Physician-Entrepreneurs Share Lessons Learned

Dr. Farrell says that several of her current and former colleagues have used the app at Massachusetts General Hospital, Georgetown, and University of California, San Francisco.

Developing an app for the iPhone/iPad can be "in the several-thousand-dollar range" for a "basic app that doesn’t have much functionality" to "hundreds of thousands of dollars" for one that can easily interface with other systems," Mr. Nawoj estimates. He lists the individuals typically involved with developing an app: "graphic designer(s) to create all of the images that go into the app, software engineer(s) to write the code that brings the app to life, a project manager to keep the project on track ... and possibly a sound-effects engineer to develop any custom sounds/music/etc."

He adds this bit of wisdom: "As with many other disciplines, the old saying that "you get what you pay for" almost always holds true when you are talking about developing any type of software application."