Mobile medical app: searching for gold outside the hospital wall

2013-04-27 source: under the impact of the cross-border revolution of mobile health care in the field of medicine and health, Chinese entrepreneurs started their dreams from the medical health app first How to break through more than 2000 Medical and health apps, avoid supervision and find a mature business model is testing young entrepreneurs In the health revolution, Wang Qi, 54, began to challenge the "post-80s and post-90s ways to play around the world" - Mobile Internet world In this new world, she has two identities On the one hand, she is an expert - chief obstetrician of Beijing maternity hospital She receives consultation on "pregnancy preparation" and "birth protection" as she did in the hospital On the other hand, she is also a user - she was promoted to grandma a few years ago, trying to guide her daughter to feed her granddaughter, but her daughter refused to accept her professional advice Can apps on smartphones protect health and save lives? At least that's what young people who grew up in the age of the internet think An app called "Chunyu palmtop doctor" has become a mediator The "post-50s" doctor had to hold the apple mobile phone to help consult on the app about common troubles in pediatrics such as vomiting, crying, constipation, etc There's no doubt that smart phones have been around 24 hours a day, and that's what entrepreneurs like to see - they envision a better future medical scene: a small external device that can monitor your body's indicators in real time and send out signals when something goes wrong Next, it will automatically connect to the nearest hospital and arrange an ambulance for you Before you arrive at the hospital, the previous medical history, ECG, blood pressure and other data have been added to the doctor's case database If necessary, your information will be sent to the other side of the earth, and will appear on the mobile phone of a globally renowned doctor "It's not a scientific fantasy It's a cross-border revolution in the field of medicine and health." Zhang Yi, CEO of Aimei consulting, a mobile Internet industry research firm, told Southern Weekly This revolution is mobile medicine According to the 2012-2013 China mobile medical market annual report just released by AI media consulting, the scale of China mobile medical market in 2012 has reached 1.86 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 12.5 billion yuan in five years For the vast majority of entrepreneurs, the dream starts from the medical and health apps On April 12, 2013, an app product "Auntie" focusing on women's physiological period management won millions of dollars invested by Bertelsmann Asia Investment Fund and Zhenge fund The slogan of young entrepreneurs is to build a company that knows "great aunt" best in the world "Everywhere, everywhere" doctors want to dig gold from the mobile medical market, not only "aunt" company "Chunyu palm doctor" began to draw the blueprint as early as November 2011 Zhang Rui, the founder of the app, called out the slogan "spring rain is a question of physical discomfort" This consultation platform "focuses on health consultation and simple consultation outside the hospital walls", which started from pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology The current version 3.0 has gathered almost all departments of a general hospital, and the latest one is the avian influenza department On the public platform, a patient asked Zhang Youping, chief physician of the respiratory department of Beijing Tongren Hospital, "I ate chicken yesterday, but later I had a fever Would it be h7n9?" Chunyu palmist includes self diagnosis and consultation In the consultation process, users can ask more than 5000 doctors from the top three hospitals in China questions through voice, image and text In the next mobile phone conversation, Zhang Youping inquired about many links from the hospital test report to the chicken cooking method At last he answered two words: "No." According to Zhang Rui, at present, Chunyu palm doctors use the user free pricing mechanism, "can get the doctor's answers from the price of 0-25 yuan according to the condition of the disease", and the remuneration is completely handed over to the doctor This mode solves the difficulty of "the doctor is not present when the patient asks for a consultation, and the patient is not present when the doctor answers" in the past Internet consultation It can be described as "everywhere, all the time" "The reason why we can make this platform is because of technological innovation and different media." Zhang Rui said that once someone asks a question, doctors usually give professional answers within a few minutes Every month, diligent doctors earn tens of thousands of yuan Today, the number of users of the platform is nearly 8 million, nearly 10000 questions are answered every day, and the second round of financing of 7 million US dollars has been completed Like "Chunyu palmtop doctor", there are more than 2000 Medical and health apps that can be downloaded in China, which can be roughly divided into health consultation, health communication, health management, etc For example, "5u family doctor" means that users can sign a doctor to become a family doctor through this platform; "palm Drugstore" provides users with self diagnosis services including diseases, drugs, doctors, hospitals, first aid knowledge; "pocket physical examination" includes applications such as pulse measurement, psychological self-test, hearing test, etc; "Apricot forest" is positioned as "serving doctors" According to the download ranking, the above are ranked first Zhang Yusheng, founder of xingshulin, told Nanfang Weekend that the first product "medical literature" now has 300000 users, covering more than 10% of medical staff in China There are sporadic business opportunities and immature business models No matter how inspiring the download volume, the most concerned issues of entrepreneurs and investors are business models Zhang Yusheng, who studied at Hopkins University in the United States, summed up the business model of mobile medical in the United States, mainly charging for five objects, including insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospitals and consumers Zocdoc, for example, is a company founded in 2007 with a total financing of nearly $100 million Recommend doctors for patients mainly according to their geographical location, insurance status and doctor's specialty, and make appointments directly on the platform Zocdoc adopts a free business model for patients and doctors Doctors need to pay $250 a month to use the platform According to the number of doctors published by zocdoc, the annual income should be more than ten million dollars Welldoc is a mobile technology company focusing on chronic disease management, which mainly charges insurance companies Its main product is a diabetes management platform Patients can easily record and store blood glucose data with mobile phones, and provide personalized feedback for patients The system has been approved by the food and Drug Administration of the United States, and its effectiveness and economic value have been proved in clinical research, so it has been reimbursed by two medical insurance companies However, these mature business models do not conform to the current situation of public hospitals and underdeveloped commercial medical insurance in China At present, the most likely party to pay is pharmaceutical companies "Pharmaceutical companies sell drugs to patients, always through doctors." Zhang Yusheng takes his own "apricot forest" as an example At present, China's pharmaceutical enterprises have an annual income of 800 billion yuan, 15% of which is used for marketing This includes calling doctors to hold meetings for publicity and sending medical representatives to visit doctors one by one "In the future, instead of recommending drugs directly to doctors, we will introduce the latest treatment plan and clinical research, which will include some drug information." Zhang Yusheng revealed that his app has been cooperating with several pharmaceutical companies The charging method of "pocket Drugstore" is similar to it Wang Honglin, its founder, told Southern Weekly that in the future, fees will mainly be collected from upstream rather than users For example, to provide customers for some medical service providers or drug retailers, and get share from them Zhong Hong, the founder of "5u family doctor", summarized his products as a C2C platform for medical and health care services (user family doctor) Users buy family doctor services, and 5u as an intermediary platform charges a certain proportion of fees The profit model of "Chunyu hand doctors" is also under exploration They pay for online services, but only about 5% of the users pay for them, and all of them are handed over to doctors And the part of free Q & A is to pay doctors, which has been subsidizing The rest of the revenue comes from companies looking to target customers, such as mother and baby products "We have sporadic business opportunities, but we haven't found a mature business model yet." Zhang Rui said frankly Zhang Yi, who has been investigating the mobile medical market for half a year, pointed out that the key point of the current operation of APP entrepreneurs is mainly user accumulation, and the key point lies in the collection and utilization of data, while the profit model is embodied in advertising, value-added services and online consultation Most companies focus on consolidating the foundation of practical users, and then try to realize it