Business Plan For MHealth Essay - Mobile Healthcare App.

Discuss about the Business Plan for mHealth.

This new business venture mHealthwill operate through a mobile app which will be available for all types of mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. It is basically a mobile medical application which will fulfill the definition of a medical device. Consumers, through this application will be able to maintain their health. This app will help the users to diagnose their disease including preventing a disease (Subhiet al.2015). For example, this app will help to measure vital signs such as blood pressure which will help to prevent hypertension and associated disorders. Besides, this app will also allow the users to access their medical records on the phone (Bouloset al.2014). Users will be able to quickly see which vaccination they had. Users can also send non-urgent messages to the clinics and can get response within a couple of days. Tracking health will become for the users if they can use this app.

Figure 1: A general view of the mHealth application in Android

(Source: Created by Author)

Vision Statement: mHealthenvision becoming leading healthcare solution mobile app in New Zealand.

Mission Statement: The management of the organization aims to deliver reliable and quality health care solutions through their mobile app to the users.

They also aim to continuously adopt latest technologies and industry practices in order to deliver world class and perfect health care solutions to esteem consumers in New Zealand.

“Eat, laugh, enjoy; we will take care of your health” 

In any business having competitive advantage is very vital. There are several other medical mobile apps present in New Zealand that have already gained the attention of the consumers. Therefore, it is vital for the management of mHealth to have some competitive advantage over the other rival applications (Block et al.2015). However, this application already has some competitive advantage that can help them to penetrate the new market in New Zealand.

Several mobile health care apps such as Johns Hopkins ABX Guide and Round Health medical apps are only available in iOS platform. mHealth will be launched for both iOS and Android platforms which will let the management to have competitive advantage over those two medical mobile apps.

Currently top 5 mobile apps are Micromedex, UpToDate, John Hopkins ABX Guide, Red Cross First Aid and My Chart. None of these applications are providing the facility of behavior shifting through which this app can enhance disease prevention.

Another major competitive advantage of this application is its cost leadership strategy (Rothaermel2015). Most of the medical mobile applications that are equipped with useful information are costly. For example, Doctor on Demand app will charge a user $40 for a standard 15 minutes of surfing. Micromedex charges $3 for surfing the app each time. Here, mHealth will have another competitive advantage as it will be available for free. However, the app will charge the users when they will update the application to use any new option that will be added through up gradation.

Mission and Vision Statement

Partners:

There are several types of business partnership structures available such as sole proprietorship, general partnership, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, limited liability limited partnership, Limited Liability Company, joint venture and association.

As it is already mentioned that mHelath is an organization that will operate and will provide its services through mobile application, it is obvious that it will partner with an app developing company. Technologies are changing frequently and with these changes it is required to upgrade the app every now and then. Therefore, it would be good for the organization to develop a general partnership. A general partnership is composed of two or more companies who agree to contribute money or labor or skills to a business (Salaman and Storey2016). Each partner shares the profits and losses. Each partner will be uniformlyaccountable to any type of debt in the partnership. Terms and conditions of the partnership are generally included in a written partnership agreement.

The management of mHealth can form a partnership with Roam Limited which is a software solutions company in New Zealand and is famous for their mobile app developing capabilities. The management of mHealth can form partnership with them where the team of Roam Limited will be responsible for handling the app development side of the business. They will add necessary upgrades in the app and will remove any bugs or technical issues. They will also communicate with the consumers directly where consumers will share their app related issues.

Figure 2: PESTEL Analysis
(Source: )

Political:

New Zealand has a stable government and that is the reason that any new business has a great chance of success in the country. However, political changes in New Zealand take place after every three year and with the establishment of new government, new rules and regulations are also developed. Being a new business organization, the management mHealth will have become aware of these changes. In the country, labor laws strict and labor forces is very expensive in the government (Kelsey 2015). On the other hand, as the lending rates are also high in the country, the business organizations are bound to pay more amounts of taxes which reduce their overall profitability.

Economic:

The economic condition of the country is excellent which can be understood from their per capita income. GDP per capita in the country is equal to 290 percent of the world’s average. GDP per capita in New Zealand is 29,000 USD at an average. In the year of 2016 it was 36,000 USD (Kelsey 2015). The rates of any type of product or service in the country are quite economical. Therefore, people are able to buy any type of product quite easily. This is the reason, that people of New Zealand will not have any problem to buy a medical app at a high price. Inflation rate is also low in the country along with the unemployment rate. Recently, the demand of mobile applications has increased in the country including medical mobile applications. People are ready to spend any amount of money to have such an app in their mobile devices which is good news for the management of mHealth.

Unique Selling Proposition

Social:

Social condition of the country is also favorable for business organizations. The country entirely depends on business with other countries. There is a frequent demand in t he economic system which can surely affect the economic condition of the country. New Zealand entirely depends on other countries to get new and updated technologies which clearly shows that the government spends a fewer amount of money on research and development works (Brownet al.2014). People in New Zealand are extremely health conscious and they already like the concept of medical mobile app as it helps them to monitor their health anytime and anywhere.

Technological

It is already mentioned that the country depends on other countries for getting new technologies. However, recently a change is found in the country as the government is showing significant interest in developing several technological products (James 2015). Therefore, it can be stated the demand for new technologies in increasing in New Zealand which is also supported by the government of the country.

Environmental

New Zealand is located at 900 kilometers away from Australia and has its own unique ecological system. Unlike most countries, in New Zealand, the people are well aware of the changing environmental condition. Therefore, the population of the country is ready to get rid of any kind of pollution (Weidner and Jänicke2013). Several new technologies are implemented in the country to deal with garbage. Rules and regulations related to environment are also strict in the country. Therefore, the management of mHealth will have to follow all the rules and regulations of the country and will have to develop a sustainable workplace.

Legal

The government of the country changes after every three years and the new government develop new rules and regulations. The crime rate is very low in the country and the country has not experienced any large scale of hacking incidents that can affect mobile applications. Therefore, the management of the organization should not worry about hackers in New Zealand. However, as rules and regulations mostly change after every three year, the management of mHealth will have to become aware of the new rules. On the other hand, the managemet of mHealth will have to follow the legal rules and regulations developed by FDA before launching their application in the country (Hamelet al. 2014). The FDA will apply risk-based approach to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the medical mobile application. The management of mHealthis subject to the necessitiesoutlined in the applicable device classification regulation below. Based on the classification and the connected regulation for the medical mobile app, the manufacturers are needed to follow t he rules developed by the regulation (Yetisenet al. 2014).

Competitive Advantage

“Class I” Device: General Controls that include:

• Development registration and Medical Device listing (21 CFR 807)
• Quality system (QS) Regulation (21 CFR Part 820)
• Labeling requirements (21 CFR Part 801)
• Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) requirements for clinical studies of investigational devices (21 CFR Part 812).

Class II devices:

For these devices General controls are same as described for Class I devices including Special controls and Premarket notification.

Class III devices

General controls are same as described for Class I devices including Premarket approval (21 CFR Part 814).

Healthcare has always been a mobile profession and the rapid advance of mobile devices and adoption of mobile phones in New Zealand has opened up tremendous potential for the application of these devices in the country. By using new and creative mobile devices and high speed wireless protocols, it is now possible to deliver healthcare where it is required.

Mobile information communication Technology (MICT)has brought an unprecedented revolution in healthcare. Today, a number of mobile devices are used extensively with beneficial result s. As a result, companies are motivated to apply mobile devices in the healthcare sector. Devices for example mobile phones, PDAs, tablet PCs, laptops and RFIDs are continuously evolving, incorporating bigger functionalities and enhancing the chances to improve healthcare. Recently the mobile phones are widely used for interacting with the patients regarding their reminders, lab results and monitoring. PDAs, laptops, tablet PCs are extremely strong, portable and wireless that allows professional support to be brought directly to the patient’s bed side. Several pilot studies are done and those studies have identified number of benefits of these mobile applications.

Countries such as New Zealand, the UK and the USA has commonly agreed that demand for health care services will rise tremendously among the people in the next few years. Therefore, it will be difficult for the governments to deliver healthcare services to each of their citizens. Slowly but steadily people of these countries and becoming more health conscious and well informed. Therefore, the chances are high that the demand of mobile medical applications will rise in the near future (Stoyanovet al. 2015).

With the rise and improvement of Technology in the Healthcare sector the use of mobile application is one of the best ways to deal with all the modern day health challenges. The mHealth app is expected to double its market range within the next 1 year. As more number of people is increasing the habit of Smartphone usage and also is totally dependent on different type of applications that is essential part of the Smartphone, the use of digital health app is one of the best ways to deal with all modern day health challenges and also get proper information related to every clinical condition. The health application has already been one of the most significant elements of health market penetration in all developed countries like New Zealand USA and Australia.  The modern day healthcare application is one of the best ways to diagnose all type of diseases. It is also possible to track the health condition of individual depending upon the status of their health and also get the latest information about all type of diseases.

Key Stakeholders

According to the report ofPayneet al. (2015), the Smartphone application market and the use of modern day Healthcare apps is expected to giant huge revenue to the Healthcare industry. In the United States the Healthcare application is expected to deliver 1.3 million dollar in the next 1 year which is nearly 50% more compared to the previous financial year. The Healthcare industry of the New Zealand is also expected to rise at a rapid rate within the next few years with the introduction of new type of Healthcare applications that aims to provide detailed information regarding all the modern day care challenges.

Rapid rise of Smartphone users in all the developed countries like New Zealand and Australia there is a huge potential for the mobile phone applications related to health care in the consumer market that can help to attract all type of investors and stakeholders. It is also believed that most of the challenges related to Healthcare information system that exist in the current time can be overcome with the usage of Healthcare application system. In spite of the Rise of the cost in Healthcare service, the usage of Healthcare application has been one of the strong high point the modern day Healthcare service (Albrecht 2013).

The report of the World Health organization suggests that the developed nations are more likely to make use of the mHealth app as they can have the capacity to make high level of investment in the healthcare department. There are different type of Healthcare applications that can provide define type of information related to Health Care system and also help the customers to book an online appointment with the doctor or any other general physician (Boudreauxet al. 2014). It is also possible for the patient who are living in remote areas to use mobile application in order to directly communicate with doctors or any other health specialist that can help them to get primary level of treatment and also sure there issues they are facing.

According to the report of Huckvaleet al.(2015), the total number of Smartphone users in 2016 is estimated to be around 247 million in all around the world. This number is likely to double within the next 3 to 4 years. Hence it is evident from the fact that with the Rise of the total number of Smartphone users the tendency to use mobile phone applications related to health care and Healthcare information system will also raise significant leave within the next 3 to 4 years. The report of the mobile health market also has highlighted it up on the importance of mobile phone marketing that can be achieved with the help of Healthcare applications. The pop up ads that is a part of all mobile full application can also help in the promotional activities of all Healthcare Smartphone apps which can be a source of revenue income for all application manufacturers. All over the world, the healthcare application industry and the digital healthcare system has already generated 1300 million dollar that is one of the main strong point that has helped all the healthcare application manufacture to make further investment in the improvement of the domain and also has helped in the overall process of dealing with all form of challenges in the healthcare system. This large scale of revenue and all the potential source of income is one the main motivating force for all the healthcare brands that can help them to make high level of investment and improve upon the research work to further development of the healthcare apps.      

PESTEL analysis

There can also be special design Healthcare application that is helpful to all the doctors and general physicians. With the help of this dedicated Healthcare apps the doctors can directly communicate with the patient group and provide them with vital information related to health care and treatment techniques.

As more number of people is involving themselves in different type of physical activities the use of Healthcare apps that help in the fitness program is becoming highly popular in context of the modern days. In the modern days people of all age categories are highly motivated to involve themselves to engage in different type of physical activity program that can help them to avoid all type of chronic diseases. With the help of fitness app it is possible for every individual the details related to Health Care activities. The fitness app provides various facilities that include tracking the total calorie spent every physical activity also the total time that particular individual is spending on a particular type of physical activity up.

The report ofMartínez-Pérezet al. (2015), suggests that nearly 76% of all the Smartphone users have made use of the fitness apps that has helped them in different types of sports and physical care activities.  The fitness app also provides seems like sharing information about the physical fitness activity of individual in all the social media. There is also online community that can help the entire fitness aware individual to get detail information about the use of the fitness program.

Hence, this kind of fitness app can attract all the potential customers that include the athletes and professional as well as ametuareal sports person.  Going adaptation of Health and Wellness fitness tracking can stimulate awareness among individual related to the importance of maintaining physical activities in everyday life. Modern day context of maintaining healthy life is one of the main driving forces that will motivate all the Smartphone users to use a fitness and health care apps in order to track gear fitness activities. Fitness app can also provide information and proper guidance to all type of individual that can help Chang in maintaining a Healthy lifestyle and perform physical activity according to individual health status and need (Donkeret al. 2013).  

It is important for all the fitness app manufacturers to have a well-developed plan for business marketing and also promoter the popularity of their application among all fitness lover people.  The use of digital media and social media platforms is one of the best ways to promote the fitness application.  This can help the manufacturers to attract all the target customers. 

References

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