Practo App - Book Doctor Appointments, Consult With Physicians Online and Order Medication.

Practo is a complete health app where users are able to consult with doctors online, book appointments to see physicians at their rooms or clinics, order medicines, set medicine reminders, manage their digital health records and read information regarding health tips. This app is great to use on the days when you’re too busy to see a doctor or too sick to get out of bed. All consultations are secure and 100% confidential.

Using the app

This is a very simple and easy to use application. When the app is opened, you are requested to choose the city you live in. The countries that you can choose from include India, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil and Malaysia. This means that the app only includes services available to people who live in these countries at the moment.

The app then moves on to a scroll page section that mentions all the available services that can be accessed by the user. Once these pages have been scrolled through, then the app asks for login details. You can either enter you Facebook details or your full name and phone number in order to verify your cellular phone for safety and confidentiality purposes. This is to protect the users' medical information from being accessed by someone else.

Once the administrative issues have been dealt with, the app then opens up at the home page where there are various tabs and buttons to choose from. The first tab on the top of the screen is the "Find" tab where the app automatically opens up on. The options to choose from include the following:

• Doctors - the user can choose doctors from different medical and surgical specialties. If you don't find what you're looking for, then you can use the search tab just above the available options, in order to choose the specialist you would like advice from or the medical topic that you would like further information on. Booking an online doctor’s appointment is very simple to do. You select the doctor, choose a time and your appointment is booked. You can also check out other details like the doctor's experience, their consultation fees and feedback from others who have already been there.
• Dentists - you can even choose to consult with specialist dentists and book appointments with them.
• Alternative medicine doctors - these include those doctors that specialise in ayurveda, homeopathy and even yoga.
• Therapists and nutritionists - this app allows for access to allied healthcare workers such as physiotherapists, psychologists and dietitians.
• Diagnostic labs - there are various laboratories and X-ray departments available to choose from depending on where you live. The services and costs for the investigations are also listed for the user's perusal.
• Wellness and fitness centres - the Pronto app also makes available information regarding where services such as gyms, spas and even manicurists are available depending on where the patient lives. 

The next tab is the "Consult" button where you can choose a specific medical area that you would like further information about. When you choose your option, then doctors available in that specialty are made available for you to choose from. Information such as how many years experience they have and the cost of the consultation is made available.

The "Know" tab accesses articles and health tips that have been written and made available by doctors whi are associated with Pronto, so there's a wide spectrum of information that the user has access to.

The "Order" tab allows patients to order from a large choice of medications and other health-related products for home delivery. All over the counter (OTC) and medical products on Practo’s online pharmacy store are legitimate and well priced. Qualified pharmacists process and deliver your order, and you can pick delivery times that are most convenient for you.

The "Me" tab allows access to the user's information such as records of previous doctor appointments on the app, reports and prescriptions that are uploaded to your Practo account, reminders such as when to take your medication, e-prescriptions and personal information such as saved articles and health interests.

Practo app requests permission to access the following from the user:

• Identity – to protect your information and to hasten doctor appointments, health records uploads and medicine orders. .
• Photos – so that you can upload images, such as from prescriptions and clinical information, to your device so that it can be shared with healthcare professionals.
• Phone – to be able to make direct calls to clinics, doctors or diagnostic labs from the app.
• Location – in order to automatically detect your location when making bookings with a doctor and when ordering medication. 
• Network – to establish connectivity of the device to the internet.
• Camera – to use the device's camera in order to capture and upload health documents, invoices and prescriptions.
• SMS – in order to automatically verify your device by the OTPs that are sent by Pronto to your mobile number.