Understanding Wellness Apps
Wellness apps have become increasingly popular over the past decade as mobile devices became easily accessible to users. The term wellness app can include a wide variety of applications, ranging from habit tracking to nighttime meditation apps.
There are multiple reasons why someone may create a wellness solution. A healthcare organization may build one for patients to use to supplement their health and treatment plan or to monitor a chronic condition. On the flip side, a company can create an app separate from the healthcare system to make these resources readily available to all users.
Purpose of Wellness Apps
Wellness apps serve an important role in supporting users in building a healthy lifestyle with resources and tools that health professionals would otherwise gatekeep. Even with health insurance, there are many barriers to healthcare, including costs, location, and time. By offering these services with a mobile wellness platform that users can engage in on a daily basis, users can create health habits that last and promote healthy lifestyles.
Wellness platforms can focus on a variety of health goals and strategies, including:
- Mental Health Apps
- Sleep Tracker Apps
- Women’s Health and Tracking Apps
- Habit-Tracking Apps
- Addiction Recovery Apps
- Fitness Apps
- Nutrition Management Apps
- Employee Wellness Program Apps
- Meditation Apps
The purpose of these applications will depend on the primary focus of the app, but overall, all apps have the same purpose of promoting healthy lifestyle habits and giving users the power to take charge of their health.
The Role of Wellness Apps in Promoting Healthy Living
Wellness platforms can make a positive lifestyle change for users, but what kind of role will they have in the users’ daily lives? Let’s take a look at three different aspects of wellness portals that will promote positive health behaviors in their users.
Offering Personalized Health Information
Most wellness programs are not one-size-fits-all. Rather than giving users generic health guidance based on minimal information, health and wellness apps can gather the user’s health information to provide personalized plans based on the patient’s wellness assessment. This can instill confidence in the user that the advice provided by the wellness solution is going to have a positive impact on their lifestyle, promoting healthy behaviors.
Assisting in Tracking Health Metrics
When tracking health metrics with pen and paper, you run the risk of losing the document and having to start from scratch. It can also be hard to identify trends and progress when you have to do all the math yourself.
With a mobile wellness solution, users can enter their data in the app and review dashboards showing progress over various periods of time. With the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, wellness platforms can utilize wearable devices, such as smartwatches, to gather and analyze the user’s live health data. This data can include blood pressure, heart rate, sleep patterns, steps taken, and activity level.
Motivating Behavioral Changes
Making a new habit can be difficult, but using a wellness platform can help users build strong lifestyle habits that promote positive health behaviors. There are a variety of wellness app features that promote a healthy lifestyle and behavior change, including notifications, positive encouragement, and even gamification.
For example, a meditation app could send notifications throughout the day to step away from stressors and take a few minutes to reset and enter a positive mindset. After a while of using the app, users will become accustomed to the notifications and start to take these breaks on their own without needing the app’s reminders.
An example of a habit-tracking app using gamification to increase user engagement is by implementing streaks and having different accomplishment levels based on how often the user completes their daily lifestyle habits. Users could also connect with friends in the app and compete in wellness challenges, creating social support with external accountability.
Benefits of Using Wellness Apps
Wellness apps are designed to improve the user’s overall quality of life and help build a healthy lifestyle. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using wellness apps to make these lifestyle changes.
Accessibility, Personalization, and Motivation Enabled by Wellness Apps
As mentioned earlier, there are some wellness apps that allow users to enter demographic information to receive more personalized guidance from the app. This ensures users are provided with realistic goals and metrics that can be reasonably achieved, resulting in user retention and, ultimately, a successful wellness app.
By using features such as notifications and accomplishment badges, users can be engaged and motivated to continue using the wellness platform. When users accomplish the goals they set in the wellness apps, they will feel confident and accomplished, making them more likely to set new goals in the app.
Companies can also utilize an employee wellness program to promote healthy lifestyles among their workforce. Many companies incentivize employees by offering a wellness fund or rewards for their engagement in the corporate wellness program. These are also common among companies whose employees engage in manual labor. With a worksite wellness program, employees will have better physical health, reducing the risk of on-site injuries.
Privacy Concerns and Data Security in Wellness Apps
Depending on the type of information a user is entering in the wellness app, extra security measures should be put in place to protect user data. These security measures can include multi-factor authentication, user role controls, and data encryption. By protecting user data and verifying they feel secure entering information on the wellness website, they are more likely to engage in new features.
The Importance of Complementing Wellness Apps with Professional Healthcare
Healthcare professionals cannot be readily available to all of their patients all of the time, which can make managing patient care difficult. When patients are engaged in their healthcare outside of the doctor’s office, their overall health is improved. By utilizing wellness apps to track health progress, nutrition, and sleep, healthcare providers can have a well-rounded understanding of a patient’s health.
Patients and providers can also use a wellness portal to manage chronic health conditions, allowing healthcare professionals to monitor a patient’s health without requiring the patient to frequent a medical facility.
Embracing Wellness Apps for A Better Life
There are countless wellness apps in the market for every type of goal and strategy a user might have. To determine which health and wellness app is the right fit for you, there are a couple of factors to take into consideration.
How to Select Suitable Wellness Apps
When shopping for a wellness app, it’s important to consider your goals and lifestyle. If you’re someone who simply wants to track your progress and doesn’t need motivation, wellness apps that focus on gamification and utilize notifications and progress badges are likely a bad fit.
If you’re torn between a couple of options, you can consider trying out multiple apps for a week or so before determining the best fit. Many wellness platforms offer free trials for this very purpose, allowing you to find the most suitable app for your needs.
Effectively Utilizing Features of Wellness Apps
Many wellness apps include core features that are essential to the standard use of the app. Every user will likely use these, but to effectively use the app, take a look at the advanced features offered. These features can provide additional insights, new workflows, and valuable data trends that can change how you approach your general health.
Work With Geneca Today
Are you ready to build a unique wellness app? Whether you’re an entrepreneur with a new idea or a healthcare provider who wants to build an app to supplement patient care, Geneca is here to help. We have a team of expert software developers who are experienced in the wellness industry and ready to start your project. Contact Geneca today for a commitment-free consultation!