At Mobile World Congress mHealth was a theme. It was a good thread of discussion and I think it’s a real business that we should all latch onto and make some money with. In Sue Marek’s article about mhealth, Ajay Bakshi of McKinsey & company shared that 70 percent of the correspondents around the globe would be willing to pay a premium for health related services. However , what those services would be were vague.

I was involved (loosely) with a predicative system medical app for a brief period. It was very interesting technology that was being transferred from some military experience. However, when it comes to health, it turns out that general health is general. We all go see the doctor and what they say is pretty universal; watch your diet; exercise; don’t smoke; don’t drink (excessively); have regular checkups; see you next year or call me when you get sick. In other words vague threats are too vague to worry about. 

Let me help by way of quoting Jonathan Swift (News - Alert) poem regarding his own death (“Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift DSPD”). “In all Distresses of our friends we first consult our private ends”.   Or let me put it another way. Watch Jonathan Stewart on Comedy Central this week. He is battling a virus his kids gave him. As guest after guest comes on a standard question they have is “Am I going to catch this thing”.    The reality is that people want to know what to do when things go wrong. Like a gambler at the ATM machine in the casino this is not the question on their mind until later.

Let’s look for better places to look for insight as to what apps are needed.  

My doctors have designed themselves to make the HMO happy; four generalists, 12 specialist all in one facility with a lab. Every service is calculated as to whether the practice is better off farming it out or providing it at their office. They share staff and their systems are all on-line now. They walk around with the (big old) tablets, but expect that to change. What would they want? Better connectivity to my mobile calendar and perhaps some revenue from keeping me monitored.

What would my HMO be willing to give me (I know the joke is nothing but a quick and sudden death), however, the real answer is as much as possible remotely without having to employ expensive personnel. As Tom Friedman pointed out in “The World is Flat” X-rays from the US are being read by Doctors in India. What mobile solution makes sense to link us together. It maybe it is in the interest of the HMO to have sick people in a chat room together. If my kid is sick and comes in coughing all over me, I consult my private ends and take her to the doctor. If there are other sick patients with similar laments the affinity makes my daughter stay in her room chatting away until she is healed.

Perhaps this is a good idea perhaps not. 

Mark Twain shared about visiting the doctor about his lumbago. The doc told him to stop smoking, drinking and carrying on with women and he would be fine. Two weeks later he was okay and was going back to the doctor to report on the recovery. In the waiting woman was a frail woman suffering as he had from lumbago. He tried to save her money and told her his doctor’s advice of stop smoking, drinking and carrying on. She informed him that none of this habits were hers. “And there she was an Incurable case”.

Perhaps a moderator would have helped or further segmentation in the room.

Regardless my point is if you want to find the mHealth profitability index, look for the people in pain, financially first and physically second. They are the ones who see the need now. The rest of us have yet to hit the ATM. ;<).