Xinyun Medical: Bridging the Gap in Pain Management through Tiered Diagnosis and Treatment – A Grassroots Healthcare Case Study

Pain Management Specialty: The Youngest Department in the Healthcare System. In 2007, driven by favorable policies, pain management was designated as a first-level clinical specialty, becoming a mandatory department in all major tertiary hospitals across China. However, the elderly population, which suffers from a high prevalence of chronic pain, is primarily distributed in third- and fourth-tier cities and vast rural areas.

How to Meet the Medical Needs of This Population? Deploying Physician Resources to Primary Care and Implementing a Tiered Diagnosis and Treatment System Are Among the Next Key Challenges for the Pain Management Market.

Amidst favorable policy winds and a vast market, numerous players have entered the field, yet few have successfully implemented their solutions.

New Cloud Medical is one of the few companies in this field to have successfully implemented tiered pain management projects. Backed by the National Key Specialty·China-Japan Friendship Hospital Pain Specialist Medical Consortium, New Cloud Medical is committed to establishing a cloud-based tiered diagnosis and treatment center for pain, starting with public secondary hospitals at the municipal and county levels. In less than three years since its establishment, New Cloud Medical has signed cooperation agreements with over 20 hospitals for comprehensive solutions tailored to specialized pain departments, and specialized pain clinics in seven municipal and county-level hospitals are already operational.

Image provided by the interviewee

Recently, a reporter from VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) conducted an exclusive interview with Zhao Yun, founder of New Cloud Medical, to explore the company’s implementation strategies for deploying a tiered diagnosis and treatment system in pain management.

In an interview, Zhao Yun told reporters that his early exposure to the specialty of pain management stemmed from a personal experience with unexplained fingertip pain. For over a month, he endured severe discomfort and visited multiple departments—including orthopedics, traditional Chinese medicine, and cardiology—at various major hospitals, yet no cause for his condition was identified. It was not until he attended a summit where he met Professor Wu Shiming, a renowned expert in infrared pain therapy and doctoral supervisor at Xinqiao Hospital of the Third Military Medical University, that he found direction.

Professor Wu Shiming pinpointed the cause of his pain—autonomic nervous system dysfunction—and resolved his distress within just a few minutes.

“As an insider in the medical field, it took me considerable effort to resolve my own health concerns; imagine how much more difficult it must be for the average person. Therefore, I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the specific development status of this emerging specialty,” said Zhao Yun. Driven by curiosity, he spent over half a month shadowing Professor Wu Shiming at Xinqiao Hospital of the Third Military Medical University.

The experiences of those two weeks not only revealed the market potential in the pain specialty sector to him, as he was preparing to launch a startup at the time, but also exposed a series of issues prevalent in the field then.

The potential lies in the fact that, as the youngest specialty within the healthcare system, pain management serves a vast patient population. He observed that during Professor Wu Shiming’s clinic hours, there was a constant stream of patients seeking treatment for pain. Data indicates that approximately 160 million people in China require treatment for chronic pain.

The issue is that the majority of patients seeking consultation are elderly individuals aged 60 and above, most of whom travel specifically from counties and districts to urban centers for medical care. Zhao Yun’s investigation revealed that, driven by policy initiatives, although all tertiary hospitals across China have established specialized pain departments, these hospitals are predominantly concentrated in more developed first- and second-tier cities. In contrast, the elderly population, which represents a high-risk group for chronic pain, is primarily located in more remote third- and fourth-tier cities and rural areas.

"This disconnect in resource alignment not only imposes a significant burden on patients who must travel long distances for medical care, but also leaves the healthcare needs of many patients in remote areas unmet," said Zhao Yun.

In 2016, New Cloud Medical, specializing in pain rehabilitation management, was founded by Zhao Yun.

Since its establishment, New Cloud Medical has been committed to exclusively collaborating with the Pain Specialist Medical Consortium of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital (a National Key Clinical Specialty) to build a pain specialist medical consortium. It provides comprehensive solutions for pain specialty departments to public secondary hospitals at the municipal and county levels across China, including equipment configuration, talent development, brand building and promotion, and medical device data sharing.

“The root of the problem lies in the geographical disparity between where expert resources are primarily concentrated and where patient demand is highest. To change the current trend of patients flocking to cities, experts and doctors must be deployed to the grassroots level.”

Photo provided by the interviewee

Zhao Yun stated that the expert committee is the primary resource for establishing pain management departments in secondary hospitals. The core advantage of New Cloud Medical lies in its support from top-tier experts who serve as contracted specialists and advisors, including Academician Han Jisheng, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an internationally renowned pain specialist; Professor Fan Bifa, Director of the Pain Department at China-Japan Friendship Hospital and Director of the National Pain Diagnosis and Treatment Research Center; Professor Li Yongjie, Director of the Functional Neurosurgery Department at Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University and Director of the Beijing Institute of Functional Neurosurgery; and Professor Wu Shiming, Doctoral Supervisor at Xinqiao Hospital of the Third Military Medical University and Director of the Infrared Pain Diagnosis and Treatment Center. Leveraging these four leading figures in the field of pain management alone enables access to a network of 200–300 physicians within the industry.

Currently, under the leadership of Professor Fan Bifa, China-Japan Friendship Hospital has established an organized and standardized outreach team to empower county-level hospitals.

Through the Pain Specialty Medical Consortium, New Cloud Medical can also provide services such as expert mentoring, advanced study, and training for medical technical staff in the pain departments of municipal and county-level hospitals.

According to Zhao Yun, over 100 public hospitals have submitted applications for New Cloud Medical’s comprehensive pain management solutions. Collaborations have been established with more than 20 of these institutions, among which seven have already launched their specialized pain departments. Furthermore, New Cloud Medical plans to establish two to five chain pain centers featuring ambulatory surgery units this year.

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