Mobile Video Emerges as the Next Breakthrough in mHealth: Company Files IPO Prospectus

Mobile video, a concept that might have been unimaginable just over a decade ago, has now become commonplace. With the continuous advancement of internet technology, the network not only brings convenience to people's lives but also transforms the way we communicate, allowing us to truly experience the convenience of online life where "even if we are far apart, we feel as close as neighbors."

According to statistical data from the China Internet Network Information Center, as of June 2014, the number of online video users in China reached 439 million, an increase of 10.57 million from the end of the previous year, representing a user growth rate of 2.5%. This figure continues to rise alongside the growth in the number of internet users in China.

Driven by its rich presentation formats, large information capacity, strong interactivity, and high-quality user experience, mobile video has found broader applications in fields such as smart homes, mobile healthcare, and entertainment.

This article primarily focuses on the application of mobile video in the field of mobile healthcare. According to statistics from VCBeat, the current mainstream application models mainly include: disease treatment tools, fitness and exercise applications, surgical video information, and video consultation applications.

Disease Treatment Tools
Disease treatment applications have significantly enhanced patient engagement through gamified video experiences, not only helping users develop healthy lifestyle habits but also assisting in the prevention and management of chronic diseases that require long-term intervention, as well as supporting weight maintenance.

1. Autism Treatment

Acumen
This initiative aims to introduce novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for autism treatment by leveraging remote methods such as video recordings and websites. Its primary feature involves guiding parents to capture short video clips of a series of play-based interactive activities with their children. Insights are then derived from these videos, and Acumen’s proprietary analytical tools are utilized to generate personalized feedback reports.

Book Creator
Book Creator allows children to exercise their creative muscles by writing their own stories and turning their masterpieces into e-books, which can include text, photos, videos, music, and even voice recordings. It is simple to use and suitable for different ages and stages.

Pictello
Pictello enables the creation of talking photo albums, facilitating the sharing of videos or audio stories. Parents and children can co-create these stories to help children understand behavioral expectations and prepare for new situations, such as visiting a doctor or starting at a new school.

2. Detect Cognitive Risk
Akili
Akili’s video game platform is a premier therapeutic and monitoring tool with the look and feel of a video game, designed to quantify and improve patients’ ability to cope with cognitive interference (distractions or interruptions), which affects their attention, planning, and decision-making capabilities. Deficits in these areas are often common symptoms of many degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, as well as psychiatric disorders including ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), autism, and depression.

3. Physical Therapy Training
Vera
Vera is a motion-sensing game developed by Reflexion Health, a company headquartered in San Diego. It integrates physical therapy training programs with Microsoft’s motion-sensing gaming hardware and leverages the Windows operating system to make physical therapy feel like playing a game. With its interactive and entertaining features, Vera encourages patients to adhere to their physical therapy regimens. The system provides patients with instructional training videos and gaming equipment, while also relaying their progress data to their physicians.

Video Fitness Guidance
Leveraging mobile video technology, individuals can receive effective fitness guidance from coaches without visiting a gym, allowing for greater flexibility to accommodate their schedules.

Skimble
Designed to provide you with a dynamic multimedia training experience via your iPad or mobile device, helping you work on your abdominal muscles or practice yoga. Skimble integrates dynamic audio coaching into its fitness services, allowing users to receive additional audio guidance directly from their iPads. It features step-by-step multimedia instructions, along with unique timed audio coaching tracks and visual cues, to help users complete their workouts. You can also customize these programs based on your preferred workout times, days of the week, and other availability factors. Currently, Skimble’s dynamic database includes thousands of exercises accompanied by stop-motion images, thousands of instructional audio tracks, and hundreds of videos.

Nike Training Club
Provides users with a personalized, dedicated fitness coach. The app features over 60 customizable training programs based on strength training, aerobic exercise, interval training, and core workouts, tailoring comprehensive, multi-dimensional fitness plans for each user. Thoughtful step-by-step illustrated instructions and high-definition demonstration videos facilitate easy learning. Users can view their training schedules in real time, track progress, and stay motivated to maintain consistent exercise. Earn badges or unlock new training programs as rewards based on accumulated workout time. Share training plans and achievement status on Twitter and Facebook.

Surgical Video News
Surgical video content perfectly recreates the surgical procedure, helping both medical and non-medical professionals understand surgical knowledge. The medical information it provides is more vivid and rich compared to static text-and-image formats.

Operating Room Scene
This is an application developed by MedInfo HK that showcases authentic surgical procedure videos. It aims to provide medical professionals with English-language medical multimedia content from overseas, while also helping non-medical individuals enhance their medical knowledge. The surgical video content is sourced from physicians, clinicians, medical societies, healthcare centers, and universities worldwide. Users can browse various videos by selecting a body part or medical specialty, and then choosing from the corresponding list of surgical procedures.

Video Consultation Application
Online consultations conducted via video demand higher professional standards, as well as more advanced remote equipment and network technologies. However, due to more thorough communication, physicians can obtain relatively richer information, thereby providing diagnoses or recommendations with greater certainty. According to a report by the market research firm IHS, telemedicine will become a $1.9 billion industry by 2018.

HealthTap
HealthTap is a healthcare-focused website founded in 2010. It started as a Q&A platform that brings together professional physicians to answer questions. In July 2014, HealthTap launched new services: HealthTap Prime and LiveHealth Online. For a monthly fee of $99, users can engage in video consultations with doctors, enabling telemedicine services. Everything from symptom inquiries and virtual consultations to diagnosis and prescription issuance can be completed on the HealthTap platform.

However, due to differences in state regulations across the United States, video consultations have faced certain obstacles. Nevertheless, in most states, patients can access online consultation services via video and receive electronic prescriptions from physicians. In a few states, doctors are not yet permitted to issue prescriptions, and six jurisdictions currently do not offer online consultation services.

Doctor on Demand
Doctor On Demand is a Silicon Valley startup founded in 2012. Its app connects doctors with patients, enabling users to access professional medical assistance via video consultations at their convenience. When seeking help, users first provide a brief description of their condition. Doctor On Demand then broadcasts the request to all physicians on its platform. Once a doctor accepts the request, the user can immediately initiate a video consultation. During the session, users can also send photos to assist the physician in assessing their condition. However, Doctor On Demand’s fee of $40 per consultation is considerably more expensive than that of HealthTap.

DrawMD
Developed by the startup Visible Health, this is a free mobile application designed for the iPad. It supports multiple media formats—including audio, images, and video—enabling physicians to more clearly demonstrate and explain surgical procedures and related knowledge to patients. The demonstration content can be both archived by the physician and shared with patients.

In summary, driven by mobile video, the development of applications for remote detailed consultations, video-based therapy, and fitness guidance has provided an interest-based foundation for user social interaction, not to mention paving the way for the next surge in healthcare.

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