How Can Mobile Healthcare Break Through? Insights from Zhuang Yiqiang

Mobile Health1.0Is the Era About to End?

Since its inception, mobile health has remained a focal point within the industry. Particularly amid the “Internet Plus” boom, tech giants have also ventured into the mobile health sector. Despite criticisms of aggressive market grabbing, mobile health has undeniably captured everyone’s attention.

However, after more than two years of booming growth in mobile health, a closer look reveals that the services offered by mobile health companies still largely pertain to peripheral processes such as appointment scheduling, registration, and payment processing, without substantial involvement in the core diagnostic and treatment stages.

Zhuang Yiqiang, Director of the Hong Kong Ai Li Bi Hospital Management Research Center, believes that the development of mobile health to date has been a meaningful endeavor overall. The existing mobile health models can be regarded as Mobile Health 1.0, which still remains in a phase of bold experimentation and exploration. “I am personally concerned that a consolidation will occur, leading to the emergence of Mobile Health 2.0.” In his view, the hallmark of the Mobile Health 1.0 era is that most mobile health companies have focused on the consumer end (C-end). Overall, the majority of their efforts have amounted to process reengineering, remaining on the periphery of medical services by providing ancillary services such as appointment registration and bill payment. The limited availability of medical resources, particularly high-quality medical resources, has been a key challenge encountered during the Mobile Health 1.0 era. “Mobile Health 1.0 may be reaching its end. Within the next two to three years, the viable players will have emerged.”

“Internet + Healthcare” is an inevitable trend. Currently, all efforts are exploratory. In two or three years, as the era of Mobile Healthcare 1.0 gradually fades, it will become clear who will emerge from the pack.

Mobile Health 2.0: Breakthroughs in Wearable Devices Are Key

“Internet + Healthcare” is an inevitable trend. As for who will emerge from this wave, that remains to be seen. After all, “Internet + Healthcare” is a novel model with no prior precedents; every step forward constitutes exploration. What is undeniable is that mobile health will become more deeply integrated into the diagnosis and treatment process.

Zhuang Yiqiang, Director of the Hong Kong Ai Li Bi Hospital Management Research Center, believes that in the 2.0 era of mobile healthcare, in addition to consumer-facing (C-end) approaches, more players will enter from the business-facing (B-end) side, with both hospitals and physicians gradually moving toward diversification.

Secondly, in the era of Mobile Health 2.0, providing only peripheral services will be unsustainable. Breakthroughs in wearable devices, such as the widespread adoption of implantable wearables, will help mobile health further penetrate core medical processes. Additionally, advancements in artificial intelligence, particularly if they enable remote operation, could significantly empower mobile health.

It remains undecided when the 2.0 era of mobile health will arrive, but regrettably, existing mobile health companies are mostly focused on platform integration, while the discourse power in implantable wearable devices is not held by Chinese entities.

(This article is reposted with the author's permission, sourced from the WeChat official account "Ailibei Observer.")