In the context of the difficulty of access to medical care, mobile medical applications provide patients with the convenience of access to medical care, but also bring more income for doctors.
Mobile medical applications market prospects are good, but still facing policy and regulatory constraints, unclear profit model, low user awareness and other bottlenecks, a number of problems to be solved.
Going to the hospital when you're not feeling well? You can ask your cell phone first! This is not a joke. The first thing you need to do is to click on your cell phone, and thousands of doctors from the nation's top tier hospitals will be on the other side of the phone to provide you with online diagnosis and treatment.
With the continuous development of China's mobile Internet technology, a wide range of innovative Internet medical APPs (APP is short for Application, which refers to third-party applications for smartphones) have emerged based on mobile terminals, providing people with more convenient medical information and treatment services.
More than 2,000 mobile medical APPs
After returning from a trip to the beach, Song Jin, who lives in Beijing's Daxing district, found that he had a lot of small rashes on his neck and back, and he entered his condition into the mobile medical APP "Chunyu Palm Doctor" with the attitude of trying it out, and a half-hour later, a doctor at Chengdu's Second People's Hospital found that he had been treated by a doctor. After half an hour, Dr. Zhang Liwen of the Chengdu Second People's Hospital gave a free diagnosis of eczema dermatitis and a detailed treatment plan.
Song Jin used "Chunyu Palm Doctor" is a mobile medical application with the main function of "consultation", where users can ask questions free of charge and be answered by the relevant doctors, and pay a fee of 6 yuan to 25 yuan if they need to designate a doctor or have personalized needs.
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Not only for patients, but also for doctors, mHealth is a good addition to their practice.
Li Ji, a pediatrician at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, joined Chunyu Pocket Doctor in May. "Some of the patient's problems are ****ty and popular, and it's not necessary to see me in person to solve them." Li Ji said.
A study by Amedia Consulting shows that there are now more than 2,000 mobile medical APPs in China. The so-called mobile medical APP refers to medical applications based on Android, Apple and other mobile terminal operating systems, which are mainly divided into five types: pharmaceutical product e-commerce applications, such as "palm drugstore", which provides drug introduction and drug purchasing services; applications to meet the needs of professionals to understand the professional information and query medical reference materials, such as "Apricot Grove", which is a medical reference material. "Apricot Grove"; applications that meet the needs of medical search and consultation, such as "Chunyu Pocket Doctor"; platforms for booking appointments and guiding, consulting and reviewing services, such as "Medical 160"; and segmentation products, such as recording women's physiological cycles. The company has also developed a number of functional products, such as "Da Auntie", which records women's physiological cycles, and "Chunyu Heart Mirror", which measures heart rate.
The annual report of China's mobile medical market in 2012-2013 released by AiMedia Consulting shows that the scale of China's mobile medical market reached 1.86 billion yuan in 2012, an increase of 17.7% compared with the previous year. According to AiMedia's forecast, China's mobile healthcare market will reach 12.53 billion yuan in 2017.
Improving patients' medical experience
"For users, mHealth is a convenient experience for seeking medical treatment." said Lu Zhenwang, CEO of Vanke Business Consulting.
"At present, underdeveloped community healthcare and insufficient reception capacity in specialized hospitals in China have led to a poor medical experience for patients." According to Lu Zhenwang, this is the real reason why mHealth APPs have been able to accumulate considerable popularity in a short period of time. "Mobile medical care has opened up the interaction channel between patients and doctors."
In Li Ji's view, mHealth helps to bridge the imbalance of medical resources around the country to a certain extent. "There are different levels of medical environments across the country, and patients can't enjoy the same medical services, while through mHealth, I can serve patients across the country."
There is much more value in mHealth APPs for doctors.
On the one hand, there is an increase in income, "doctors will gain from answering patients' questions, and for some young doctors, this extra income is still considerable." "Chunyu palm doctor" co-founder and vice president Bi Lei said.
On the other hand, it can give doctors a greater sense of accomplishment. "In Chunyu, the doctor-patient relationship is very open and transparent, which can make doctors more respected." Bi Lei said.
"Chunyu has a certification system in which doctors are required to produce relevant qualifications and work information before they can pass the audit to diagnose patients. Then it is necessary to go through a comprehensive rating on the degree of favorable comments and activity before the doctor can get the corresponding revenue." Bi Lei said.
Facing many difficulties in the future
"Mobile health care is a big trend, but spring has not yet arrived." Ai Media Consulting CEO Zhang Yi bluntly said, "the development of mobile health care is still facing many practical difficulties."
First is the larger policy and regulatory risks. "In AiMedia's survey, 85.7% of the surveyed users want to provide electronic medical record function. But whether electronic medical records can be opened across hospitals is still a gap in policy. In addition, there is no clear answer as to whether online diagnosis and treatment touches the boundaries of illegal medical practice, and how the responsibility for telemedicine disputes is recognized and regulated." Zhang Yi said.
The hospitals also have concerns about the participation of doctors in mHealth.
Tangshan City People's Hospital, said the relevant person in charge of the "current participation in mobile health is still a doctor" to "take private work", will not affect the amount of in-hospital diagnosis and treatment and services, hospitals in this new industrial chain to obtain what benefits is not clear."
Users, the awareness of mobile medical care is still low.
The AiMedia report shows that from 2012, only 8.6% of the surveyed users know about mHealth, 14.3% have heard of it but don't know much about it, and 77.1% haven't heard of it at all.
In addition, the profit model is still being explored. Tina Hu, an analyst at EWI, analyzed that the traditional medical interest chain has not yet been broken, and that operators, software developers, and terminal vendors are "doing their own thing" and are unable to form a synergy of resource **** enjoyment.
"In the exploration of the profit model, it is necessary to apply the quality of service improvement, resource integration and health of the whole field of business expansion "three-pronged"." Zhang Yi suggested that health care, physical examination and other health all areas should be included in the application services, one to deepen the user experience, the second can be more equipment vendors, operators, software developers, medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies into the industry chain, and the formation of an orderly benefit sharing, to play a greater advantage of resource flow and market scale advantage.
For systemic barriers, Zhang Yi suggested that "mobile APP to strive to achieve hospital reputation, doctor pay and consumer satisfaction of the three wins, for the current health care system to "make new blood" rather than with the "fight! "This will allow the medical system to gradually open up and develop in the direction that is conducive to the development of mobile healthcare, thereby realizing the opening or reorganization of the industrial chain."