One of the most concerned issues for entrepreneurs and investors of mobile medical care is the business model. Although the medical and health industry has a lot of money, the business model may not be obvious due to the complexity of the system. Many products "look beautiful", but I'm afraid they only make money, not money. The business model includes what value is created for whom and how to charge. In China, there is no mature business model for mobile medical care.
Business model of mobile medical care abroad
1, eporates-charge pharmaceutical companies.
Epocrates is the first mobile medical company listed in the world, which was acquired in June 5438+10 for nearly $300 million. Epocrates provides doctors with clinical information reference on mobile phones, and its main products are databases of drugs and clinical treatments. When 20 10 went on the market, users covered 40% of doctors in the United States. The revenue of EPOCRATES in 20 12 was about $65.438+0.2 billion, of which 75% came from pharmaceutical companies, mainly providing accurate advertising and questionnaire services.
2.Zocdoc- paid doctor
Zocdoc recommends doctors for patients according to their geographical location, insurance status and doctor specialty, and can make appointments directly on the platform. The company was established in 2007 with a total financing of nearly $654.38 billion. Zocdoc adopts a business model of free for patients and charging for doctors. Patients can choose and make appointments with doctors more conveniently, and doctors may get more patients, especially those with insurance protection, which means more income. Doctors need to pay $250 a month to use the Zocdoc platform. According to the number of doctors published by Zocdoc, their annual income should be above10 million dollars.
In the future, Zocdoc will have more charging modes, that is, charging medical insurance companies. Insurance companies want patients to see cost-effective doctors. Zocdoc's recommendation may affect patients' choice and reduce costs for insurance companies.
3.Vocera- Charge the hospital
Vocera provides mobile communication solutions for hospitals. Its core product is a mobile device that doctors and nurses can wear around their necks or chests. It can send and receive messages, make phone calls and set reminders anytime and anywhere, replacing the BP machine used in hospitals in the past. In the United States, there is a high demand for patient information security, and there is a special HIPPA Act to regulate the use and transmission of information. Generally, mobile devices are not allowed to transmit information related to patients (for example, doctors can't send patient information by personal email). Vocera's equipment meets HIPPA requirements and is very suitable for team use. Vocera has more than 300 hospital customers in the United States, with an annual income of nearly $654.38 billion. The company also went public on 20 12, with a market value of over 600 million dollars.
4. Charge the insurance company
WellDoc is a mobile technology company focusing on chronic disease management, and its main product is mobile phone+cloud diabetes management platform. Patients can conveniently record and store blood sugar data with their mobile phones. The algorithm in the cloud can provide personalized feedback to patients according to blood sugar data, and remind doctors and nurses in time. The system has been approved by FDA for medical devices, and its clinical effectiveness and economic value have been proved in clinical research, so it was reimbursed by two medical insurance companies and provided to insured diabetic patients. Welldoc even cooperated with pharmaceutical companies to sell this service to doctors by using pharmaceutical ghostwriting from pharmaceutical companies.
5. Zeo-charging consumers
A large class of consumer-oriented healthy mobile applications monitor physiological parameters such as heart rate, diet, exercise and sleep through wearable hardware. The current business model is mainly consumer-oriented hardware sales. ZEO is an example. ZEO is a company that provides mobile sleep monitoring and personalized sleep guidance. Its product, ZEO, is a wristband and headband, which can be connected with a mobile phone or bedside equipment via Bluetooth to record the sleep cycle at night and give a quality score. Users can have a quantitative understanding of their sleep by monitoring the changes of scores or comparing them with the average of the same age group. In addition, for people with poor sleep, ZEO also provides personalized sleep guidance and finds possible problems through some tests. ZEO's products can be bought in many department stores in the United States, a set of 149 dollars. Follow-up income also includes commissions for personalized recommended products and medicines.
The wearable device market is regarded as a new blue ocean by merchants, and large and small commercial companies have shown strong interest in it.
Google, Apple, Nike, Samsung, Microsoft, Baidu, Sony and other companies have launched various products. The consensus in the industry is that the most promising wearable devices will appear in the fields of medical care, fitness, industrial applications, optics, fashion and creativity.
American wearable medical profit model
CardioNet opens a new profit model for wearable medical care
CardioNet is a company listed on NASDAQ. Its main product is MCOT (Mobile Electrocardiogram), which can record the ECG data of patients within 30 days and transmit the data to the company's monitoring center through the network. The background system analyzes and diagnoses the data and sends the report to the patient.
Profit model of mobile medical care in the United States
Paid applications: EPROCRATES, WellDocEpocrates, applications used by almost every doctor, charge doctors. Provides information on thousands of prescription drugs and hundreds of over-the-counter drugs, as well as other functions, such as medical calculators. The enhanced version starts at $99 a year. The annual price 199 yuan hardcover deluxe edition of Epocrates provides evidence-based information processing, treatment guidelines, laboratory preparation and interpretation, medical dictionaries and ICD-9 and CPT codes. Usually you start with a search, such as skin condition, melanoma, and then you can see pictures to get information about the cause and related conditions, and then you can learn more about these conditions. It also provides guidance on what information to look for according to the medical history, what tests to take and what treatment to choose for each type of patient.
Possible business models of healthy wearable devices
In the future, healthy wearable devices may have a combination of the following business models, but it is most likely that hardware will be sold at or below the cost price, and profits will be made through software and service sales.
● Hardware sales
● Derivative service sales based on collecting users' exercise, sleep and diet data.
● Service and software sales
China's mobile medical business model has taken shape.
In the process of exploring the mobile medical business model in China, a number of embryonic forms of business models were born. For example, Siwei Technology's business model of "living with community hospitals and clinics", the new medical business model of "health cabin+member service", Zhongweilaikang's business model of "starting from the hospital, cooperating with insurance and telecommunications, and insisting on being a service provider", and Youjiali's "hospital customer remote monitoring service". In the future, the business model of wearable mobile medical devices in China is most likely to sell hardware at or below the cost price, but to make profits through software and post-operation services.