is Mobile web application = Mobile application???

Currently i am working on mobile medical application project and i know that the result will be creating a mobile website that allows mobile phone (client-side) to perform some action, for example making registration for consultancy with doctor. But at the same time, there is a receptionist at the server side (mobile website) monitoring every action performed and may respond to the actions by sending message back to the client. This two-way communication is what i want in my application.....is it possible or is this making sense for mobile medical application??? any topic or reference book (especially mobile C#.NET) you can suggest for me to refer to. I really hope that i can code for client side and server side in order for both sides responding to each other.

THANK YOU.

A simple way would be to record messages (with recipient and read fields) to a database and then pull any unread messages from the db based on the user name.

Don't think pushing messages is an option with web pages (but take a look at Odyssey software for some clever stuff)

We use the database approach supplemented with basic TAPI
ie/ if an operative is required to respond to a job quickly, the server will buzz his phone to let him know that he should check the web site.