PWAs are increasingly used in the health sector because they offer a faster, handier digital solution for patients to access medical information, make health-related appointments, communicate with healthcare providers, and more. 

Healthcare is among the top five industries that have widely adopted PWAs. Health and medical organizations are increasingly implementing PWAs due to the unique benefits a progressive web app development offers patients, service providers, and medical professionals. 

What is a PWA?

Progressive web apps feel and function like standard websites yet are highly optimized to deliver fast; responsive user experiences that compete with the best native apps. 

PWA development enhances a website by allowing it to work offline, sending push notifications, and being downloadable and installable on a user’s home screen. 

Google factors PWA functionality into its best practice recommendations for website search performance, which is why it’s measured in its Lighthouse website auditing tool. This is important to B2B healthcare brands hoping to maximize organic awareness and drive leads from search traffic. 

A PWA is often deployed, to all intents and purposes, as a traditional website. PWAs can also support robust, app-like functionality when installed on a mobile device. 

Reasons Your Healthcare App Should Be a PWA

A PWA development agency helps healthcare brands increase market share by improving the website experience and search rankings. Compared with traditional websites, PWAs have clear advantages for healthcare providers and users.

• Accessed Offline

PWAs can also work offline. A PWA caches the website on your device, allowing users to open it and interact with it without a live connection.

It becomes critical for healthcare apps, particularly in situations where offline accessibility is essential, that the app remains available even in places with poor or no connectivity. Having the PWA available offline proves beneficial when patients need information due to an emergency or other unforeseen connectivity problems.

• Faster Load Times

Faster page speed is important in health care when patients or staff need access to medical information. One of the main features of PWAs is that they are designed to load content faster than usual, even on slow Internet connections. For wellness app development, where sometimes a matter of seconds counts, a patient needs quick access to information.

Faster loading has a significant impact on conversion rates. For instance, Walmart observed a 2% increase in conversions for each second of improvement in page load time to its PWA.

• Higher Engagement

PWAs leverage the device’s features, which can, among other things, help keep patients engaged with healthcare providers. This may be through medication adherence, appointment reminders, or follow-up after a visit or laboratory test.

According to Google, PWAs engage users 50% more than native apps. This is largely due to the fast load time and native app-like user experience of a PWA.

• Improved User Experience

PWAs provide a frictionless experience and easy installation, thus making things easier for the most non-tech-savvy patients. They also provide this superior experience in a much more secure environment, which can further contribute to increased app usage. According to Google, Twitter saw a 65% increase in pages per session and a 75% increase in activity tweets sent after launching its PWA.

This is very important for healthcare apps, where higher engagement, in most cases, actually leads to better health outcomes for patients using the app. For example, the average user experience score for PWAs, according to WompMobile, stands at 4.44 out of 5.

• Device-agnostic PWAs

A progressive web app development works on any device with access to a web browser. There are no operating system restrictions. Thus, patients can use PWAs on any device, smartphone, tablet, or desktop without downloading and installing the app. PWAs can be run on any device with access to a web browser, and they help healthcare businesses reach more customers. 

Conclusion

It is not an exaggeration to say that progressive web apps can find tremendous opportunities to strengthen this sector. Whether it is the offline capability or a faster loading speed, a health progressive web app development always helps render seamless experiences for patients and stakeholders. These next-gen PWAs will help medical service providers predict patients’ next moves and transform every healthcare service into a seamless and holistic experience.