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.