The Patient Engagement Platform 22otters, funded by Nuance Communications, aims to streamline healthcare delivery through personalized patient customization. Healthcare providers can input medication information and other instructions into the app and set up medication reminders for patients. If patients have questions about their treatment or forget to take their medications, healthcare providers can use the app to track when patients complete such tasks, thereby facilitating post-discharge follow-up care.

According to rankings by app analytics firm App Annie, AmWell, developed by American Well, was the most popular telemedicine app among consumers worldwide in 2014. It provides remote care services for clinicians and patients, featuring virtual waiting rooms, e-prescribing, online documentation, and proxy payment capabilities. The platform enables physicians to connect with their existing patients while also reaching new patients through its “Online Care Team” feature. Compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), it offers clinician training, establishes clinical guidelines, and provides peer support.

AskMD, developed by ShareCare, aims to establish a personal health history portal and share in-depth articles on user health. It leverages Nuance’s speech recognition technology, stores information regarding insurance, medications, and preferred physicians, and includes a Q&A service that connects patients with specialists.

BetterDoctor leverages a collaborative application programming interface (API) to help consumers make more informed decisions about their health. Its founders are dedicated to enhancing transparency in the healthcare market. Physicians use its online platform to expand their clinical experience, while consumers can locate nearby doctors through algorithms that evaluate recommendations, education, and professional background. The company prioritizes innovation and encourages developers to integrate with its API portal to leverage its complex datasets.

WellDoc’s mobile app, BlueStar, is the first FDA-approved prescription-only digital therapeutic for type 2 diabetes. BlueStar analyzes patients’ diabetes data, including blood glucose levels. The software generates summarized data and provides analytics to patients’ healthcare teams, while also developing self-management plans to support patient recovery. Endocrinologist Dr. Suzanne Clough noted that in 2005, WellDoc provided robust support for the daily lives of patients with diabetes.

This app, developed by Dike Drummond, known as the “Happy MD,” has been tested by physicians and features a vast array of resources and tools, all with a single goal: to reduce physician burnout. Burnout Proof ventures into a less popular category among medical apps, offering short guided meditation and visualization exercises tailored for clinicians in their workplace settings. These mini-sessions help doctors manage stress and fatigue arising from clinical encounters, thereby enriching their professional experience.

CareConnect, developed by Nemours Children’s Hospital, is the world’s first mobile telemedicine app dedicated to pediatrics. The app enables 24/7 face-to-face consultations with pediatricians, allowing parents to address questions about their child’s treatment without needing to visit the emergency room. For a $49 fee, Nemours provides access to resolve a range of common urgent care issues. Additionally, clinicians can use CareConnect to issue electronic prescriptions.

The traditional process of seeing a doctor generates numerous paper documents. CareZone provides a platform for storing and managing related receipts, documents, and appointment dates, helping patients avoid this clutter. The app can be used to manage the medical conditions of individuals or family members, automatically updating medication information and relevant health news, while organizing medical logs and allowing users to view the latest information from others.

Users of the Dispatch Health app have access to several mobile emergency treatment teams that can be dispatched with the press of a button. The Dispatch Health fleet is equipped with qualified laboratory equipment, medications, interactive video systems, and wireless internet, enabling them to manage many common conditions on-site, such as minor fractures, urinary tract infections, and wound dressing. The company accepts most local insurance plans and offers affordable care to uninsured patients. Currently, Dispatch Health is available only in Denver, but the company plans to expand to other cities.

One of the daily challenges physicians face is keeping up with the latest research and related discussions in their respective fields. Docphin addresses this issue by curating content tailored to physicians’ interests and delivering it directly to their smartphones or tablets. The app records user preferences to push professional and thematic journal articles, author updates, and free PDF documents. Additionally, users can opt to subscribe to premium services for advanced alerts and search capabilities.

Doctor On Demand offers patients remote medical consultations via computer or mobile phone for a fee of $40 per visit. In addition to internal medicine and pediatric care, the app also provides 25- to 50-minute psychology sessions and lactation consulting. According to Rock Health’s rankings, Doctor On Demand has been listed among the top 50 fastest-growing digital health companies.

More than 60% of U.S. physicians are registered members of Doximity. In just three years, its vertical social network surpassed the American Medical Association in scale. The company aims to design simple yet effective tools to alleviate physician stress by identifying pain points from its user base and areas where existing solutions fall short. Doximity users can send HIPAA-compliant faxes, create specialty-specific communities, aggregate relevant news, follow articles from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and search for job opportunities.

In the “Manhattan Research Pulse” study, Epocrates ranked first among healthcare-related apps in the United States. Epocrates provides physicians with clinical practice guidelines, convenient billing codes, and drug information. As part of athenahealth, the app features prescription drug interaction checks, a database of peer-reviewed disease content, and medication safety information. Epocrates integrates athenahealth’s heart rate monitoring functionality, enabling physicians to send reminders to patients.

In an era where smartphones have made services more convenient, medical appointment scheduling remains stuck in the stage of making numerous phone calls to confirm patient information. Everseat aims to address this issue from both the provider and consumer ends by enabling healthcare providers to mark available time slots in their schedules and notify patients of additional openings. Users can utilize the app to search for and schedule appointments, save preferred healthcare providers, and locate the nearest hospitals. Earlier this year, Everseat partnered with athenahealth, allowing healthcare providers to implement its solution within the vendor’s network.

Consumers often wonder whether their treatment costs reflect fair market prices, and FairCare addresses this concern. In addition to connecting with a nationwide price database and providers, the app encourages users to anonymously share their treatment expenses, offering valuable references for others’ decision-making. FairCare also enables users to locate doctors and hospitals based on their current location. The app is currently available free of charge.

Figure 1, known as “Instagram for Doctors,” is a free app that enables physicians to share medical cases for educational or collaborative purposes. Images uploaded to the app are visible to all Figure 1 users, who can view and comment on them. The app also supports sharing of medical logs with photos or links to other educational websites; users receive notifications about such uploads and may choose whether to read them. All photographs require patient consent, and any details or patient information, including images, are protected. The posting of images that expose identifiable details is prohibited.

The FollowMyHealth Mobile app, developed by Allscripts, enables users to access the mobile version of their electronic health records (EHR) on smartphones and compatible devices. In partnership with Apple Health, the app automatically updates information on blood pressure, weight changes, and glucose readings. FollowMyHealth also offers additional features, such as bill payment, prescription requests, appointment management, and secure two-way communication with physicians.

Formulary Search features an updated medical formulary and covers over 6,000 U.S. health plans, enabling users to quickly access drug coverage status and restriction information. The app aims to provide professional and efficient information on medications and related financial prescription decisions. Recently, Formulary Search has updated its search functionality for alternative therapies and associated information.

Heal is a mobile health application that connects patients with doctors anywhere. Whether patients are ill, seeking wellness advice, need a medical check-up, or require a primary care physician, they can simply send a request to receive services from Heal’s physicians. Uninsured patients pay an affordable fee of $99. The service is available online seven days a week, from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM.

“Healow,” short for “Health Online” and created by eClinicalWorks, enables users to access data from all their healthcare providers in one place, with a key feature being the aggregation of information from multiple electronic health records (EHRs). Users can transfer data between healthcare providers and review medical records. Additionally, the app offers appointment scheduling and prescription management functionalities.

Designed with the primary goal of maximizing communication efficiency, HealthLoop provides a suite of tools that facilitate robust engagement between physicians and patients. The app’s automated check-in feature monitors and guides patients to improve medication adherence while ensuring healthcare providers receive manageable and actionable feedback. HealthLoop supports integration by solo practitioners, multi-specialty groups, and healthcare systems, embedding its functionality into diverse models of medical care. Through automated follow-up care, the app aims to enhance physician-patient communication during clinical encounters.

HealthTap offers a mobile directory of over 1.3 million physicians, enabling users to connect with doctors from anywhere and access video and text consultations through installment payment plans. Physicians using the app can leverage expert insights, review laboratory test results, and issue remote electronic prescriptions. Additionally, the platform features thousands of personalized checklists tailored to medical care, lifestyle management, and pain management. Through the app, users can securely share data with their physicians and receive customized care tips, treatment plans, and relevant daily health information.

A team from San Francisco is planning to catalog all of the world’s health issues into a genomic database through the “Human Diagnosis Project.” They have developed the HumanDx app to collect relevant information on patients and clinical cases. Clinicians can use the app to query colleagues and the broader medical community for insights, apply expert knowledge to cases and treatment plans, accelerate the learning process, and store anonymized data for reference and use. Users can update specific cases and review cases uploaded by others to aid in complex diagnoses.

ICDEasy can output the corresponding ICD-10 codes after physicians enter ICD-9 codes, thereby reducing their workload. Priced at $5.99, the software integrates three types of code generation and translation modules. In addition to leveraging the existing ICD-9 version, it allows users to search for codes by entering keywords and chapters. The codes generated by the software cover various categories, and its search function is even available without Wi-Fi, such as in restricted-access areas or offline hospital settings.

Isabel is a tool for local symptom checking, partial database access, and clinical decision support. Healthcare professionals can use it to access an online system that helps them make accurate diagnoses more quickly. After inputting patient information, the program generates a list of all possible diagnoses, assisting healthcare providers in making accurate judgments and thereby seeking appropriate treatment methods. Developers state that the application can also serve as an educational platform to provide knowledge to clinicians, helping them achieve more precise diagnoses.