The 10 Must-Have Pharmaceutical Apps for 2023

The healthcare industry is no stranger to mobile apps, with apps improving efficiency by 40% and increasing market speed by 36% , mostly available in the public app stores for consumer use. However, pharma companies are reporting poor download and app engagement statistics, which is leading some to ask the question: are apps worth the effort?

Our opinion? A big “heck yes, they are”. And don’t just take our word for it. In our recent research about apps in healthcare the is lots of data on pharma companies increasing their app game and getting great ROI from it.

As an incredibly innovative and fast-moving industry, it is important that pharma companies can keep up with that volume of change and innovation and to remain among the top companies in the world. And this is exactly where apps can help.

Imagine for example a sales app that could help pharmaceutical reps improve their product knowledge and save them time in client meetings. If they can save 20 minutes a day by having product knowledge available on their mobile device rather than having to look it up before the meeting, that will quickly add up to big numbers, giving that rep an additional 400 minutes a month (or 10 work days a year) to work on other tasks such as more client meetings, in turn leading to more sales.

In this article we explore some of our ideas on how pharmaceutical apps can capitalise on these “micro moments” to help streamline workflows and ultimately help increase employee knowledge and productivity, whether in manufacturing or sales.
For more on apps in healthcare, read our blog.

Without further ado, here are our top four ideas for great pharmaceutical apps:

Overview of the 10 Best Pharmaceutical App Types

Important: Each of the following ten app types can be tailored and constructed for your organization using Fliplet, which you can try for free here. The following sections aim to articulate the necessity of these apps, supplemented by real-life examples from the pharmaceutical or broader healthcare industry. This exercise will underscore the potential of these apps to significantly enhance your operations, client engagement, and overall performance in the healthcare landscap and can act as a great proof for you and your management team that you should take the next step to your digitalization.

App Type #1: Sales App for Pharmaceutical Products

Description:
If you’re a pharma sales rep you’ll already know how important it is for you to have as much knowledge as possible on the drugs you’re aiming to sell.

An app can help by allowing you to easily consult all relevant sales and drug information, plus clinical studies, safety information and competitor product information. This can help you improve your understanding of the drug, sell it better and answer any questions from doctors more accurately.

Having access to all this info on your mobile device gives you better mobility while travelling between meetings, so that you can consult information on the go and better prepare. And who knows? It may just be the special edge you need to stand out from competitors.

Benefits: On-the-go access to important data enables sales reps to prepare for their meetings, answer queries accurately, and drive sales.

Features: Such apps include comprehensive databases of product information, competitor insights, customer management tools, and interactive learning modules.

Example:

BSC My Orders is a mobile/ web ordering solution to optimize and automate the operational processes in customer care giving Sales Reps, Customer Service and Customers a convenient and efficient way to place, manage and track their orders, inventory, perform cycle count and approval requests.

Privacy Requirements: These apps handle sensitive information and should comply with healthcare regulations like HIPAA for ensuring data confidentiality and security.

App Type #2: Medical Reference App

Description: Having to consult reference books for medical information can be a real pain, especially if you’re in the middle of a meeting far away from medical resources.

Even worse, paper-based manuals can change daily as new studies are published, which means that these need to be regularly updated.

Enter here a medical reference app: now you can consult any medical reference book in digital format no matter where you are using your smartphone or tablet. What’s more, all reference manuals can be instantly updated everyday as new and amended information becomes available.

Can you picture how much easier meetings and lab work would become thanks to this simple change? Or how much time you could save in futile medical reference search and consultations? All this saved time gives you potential to invest it elsewhere, helping you stand out from competitors and stay at the top of the industry.

Benefits: These apps free professionals from constraints of time and location, allowing them to consult resources at their convenience.

Features: A comprehensive collection of reference material, real-time updates, search function, and annotation capabilities are standard features.

Example App: VisualDx emerges as a visually-focused medical reference app, encompassing thousands of images depicting a wide spectrum of diseases and conditions.

VisualDx

This intuitive application enables healthcare providers to draw parallels between their patients’ symptoms and a range of diseases. The robust search feature of VisualDx allows physicians to key in their patient’s symptoms, thereby suggesting potential diagnoses complemented with corresponding reference images.

While the use of VisualDx necessitates a subscription, it caters to both Android and iOS users and offers multilingual support.

Privacy Requirements: Given the nature of data handled, these apps should adhere to relevant data privacy laws and security standards.

App Type #3: Training App for doctors and employees

Description:
Let’s face it: no one likes having to spend their valuable time training new employees, especially in such as fast-paced industry such as pharma. But unfortunately, training is a key part of working in such a heavily regulated, not to mention constantly changing, industry.

Apps offer you a way to ensure your employees’ knowledge is up-to-speed without compromising on additional budgets or other employees’ precious time. For example, apps can provide new employees with a wide range of training materials, making learning interactive and fun!

Videos, interactive charts and embedded documents are great examples of this and can empower employees to take ownership of their learning, as they will know better than anyone what kind or learning works best for them.

Training apps can also include “gamification” elements (for example exams and quizzes) that take employees through different topics and scenarios. These allow them to test themselves and track their progress. Don’t wait, learn how to make your own learning app without any coding.

All this is the perfect recipe for fun, engaging and effective learning that allows employees to retain knowledge more easily. And you won’t even need to lift a finger.

81% of all pharmaceutical companies train or plan to train with pharmaceutical apps.

Benefits: These apps make learning engaging, leading to better knowledge retention and improved employee productivity.

Features: They typically include videos, interactive charts, embedded documents, quizzes, and progress tracking.

Example App:

Medscape is a comprehensive resource for healthcare professionals, offering a wealth of medical information. It includes educational videos, a database of over 4,000 medical conditions, directives for more than 1,000 medical procedures, and updates on the latest medical news sorted by specialty. Medscape also features drug and disease information, clinical tools like drug interactions checkers, and over 600 dosing calculators.

Privacy Requirements: These apps handle sensitive employee data and proprietary training content, necessitating stringent data privacy and security measures.

App Type #4: Drug Interaction Checker App

Description: As a healthcare professional, you’re often consulted about combining different medications. The complex nature of drug interactions could potentially lead to severe consequences for the patient. A Drug Interaction Checker App can be an indispensable directory app that allows you to quickly identify potential drug interactions. Having this information right on your mobile device will enable you to make informed decisions and protect patient safety, whether you’re in a consultation or on the move.

Benefits: They improve patient safety by providing critical drug interaction information in real-time.

Features: Drug database, real-time alerts, patient management, and customizable reports are standard features.

Example App: As a specialized drug reference platform, Lexicomp provides accessibility to over 20 distinct medical databases. The breadth of drug information available ranges from a detailed pharmacogenomics database and IV compatibility, to current updates on drug shortages, as well as patient-friendly educational content. An added advantage of Lexicomp is its offline accessibility, where all its data is stashed directly on your device, ensuring uninterrupted usage even in the absence of an internet connection.

Privacy Requirements: They deal with patient-related data and should adhere to strict privacy policies and healthcare regulations.

App Type #5: Clinical Trial App

Description: If you are a researcher or a clinical trial coordinator, you understand the complexities and challenges of managing clinical trials. A Clinical Trial App can act as a digital assistant to manage patient recruitment, data collection, and trial monitoring. Having all this information at your fingertips can save you time, reduce errors, and streamline the trial process. This app could potentially be a game-changer in the way clinical trials are conducted.

Benefits: They enhance data collection, patient recruitment, and trial monitoring, improving the efficiency of clinical trials.

Features: Such apps include patient management tools, data collection modules, real-time updates, and data analysis capabilities.

Example App:

The IPX mobile app was specifically crafted to alleviate the challenges encountered by patients participating in clinical trials. Conventionally, patients involved in a clinical trial are required to make frequent hospital visits for lab tests, procurement of investigational drugs, and to report any potential complications or side effects. This routine, however, can often disrupt their daily life and adversely affect their quality of life. The industry has seen a deficiency in applications that efficiently bridge the communication gap between the patients and the investigators, thereby reducing unnecessary hospital visits by eliminating traditional, on-site, paper-based documentation. This is precisely the void that the IPX mobile app aims to fill.

Privacy Requirements: These apps handle sensitive patient data and research information, requiring robust privacy measures and compliance with research ethics and regulations.

App Type #6: Patient Communication App

Description: As a healthcare provider, establishing effective communication with your patients is paramount. A Patient Communication App can serve as a digital bridge between you and your patients, enabling easy scheduling of appointments, reminders, and consultations. With the app, you can stay connected with your patients and provide real-time updates and advice. It could revolutionize the way you engage with your patients and enhance the overall patient experience. Review the best communication apps.

Benefits: They improve patient engagement, satisfaction, and treatment adherence.

Features: Appointment scheduling, reminders, secure messaging, video consultations, and patient health records access are typical features.

Example App:
Recognized as the premier multi-super specialty Hospital in Prayagraj, Prachi Hospital holds a NABH accreditation for the last four years. With a focus on swift and effortless user experience, the Prachi Hospital create the Prachi Hospital App. An app that provides direct access to essential features like Book Appointment, View Appointment, Radiology Reports, Prescription, Find Doctors, Feedback, and Contact Us.

The app got important popularity among its patients reaching more than 1k+ downloads.

Privacy Requirements: They must adhere to strict privacy and data protection regulations due to the sensitive patient data they handle.

App Type #7: Dosage Calculator App

Description: For healthcare professionals prescribing or administering medication, calculating the correct dosage based on a patient’s parameters can be a tricky task. A Dosage Calculator App can serve as a valuable companion in these situations, taking the guesswork out of dosage calculations. Having this tool on your mobile device could be instrumental in preventing dosage errors and ensuring patient safety.

Benefits: They ensure safe and effective medication administration, reducing the risk of dosage errors.

Features: These apps include various dosage calculation methods, patient management, and dosage tracking.

Example App:

This app helps you swiftly determine the appropriate dosage of commonly used IV and oral medications for children. By inputting the child’s body weight, it generates precise dosage recommendations, saving you crucial time and ensuring accurate prescriptions. The medicines included in the app largely cover emergency situations, gastrointestinal conditions, upper respiratory tract infections, and a range of antibiotics. This app is one of the most popular in the list with more than 100k downloads.

Privacy Requirements: They handle sensitive patient-related information and must comply with strict data privacy and security regulations.

App Type #8: Pharmacy Management App

Description: If you’re a pharmacist or involved in the management of a pharmacy, you understand the complexity of juggling inventory management, sales tracking, and customer service. A Pharmacy Management App can act as your digital aid, streamlining all these operations, right from your mobile device. It could revolutionize the way you manage your pharmacy, enhance efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction.

Benefits: They improve operational efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and enable effective inventory management.

Features: Inventory management, sales tracking, report generation, and customer management are common features.

Example App: Shaunak’s Pharmacy is a family-owned group of 12 branches, an independent pharmacy group based in the South-West. Offering a range of services in-store and online to meet their customers needs. Their biggest problem was expiring products. They created an app to help them monitor this and the results were outstanding.

Shaunak saved about £50/60K worth of items which were allowed to expire across the estate.This allowed them to generate 5 times the cost of the subscription which can only be a positive ROI.

Privacy Requirements: These apps deal with business-sensitive information and should adhere to business confidentiality standards and data protection regulations.

App Type #9: Electronic Health Record (EHR) App

Description: As a healthcare professional, accessing and managing patient health records is a routine but crucial part of your job. An Electronic Health Record (EHR) App can serve as a digital repository of patient records, accessible from your mobile device at any time. This not only streamlines patient management but also enhances healthcare delivery and improves patient outcomes.

Benefits: They streamline patient management, improve healthcare delivery, and enhance patient safety.

Features: Such apps include patient health records, treatment history, lab results, medication lists, and note-taking features.

Example App:

My HCA Virtual GP is a comprehensive health service that offers round-the-clock access to medical consultations, prescriptions, and instant referrals. The platform provides flexible appointment booking with UK-registered doctors specializing in various fields, enhancing personal care tailored to individual needs. It offers a same-day medication delivery service or pick-up from a local UK pharmacy. Users can access their Electronic Health Records (EHR) securely, update them, and utilize the records for future consultations. The service has received high praise from users for its convenience, personalized care, and easy-to-use interface.

Privacy Requirements: They handle highly sensitive patient data and should strictly comply with healthcare privacy laws such as HIPAA.

App Type #10: Medication Adherence App

Description: If you’re a healthcare provider or a caregiver, you understand the challenges patients face in adhering to their medication schedule. A Medication Adherence App can act as a digital assistant, reminding patients to take their medication on time and keep track of their regimen. With this app on their mobile device, patients can improve medication adherence, enhancing their treatment effectiveness and overall health outcomes.

Benefits: They improve medication adherence, enhance treatment effectiveness, and improve patient health outcomes.

Features: Medication reminders, medication tracking, health logs, and progress reports are key features.

Example App:

Multiple sclerosis is a neurodegenerative disease that affects nearly 100,000 people in France. This disease manifests itself through various symptoms that strongly impact the quality of life and daily life of patients, and requires regular multidisciplinary and personalised medical follow-up.

It is with this in mind that the pharmaceutical company Biogen has decided to develop the Cleo mobile application. Available free of charge in France, Germany and the United States on Google Play and the App Store, Cleo offers many features: an online chat where a nurse answers in real-time, articles and videos to receive info, a logbook to record symptoms and integrate reminders of appointments and treatment, exercise and well-being programmes…

Privacy Requirements: Given that they handle sensitive patient data, these apps should have robust privacy measures and be compliant with relevant healthcare regulations.

How to Choose the Right Pharmaceutical App for You

Choosing the right pharmaceutical app is not a decision to be taken lightly. The app’s features should align with your specific needs, be it as a healthcare professional or a patient. While functionality is an important aspect, the privacy and security features of the app shouldn’t be overlooked.

In the healthcare sector, patient privacy is of paramount importance. Therefore, the chosen app should be built with stringent data protection measures, secure encryption, and should be compliant with the necessary healthcare regulations.

Why build your own pharmaceutical app using Fliplet?

Customization is the key to standing out in a highly competitive pharmaceutical industry. Building your own pharmaceutical app offers the flexibility to tailor functionalities to your specific requirements. Fliplet enables you to do just that – design your own app that enhances productivity, streamlines internal processes, and elevates your market standing.

VI. Future Trends in Pharmaceutical Apps

In our recently released report, Lead Researcher Lisa Broom provides valuable insights on the healthcare organizations that are spearheading app solution innovations, the prevailing trends, and how your organization can leverage these advancements.

Within the report, you will discover:

• Key trends derived from an exhaustive analysis of app solutions deployed by the global top 200 healthcare organizations in 2023.
• A thorough assessment of the most sought-after apps along with a deep dive into their unique features.
• A detailed examination of how these apps are driving value for both users and organizations.
• Motivating case studies from healthcare organizations that have effectively capitalized on app solutions.
• At Fliplet, our mission is to break barriers in app development through our no code/low code platform. We provide a comprehensive suite of solutions to aid healthcare organizations in the creation, development, and implementation of advanced apps.

This report is an essential read for healthcare industry professionals aspiring to stay at the forefront by understanding the trends and types of app solutions that the top 200 global healthcare organizations are introducing on app stores.

VII. Pharmaceutical Apps are the present and the future

The promise of pharmaceutical apps is vast and yet largely unexplored. These technological marvels are primed to transform numerous facets of the industry – invigorating sales outcomes, providing refreshed medical references, fostering engaging training programs, and facilitating real-time medication tracking. Yet, this digitization is more than just a necessity for maintaining a competitive edge. It’s a catalyst for innovation and a beacon to lead transformative change within the pharmaceutical industry.

Moreover, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in app development opens up even more possibilities. The integration of AI can usher in unprecedented levels of customization, efficiency, and predictive capabilities. AI-based apps can deliver personalized healthcare experiences, tailoring services to individual patients based on their unique health data. They can also streamline administrative tasks through automation, freeing up valuable time for healthcare professionals. In addition, AI’s predictive analytics can anticipate patient needs and potential health risks, thus improving preventive care and patient outcomes. Leveraging AI in pharmaceutical app development is not just about staying on top of technological trends – it’s about harnessing the power of technology to reshape healthcare services and improve patient lives. By embracing AI and other technological advancements, the pharmaceutical industry can truly unlock the potential of its digital transformation.

To see how Apps are influenced by AI you can review our webinar:

Build a Pharmacy App today using Fliplet

Are you ready to lead the digital revolution in the pharmaceutical industry? Start building your own pharmaceutical app with Fliplet today, and take a step towards a more efficient, productive, and innovative future. The opportunity awaits – seize it!

App Type #2: Medical Reference App

Description: Having to consult reference books for medical information can be a real pain, especially if you’re in the middle of a meeting far away from medical resources.

Even worse, paper-based manuals can change daily as new studies are published, which means that these need to be regularly updated.

Enter here a medical reference app: now you can consult any medical reference book in digital format no matter where you are using your smartphone or tablet. What’s more, all reference manuals can be instantly updated everyday as new and amended information becomes available.

Can you picture how much easier meetings and lab work would become thanks to this simple change? Or how much time you could save in futile medical reference search and consultations? All this saved time gives you potential to invest it elsewhere, helping you stand out from competitors and stay at the top of the industry.

Benefits: These apps free professionals from constraints of time and location, allowing them to consult resources at their convenience.

Features: A comprehensive collection of reference material, real-time updates, search function, and annotation capabilities are standard features.

Example App: VisualDx emerges as a visually-focused medical reference app, encompassing thousands of images depicting a wide spectrum of diseases and conditions.