Many forward-looking hospitals and healthcare facilities have already launched a branded hospital wayfinding app. They’re ahead of the pack. And here’s the good news: In 2015, more than 42% of U.S. users returned to an app 11 or more times, showing steady increases year over year.
Now for the not-so-good news: The same study shows that app abandonment rates are nearly 20% and have been in that ballpark for years. Two in ten users open an app once and then never again. So how do you aim for the high-usage end of the spectrum? How do you keep users coming back again and again?
Consumers expect apps to deliver more and more value over time. And smartphone capabilities just keep going up. This means that existing hospital mobile apps need to continue to evolve their feature sets to meet patient and consumer expectations. Luckily, upgrading your app with the latest mobile features is much easier than developing a new app from scratch—thanks to our friend, the SDK.
SDKs add advanced features to your app, PDQ.
“SDK” is short for “software development kit.” It refers to a set of pre-written code, documentation and programming tools that developers can use to create new software applications or enhancing existing apps. (And “PDQ” is short for “pretty darn quick,” if you didn’t already know.)
Phunware platform modules offers multiple mobile SDKs, and because they’re essentially plug-and-play, they save a lot of development time and hassle. Brands can use Phunware’s platform modules whether Phunware built their original app or not.
The following modules offer the most logical value for hospital apps:
Mapping, Navigation and Wayfinding for Hospital Apps
Turn your app into a personal digital guide from your patients’ home or office directly to your facility, to the closest parking lot, then through the corridors and right to their ultimate destination. Your facility map can even be customized with points of interest, such as your pharmacy, billing department or gift shop. Mapping, Navigation, and Wayfinding is the big kahuna for hospitals, as it alleviates one of patients’ top frustrations and dramatically improves the patient experience. See how Dignity Health is using a mobile solution to improve patient wayfinding and experience.
Mobile Engagement for Hospital Apps
In a hospital app, this module is all about improving engagement to make patients and visitors feel more welcome and respected. By leveraging location triggers, your app can send specific messages and notifications to users—such as a welcome greeting when they enter the building, or information about the daily specials when they near the cafeteria. Our user-friendly console makes it easy for your patient services team to build out a messaging plan that makes sense for your patient population.
Analytics and Business Intelligence
Phunware’s analytics platform module helps you understand who’s using your app, which parts of your app they view most, how frequently they use your app and more. If you’re also using our wayfinding module, you can see specifics about how users move throughout your hospital—such as seeing the most popular POI and routes chosen. All of these insights can help you deliver more relevant content, understand your patients and visitors better and make more informed decisions.
As smartphones become smarter, the most successful mobile apps will continue to evolve to take advantage of their new capabilities. Advanced features serve as differentiators for your hospital, and also keep users coming back to your app for a more and more useful experience. Having a leading-edge mobile app helps position your hospital as an innovative organization that puts the patient experience first.
Want to learn more about using mobile to benefit both patients and your facility? Our eBook, Where Do We Go From Here?, covers all that and more.
