Gone are those days when we had to reach the hospital as early as possible and spent the whole day waiting our turn to meet the doctor. In this age of digitalization, an app exists for everything you can imagine. In this article, we will explore the best medical apps available for patients to stay on track with their health goals. Whether you have a chronic condition or simply want to maintain a healthy lifestyle, these apps can be invaluable tools in your healthcare journey.
The patients can get experts’ advice, drug subscriptions, online lab test reports, and track their vitals.
The doctors can stay updated about new diseases, discoveries, and drugs- all of that at their fingertips. Medical apps also help track your medication, the doses, and their refill data. This article will discuss some of the top medical apps for Android users to lead a healthy and informative life.
Top Medical Apps For Patients in 2023
The list is based on popularity, user reviews, interface, features, and support. We are no experts providing you with any medical suggestions or treatment advice. Seek advice from trusted doctors or portals.
This healthcare apps review article will help you decide which app or services you can choose based on the user’s experience, doctor’s availability, and many other factors related to the technology behind the apps.
1. MyFitnessPal: Health and Nutrition Tracking
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is crucial for overall well-being. MyFitnessPal lets you track your diet, fitness, weight loss, and exercise goals. It is not just another dieting app; it can learn from your food, habits, and exercise to give you a customized dieting and food plan. You can monitor your progress and make suitable choices about your nutrition and fitness routines.
It has an extensive database of food items, exercise, yoga, and meditation. The best thing about MyFitnessPal is that it can easily detect your routine and suggest with the best possible food and exercise plan to achieve your goals.
Here are some of the key features:
- Activity Tracker – This allows you to add activities and steps with an accurate tracker.
- Glucose Tracker – You can easily sync and track data from selected Glucose monitors.
- Food Logs – Keep track of what you are eating.
- Food Database – If you are calorie-concerned, then you can find the calorie count of more than 14 million food items.
- Calorie Counter – Monitor your calorie intake and burn.
- Live Dietitian – This can help you customize your diet per your fitness goal.
- Scan Barcodes – Find the calorie details by scanning food packages’ barcodes.
And many more useful features.
Pros
- Huge database with extensive diet and fitness plans.
- Offers 500+ healthy recipes.
- Easy to set custom goals.
- Works with many apps and wearable devices.
- A solid community to connect with like-minded people.
Cons
- High cost after the trial period.
- Some users have reported inaccurate calorie tracking.
- Barcode scanner used to be free, but now you have to buy premium to use this feature
- Poor customer support.
2. Doctor on Demand
This app brings the real-life experience of visiting a doctor to your smartphone. You can connect to certified physicians or therapists on a video call. They are available at your service 24/7, anytime or anywhere you want.
First, doctors check your medical history and ongoing symptoms. After that, they perform online lab tests or exams to understand your situation better.
The online doctor will recommend a suitable treatment according to the trial results. The primary diseases that the app deals with include colds and flu, different types of allergies, depression and anxiety, skin and eye issues, etc.
Pros
- You can check the fees of the doctor before connecting with them.
- You can talk to an online doctor immediately or can schedule an appointment.
- The same doctor will do the checkup for your whole family.
Cons
- There have been issues where the doctor behaved complacently.
- Only a few types of insurance are accepted in the app.
3. Medscape
It is one of the online medical apps that feed you the latest medical news and the perspective of the experts on them. Medscape articles keep you updated with the latest diseases, treatments, and medicines.
It also covers disease info and gives every individual a personalized experience according to their preferences in the pharmaceutical sector. This app features the prescribing and safety information of over 8500 prescriptions, drugs, or supplements. It has 6,200+ reference articles on various essential procedures and even the largest network of physicians and medical students.
A free online CME and app for medicine substitute that helps both medical professionals and patients.
Pros
- The app is straightforward to use and understand.
- Suitable for medical professionals.
- Both treatment and medical news are available on the same app.
Cons
- The app has a perennial issue of network error.
- The app crashes frequently.
4. MySugr: Diabetes Tracker Log
MySugr is an app dedicated mainly to blood sugar and diabetes tracking in your body. You can take the diabetes test using this app. The app is already featured in popular media such as TechCrunch, Forbes, and the Washington Post. This fan-favorite is among the best medical apps for Android smartphones.
MySugr provides regular therapy info on your meals, meds, insulin levels, carb intake, etc. The app displays the blood sugar level graphs in its interface.
It provides motivating challenges to keep the body fit and feedback on the performance to enhance it. Regular medical analysis also exists daily, weekly, and monthly.
The app has a secured data backup feature so that none of your medical history is lost, which is very important during any treatment. This app also allows an individual to send a detailed medical report to his doctor for better suggestions.
Pros
- The app’s interface can be easily navigated and personalized according to one’s taste.
- The app’s developers are very supportive; they reach out as soon as possible in case of any technical glitch.
- MySugr tutorials help keep your health good.
- You can take a finger blood sugar test by filling in the required details.
- Blood glucose reminder to assist your monitoring.
Cons
- The Bluetooth connection with the app has issues; the link is often unstable.
- It is only useful for diabetic patients, not for other medical issues.
- The app shows too many notifications to upgrade to a paid premium account.
5. WebMD: Symptom Checker
This is another one-point online treatment solution to all your health problems. The WebMD health network has almost 120 million visitors per month on average.
The app is full of valuable features. The symptom checker feature allows you to type in the symptoms, analyze potential health issues, and provide ways to treat them.
There is a doctor directory section where the specialist doctors of each region are listed. If you need a reliable doctor to check your health issues, this directory will provide you with quality options.
WebMD collaborates with most of the leading Pharmacy chains. The WebMD Rx feature gives you the partnership benefit and shows you the discounts on various medicines in your nearby stores.
It will help you to recover in the budget! Another medication reminder option in this app reminds you of the time of your medications and their doses.
Now, you do not have to worry about forgetting your medication timings. The drug interaction checker is one of the highlights of the app.
If you take more than one medicine regularly, then the drug interaction checker will show you how those medicines act in the presence of the other. You can change to another safe alternative if they bring out some undesirable behavior.
Apart from patients, most doctors use WebMD apps to keep themselves updated.
Pros
- The app is not limited to only one type of health problem. It is very versatile.
- The app is very informative and easy to use for anyone.
- One of the best self-diagnosis apps.
- WebMD articles keep you updated with the latest news in the medical industry.
- Help you to buy medicine online.
Cons
- The app’s privacy policy is disturbing as it mentions potentially sharing your private details with some advertisers to show you targeted ads.
- There are too many notifications from the app.
- The symptom checker needs to improve to be more user-friendly.
6. First Aid- IFRC
This is an official app from the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC). This app mainly targets providing solutions for almost all the potential first aid situations that may arise.
The app contains valuable videos and interactive quizzes that help users understand first-aid situations in-depth and rank as the top medical app.
There is also step-by-step advice for everything. The app has a fully integrated phone directory of emergency helpline numbers worldwide (for example, 911,999. 101, etc.).
It helps its users even when they are traveling across the globe. It provides information on first aid and safety tips for natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.
App tells us how to react and behave when one of those disasters is upon us. The app has preloaded contents, which means the user does not need any WiFi or cellular internet to access the provided information of the app.
Pros
- The app is one the simplest to use and navigate.
- It is free of any cost.
- Once the app is installed and the setup is done, the internet is not required.
- The app is available in many languages, and the numbers are increasing.
- The app by the Red Cross offers first aid training as well.
Cons
- This app only covers first aid situations, not other severe or chronic medical issues.
- The app is not yet available in many native languages.
7. Epocrates Medical App
Epocrates is a medical app with lots of critical information that will help you make drug and diagnostics decisions quickly and efficiently.
The drug interaction checker option lets you check how one medicine behaves in the presence of another. You can choose alternative medications so that they do not produce any unwanted side effects.
The Pill identifier section guides drugs according to their colors, shapes, imprint codes, etc. The other features include alternative medicine monographs, 600+ dosing calculators, etc.
Epocrates lets its users connect to other online doctors through Athena’s care management service.
Pros
- It contains critical information on the medical world, which many other apps do not have.
- The information provided in the app is very detailed and accurate.
- Help you to take the proper drug doses.
Cons
- The premium version of the app is very costly.
- The app’s interface is hard to navigate, especially for new users.
8. UpToDate
UpToDate is another excellent medical app for Android devices. Its features include persistent login, mobile-optimized medical calculators, earning and tracking free CME/CE/CPD credits, and lots more.
Users can subscribe to get clinical answers on their mobile devices. The app is suitable for patients but mainly focused on medical professionals, hospitals, and institutes.
If you are a patient interested in medical procedures, then you should get this app. Otherwise, it is mainly suited for doctors, students, nurses, and professionals to gain evidence-based knowledge that can be applied in ward rounds, ICU care, and OPDs.
Pros
- Easy to use the app.
- It contains evidence-based and well-researched medical information.
- It has More than 7,000 physician authors, editors, and peer reviewers.
- Provide video-based tutorials and explanations.
- Great app for Physicians, Residents, and Fellows.
Cons
- Downloading and Sign-up options have reported problems.
- The app allows offline download only over WiFi connections.
- A frequent app crash has been reported.
There are a few other apps we didn’t cover in the list of the best medical apps for Android devices, but they provide quality online treatment and information. Some are Omnio, Lexicomp, PEPID, Explain Medicine, DocsApp, Medplus, etc. Try out these apps and lead a healthy, fit life!
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