12 Essential Tools & Apps for Your Healthcare Practice
Running a successful, efficient healthcare practice takes excellent systems if you want time to focus on what’s really important. And that’s where technology could be your new best friend. Here are some apps to keep at your fingertips to help boost productivity, save time and improve your bottom line.
Many of the apps on this list are free, while others have a low monthly fee. If you get the combination right, your practice management systems will operate smoothly and, best of all, it can all be run from your phone.
If you value your time, there are (at least!) 12 tools and apps that can save your healthcare practice time and money, starting right now!
1. Grammar and Spelling
Grammarly is a tool that saves us on a daily basis. It’s a web-based extension that ensures your emails always make sense (and you avoid grammar and spelling mistakes) as well as being an in-depth checker for Word documents covering everything from plagiarism to writing style.
Features
Grammarly works in most web browsers, including Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. You can use it on your phone or tablet, and it integrates with MS Office and Google Docs.
How it helps
Professionalism is key when communicating with clients. Grammarly improves your written interactions and helps ensure that your message is always clear. The free version includes checks on spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
2. Dictation
Dragon Anywhere is a professional-grade mobile dictation app by Nuance. It’s perfect if you’re on the go or run a small practice.
Features
The product is available on Android and IOS devices via the app store. A great feature offered by Dragon Anywhere is an obligation-free one-month trial that you can cancel at any time. After that, the app will cost you $15 per month or $150 once-off for an annual subscription.
The services offered by Dragon Anywhere include:
- Dictation with no word limits;
- Excellent voice editing and formatting capabilities with 99% accuracy;
- Easy-to-use spell check placed in a corrections menu;
- The ability to share documents via email, DropBox, and others.
How it helps
Whether you want to dictate a quick letter or use the app for notes during an appointment, Dragon Anywhere can be a useful tool to help you manage your practice.
3. Practice Management Software
This wouldn’t be a list of powerful practice management tools if we didn’t at least mention software like Zanda. Online practice management software is essential for smooth-running, growth-orientated health practice.
Gone are the days of a filing cabinet or a bunch of hard drives backing up your systems. Now everything can be online, and from your booking process to client communications, it can happen in one space, with all your staff having easy access.
Features
Zanda features include:
- Calendar management;
- SMS and email communication;
- Telehealth video calls;
- Online forms;
- Client management;
- Clinical notes;
- Online bookings;
- Payments and invoices;
- Reports and analytics;
- Robust integrations;
- Security and compliance.
How it helps
Zanda systematically holds all your client information, allowing you to easily update client details. Efficient appointment management systems, invoicing, and CRM features save you time and give your practice a level of professionalism and efficiency that will help maintain and grow a loyal client base.
4. Mobile Scanner
Why bother with a clunky scanner when you can use your phone? Scanner apps are growing in popularity, and the technology is improving quickly. Genius Scan is one such solution.
Features
The app is available for easy download on Android and IOS devices. Features include background detection and removal, black and white and colour settings, shadow removal for a professional look, batch scanning, file organisation, and multiple export capabilities.
How it helps
The app allows you to use your smartphone to capture good-quality PDF scans, something that every healthcare practice needs.
Note that users must ensure the security of their clients’ data before engaging with the product for any scanning app or app-related files.
5. Social media Manager
The biggest mistake many small business owners make regarding social media management is thinking that you need to produce content live in the moment. In fact, setting aside a bit of time weekly to schedule content can save you time, help you post when you can expect the most traffic, and give you a more systematic approach to your content creation.
Features
If you’re only using Instagram and Facebook, Facebook Creator Studio has an excellent free app that runs across both platforms. It’s a great place to get started with managing your social schedule.
An app like Hootsuite is designed to help you coordinate your content across multiple social channels, should you opt for the paid version. For $49 per month, you can schedule on 10 different channels, with unlimited posts and reporting capabilities.
Otherwise, you can manage 2 social channels and schedule up to 5 posts with the free version of Hootsuite.
Buffer is another option, and its pricing structure may work better for you, depending on how many social channels you post on. You can choose the free package, which includes scheduling up to 10 posts at a time on 3 social channels or pay $5 or $10 per month with an additional fee per social channel.
How it helps
Consistent messaging, regular content, and the ability to plan ahead of time are just three of the myriad benefits that using a social media management app offers.
6. Graphic Design
Canva has transformed the world of graphic design. This Australian brand features easy social media-sized templates, pre-designed graphics, and smart ways for you to develop your own corporate identity.
Features
Features include video cropping, resizing and editing, image templates for all social media platforms, business templates such as presentations and proposals and much (much!) more.
How it helps
While it’s always wise to hire a professional to help you produce your original look and feel, Canva can help you maintain this image with ease.
The free version comes with a generous range of features. You also can opt for the Pro version at $10.99 per month, which includes the ability to save brand colors to quickly update your designs.
7. Time Tracking
A time tracking system is always good to keep your appointments running smoothly and makes accurate invoicing a breeze.
Features
If you’re looking for an app that allows you to track time, Clockify has a robust free option that tracks the time you and your team take on tasks, whether client-facing or administrative in nature.
Clockify features include a Time tracker, Timesheet, Dashboard, Reports, Teams, Scheduling, Time off, Projects, Expenses, and app integrations.
Want a physical tool?
You can order the physical tool Timeqube, indicating to you and your clients the stage of their appointment.
The device plugs into your mobile, laptop, or tablet and uses colour to reduce client anxiety. The box’s colour will change, so you can see when the appointment is a quarter way, halfway, three quarters finished, and complete, helping you with your time management.
8. Easy Notes
Many Zanda users enjoy using a reMarkable tablet, and it’s worth its own mention on this list.
Features
The tablet and app combination have the following features:
- A tool to help you take handwritten notes and read and review all your documents with ease.
- The capability to convert handwritten notes into text for safekeeping.
- A display that resembles and feels like paper.
How it helps
If you miss handwritten notes, this might be the ideal solution. It’s designed to help you take notes and keep them digitised and organised; these notes can then be imported into Zanda using reMarkable’s desktop application.
9. Accounting
If you’re looking for cloud-based accounting software, have a look at Xero. It’s an affordable solution for small business owners and offers over 1000 app integrations.
Features
Xero integrates with Zanda and offers several important benefits for practice owners, including:
- Invoicing and quoting
- Cloud-based
- User-friendly
- Add-ons and integrations
- Payroll
- Customised reporting
- Pay bills
- Claim expenses
How it helps
All your accounting is securely stored in the cloud, so you can handle your accounts wherever you are. It’s also simple to collaborate with your accountant or bookkeeper, and it scales with you.
10. Online Payments
Stripe is a payment service provider that allows your practice to accept payments from credit cards online.
Features
Stripe integrates with Zanda and Xero, making it a simple-to-use system for handling client payments online safely and securely. It’s more affordable than Paypal, but payout times are longer.
How it helps
If you’re using Telehealth, it’s easier to invoice and accept payments from clients before a session. And this also goes for in-person appointments if you require upfront payment before the client even steps into the practice.
11. Patient Engagement
Physitrack is the world leader in remote patient engagement. They aim to provide a more effective way to prescribe exercise programs and improve patient outcomes. It covers home exercise and education prescription, outcomes tracking, and Telehealth for physical rehabilitation.
Features
Physitrack features include:
- Exercise prescription and education;
- Customisation;
- Telehealth and messaging;
- Outcomes analysis;
- Patient onboarding and triage;
- Collaboration;
- Security and privacy.
How it helps
With the Physitrack integration, most Physitrack tasks can be done right inside Zanda, making it simpler to create new client accounts, access client records, boost client engagement and access the Physitrack video library without switching between the two programs.
12. Meeting Platform
Lastly, but certainly not least, there’s more to meeting technology than your regular apps like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
Features
Instead, you can integrate these meeting apps into Fellow, designed to help you manage your internal meetings and meeting reporting. Fellow is a hub for meeting agendas, action items and feedback, helping to build better meeting habits (both before, during, and after the meeting).
How it helps
While Zanda’s Telehealth feature is ideal for client appointments, if you have a geographically dispersed team, Fellow meeting software will simplify and streamline your internal meetings, reducing wasted time and ensuring that the action points you decide on in the meeting are actually actioned after.
Our Final Thoughts
You don’t need to spend a lot on a professional office set up to run a successful practice in 2022. Instead, you need a mobile phone, tablet, or laptop, and you’re a few apps away from having professional and streamlined systems.
Do you have a go-to tool or app not on this list? Let us know; we’d love to hear more about how you’re optimizing your practice! Send a message to [email protected].