Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed telemedicine moving into mainstream healthcare, by bridging the gaps between patients, doctors, and systems. People now realize the ease it offers to meet healthcare needs while staying at home. But what about care for our furry, scaly, and feathered family friend?
Animal healthcare has always been on the fast track to adopt innovation and drive positive change. You would agree emergencies are not the only case to get veterinarian assistance for pet owners. There could be a lot of situations when the need would be to simply consult the doctor as a follow-up like post-surgery recoveries, preventive treatment instructions, symptom reports & so on. The owners need not have to always drive the pet to the clinic.
Today veterinarians & veterinary-specific technology companies do see potential in how telemedicine makes communication with clients and seeing patients remotely has never been easier. Therefore if you are someone looking for ways to transform and evolve the way you serve your patients through vet telemedicine, then this article is for you.
How do Vet-on-demand Apps Work?
Before the pandemic, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) disapproved of online diagnosis and ePrescriptions. However, due to social distancing measures and the continued spread of the virus, the FDA now allows telemedicine apps to transform the entire veterinary practice to connect doctors and pet owners over a virtual platform.
Listed below are most of the modern apps in use by vets and pet owners to communicate at present;
Mobile Apps
A veterinary telemedicine application can offer clients a greater sense of engagement. This holds since they can easily reach out to you for help at any point in time. It is via videos, photos, or text messages describing the affected area on their pet’s body or newly acquired symptoms.
- Video calls — Instead of physically visiting the clinic, pet owners can book an online appointment and allows doctors to easily reach out at any point in time with videos, photos, or messages describing the impact area on the patient’s body or any newly acquired symptoms.
- Real-time chat connect — It can be used by both types of pet owners via messengers;
- Seeking immediate medical help for their animals
- By owners who wish to discuss their patient’s diagnosis to clarify medications or diet schedules
- Instant Notifications: One can easily send out important updates to animal owners through push notifications. This feature would also remind them of an upcoming appointment or even the medication prescribed by the practitioner.
Wearables and Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
Veterinarians can improve reach by implementing pet wearables implemented alongside RPM technology. It enables them to observe the real-time impact of the treatment recommendations.
For instance – with cloud-connected biosensors, clinics can collect critical data about the animal’s status. This takes place when a patient is made to put on portable glucose monitors or smart patches that help in monitoring its status 24/7 through a custom vet telemedicine app.
Additionally, telehealth apps assist medical professionals to assess the medical history of animals and provide prescriptions online. By integrating them into a telehealth platform would help furnish a source of objective insights into the pet’s condition. This can be extremely beneficial if the patient is suffering from a chronic disease. The insights would help medical practitioners to improve outcomes while building strong relationships with their patients.
Cloud-based Software
The goal of integrating cloud with telemedicine helps veterinary medicine practitioners to spend more time focusing on pet care, in turn improving patient outcomes. Cloud-based solutions allow paying for only the resources one needs. It offers the flexibility to scale up when your practice expands. And, with enterprise-grade cybersecurity, the data is always compliant.
Advantages of Telemedicine in Veterinary Practice
With its growing potential telemedicine as suggested by several medical practitioners is all set to become an industry standard. It is and would continue to enable them to offer innovative solutions and transform into ‘brick-and-click veterinarians. Here’s a graphic representation of how it would evolve going forward.
For Pets and Owners
It’s usually an uncomfortable situation for animals when they’re made to visit the animal clinic. An unfamiliar environment and unknown faces can stress out the creature. Telemedicine-based visits reduce both the emotional and physical pressure that both the pets and owners are put through.
For Veterinarians
A veterinary telemedicine app gives clinics an edge over the competition to retain and manage a larger client base offer a greater level of satisfaction to animal owners. It offers the doctors more time throughout the day to respond rapidly to their patients’ needs.
Wish to Enable Remote Pet Healthcare?
We can help! Our specialists can help custom develop fitting telehealth app functionality that matches your business needs.
Key Features of a Veterinary Telemedicine App
You would agree to diagnose animals and educate their owners via remote connect is a breakthrough initiative. Though to allow the healthcare professional to offer their services, a vet telemedicine app must offer a wide range of features.
Here are some important ones that we think would be beneficial for any animal care establishment.
| Admin Panel | Vet Panel (Web/Mobile Interface) | Pet Owner Panel |
| Main Dashboard | Dashboard | Chat/ Video consultation |
| Clinic & client management | Appointment Mapping (Start/End visit + Chat/video call) | Add/remove vet information |
| Pet & pet owner management | Medical History Reporting (diagnosis & consultation) | Add/remove pet information |
| Animal Category Management (would include breed & animal type) | Add/remove photos | Add/delete photos |
| Health Compliance Adherence Inputs | Pet & Owner profile management | Video & photo management |
| Payment integration/management | Payment gateway integration/management | Payment gateway integration/management |
| On-demand & Automated Report generation | Managing visitor status | Medical History Reporting (diagnosis & consultation) |
We recently published an interesting blog on veterinary practice management software which can enable seamless management of patients and smoothen operations. Give it a read to understand the essentials that you may want to consider while developing the solution of your choice.
Here’s an overview of how team Rishabh can help better manage online pet care services across different persona using telehealth platforms:
Animal hospital/Clinics
Telemedicine app for vets
- Develop a custom vets app for telehealth
Hardware dependency
- Help install, configure and manage backend configuration with video recording & data storage capabilities for telemedicine solution
Entrepreneurs
Telehealth app for vets & pet owners
- Market analysis & roadmap creation
- Generating an MVP version of the telehealth app
- Developing a feature-packed telehealth app for pet care
- Building a strong user base
- Adhering to healthcare compliance
Specialist Consultant
Teleconsulting apps
- Market analysis & roadmap creation
- Generating an MVP version of the teleconsulting app
- Integration with telehealth tools to communicate with a veterinary specialist to gain insights and advice on the care of a patient
Considerations of Telemedicine in Veterinary Medicine
To provide online veterinary services, both the doctor and animal owner must have important telehealth resources, including uninterrupted internet connection, app or software, availability of mobile or computer devices, including tablet, smartphone, laptop, or desktop.
If you choose telemedicine in veterinary medicine as a standalone platform or app, we recommend it must have listed below functions or features:
Safe and Secure Platform: It is crucial to identify a technology that ensures a secure exchange of critical & sensitive information across users.
Documentation: When discussing a case with your patients, you should easily be able to save the conversation. You need to ensure that the platform you develop is capable of recording and documenting information. You will also need to ensure that this recorded information can be easily integrated with your practice management software.
Ease of Use: Any platform that has complex navigation can lead to frustration and you and your team may end up spending more time than required to operate it. When you decide to begin the development process, make sure you specifically discuss your requirements about a platform that is easy to navigate and seamlessly flows from one step to the next.
Billing Capability: Seamless and easy options for payments directly from the web/mobile interface.
Offers Accessibility: Based on your availability and interest set the working hours across 365/24/7mode. For offline duration on certain times or days how the received messages are accessible via smartphone as well as desktop, with compatibility across both Android and iOS operating systems.
Interactive and Integration friendly: Must allow clients to text, call, and send photos or videos of their pets in a hassle-free manner. It must also offer real-time video calling capabilities. The app must provide easy integration of information and reports directly with the EHR system.
Allows Multiple User Access: This should enable convenient access to a variety of team members to answer questions and discuss the case.
Compliance Management: Must provide inputs on policy reimbursement, compliance adherence updates for the veterinary facility and updates with the legalities.
However, we recommend developing a custom solution by using telehealth technology. The professional assistance from a vet telemedicine app development partner, like Rishabh Software would help you in implementing a high-quality telehealth solution. We can help better align your goals and enable you to achieve objectives of improving veterinary care services. Recently, we built a comprehensive application for a US-based healthcare solution provider to simplify clinical procedures.
Cost of On-Demand Veterinary Telemedicine Solution Development
The total cost of app development usually depends on a variety of factors. Here are the parameters that will give you a broad estimate:
- Type of application (native or cross-platform)
- Modules and features
- Functionality
- Designing complexity and scalability
- Tools, frameworks and tech stack
- Third-party app integrations
Closing Thoughts
The veterinary telemedicine market is an ever-expanding one and as the need for virtual care accelerates, the opportunities to tap into this space can help you reach new heights! At Rishabh, we help global healthcare organizations with digital solutions to optimize care delivery & improve patient outcomes by automating medical workflows, enhancing care quality & improve overall patient health.
Our dedicated team of developers can help you throughout the entire telemedicine app development process, right from ideation to execution. As a growth hack partner, we pioneer in all aspects of mobile app development by analyzing your project requirements and helping select the right technology stack, features & functionalities to ensure your business experiences the growth you desire.
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