mHealth Buzzword has become Lopsided

This is my post from 2010 in my googlegroup, where I had said that B2C mHealth model will fail. Just reposting it here for a wider audience as the topic is getting relevant again due to failures of B2C mHealth ventures:

mHealth has become a latest buzzword for many telecom companies presumably because they offer consumer oriented services over mobile, and want to enter another sunrise vertical - Healthcare.

In my opinion - mHealth means connecting all the Healthcare stakeholders using a mobile platform and enabling the health
information exchange. Whereas currently mHealth is being promoted just as 'Call a Doctor' service.

In the Healthcare context it is incorrect to assume the patient as a consumer; rather the Patient-Doctor relationship is at the centre of
healthcare.

Unlike mEntertainment, mCommerce or mBanking, you cant pay and download healthcare over a mobile! A doctor needs to make a diagnosis based on inspection, physical examination and various other factors that are missing in a simple mobile telephonic interaction.

Having said that, mobile services render themselves very favorably for chronic disease management where the doctor is already familiar with the patient and can pull up the patient file to provide an advice to the patient over the mobile. However even this should be treated as an interim consult until the the patient can get to the hospital/clinic.

Health Information Exchange will be the next big healthcare application over mobile services together with broadband internet.
Perhaps the industry has to get there after experimentation/failures.

Global HIS/EMR vendor nightmare outside US

No credible large health IT company present in this sector today.
Unique confluence of events resulting in ALL major global health IT companies undergoing major transformations or facing business challenges or not focused on this geography today.
Service companies not stepping up to fill the vacuum, including global IT service vendors.
Private sector CEO’s/CIO’s, in this sector, grappling with - ‘which system / vendor do I select now’?
Public sector and Governments losing faith after spectacular global failures.
Market is, competitively, extraordinarily open to all. No single vendor today has significant credibility, or has the business focus or currently has the scale / resources required to be the leader in this market.

• Google withdraws Google Health Platform
• Microsoft shuts down Amalga outside US
• Microsoft downsizes Health Vault globally
• Cerner shies away from expanding Internationally
• Cerner and iSoft penalized in NHS projects
• iSoft acquired by CSC – Cultural conflict between product and service cultures imminent.
• TrakHealth acquired by Intersystems – product portfolio conflict within Intersystems
• Epic, McKesson, Eclipsys/Allscripts, GE – almost exclusively US focused. Looking outside the US only on special request and on an exception basis.
• Similar scenario in established Indian Health IT product companies eg Napier Healthcare struggling to scale up.
• IBM, Accenture – shutting down generic HIS/EMR/LIS/RIS service practices.
• Infosys, Wipro, TCS – downsizing , struggling or moving away from healthcare IT services.. Struggling with Productization strategy even in Indian health IT sector alone.
• FCG and Covansys acquired by CSC – no further progress on their deep healthcare research capabilities.
• ACS acquired by Xerox; Perot acquired by Dell - Cultural conflict between hardware and service cultures imminent.

On a short-term to medium-term, Quarter-by-Quarter cycle basis, Healthcare IT always looses out on financial ROI as compared to any other industry vertical. Whereas on a long-term 7-10 year horizon, Healthcare IT gives sustained returns because it is a recession proof industry. However this doesn't fit in with the typical 3-5 year investment cycles.

** Disclaimer: All this information is based on a combination of our collective consulting experiences, knowledge of the healthcare industry, published news articles and our own analysis. We are posting it here just as a consultant's opinion without any prejudices. -- Dr Pankaj Gupta, Dr R Balaji.