YiHu Launches 'Hundred Cities, Ten Thousand Partners' Initiative Amid Surging Demand for Medical Escort Services
A wave of practitioners is flocking to the emerging field of medical accompaniment services.
“Yi Hu” is one of them.
Unlike other emerging startups, YiHu was born out of Weiyi Health, a company with over 20 years of experience in health management. Since commencing its health management operations in 2000, Weiyi Health has conducted more than 1,500 health lectures and provided medical assistance services to over 100,000 individuals.
In July 2022, Weiyi Health launched the “Yihu” platform, officially entering the medical accompaniment sector. Its goal is to build an internet-based local non-medical service supply-and-demand platform, providing residents with higher-quality and more convenient services. Currently, to deliver high-quality services to a broader range of users in need, Yihu has initiated the “100 Cities, 10,000 Partners” city partner program.
The growth in demand for medical accompaniment services is clearly evident.
On the one hand, under the backdrop of a continuously aging population, children and other family members are often too preoccupied with work to care for the elderly, giving rise to a substantial demand for medical consultations and accompanying services among the vast elderly population in need of support. On the other hand, the uneven distribution of medical resources, with high-quality resources concentrated primarily in major cities, leads many patients from grassroots areas and second-tier cities to seek medical treatment elsewhere, further expanding the demand for accompanying services. Meanwhile, the increasing specialization of hospital departments has made the medical consultation process more complex, thereby increasing the difficulty for patients to seek care and driving up the demand for accompanying services.
As demand grows, issues on the service supply side are also becoming increasingly apparent.
Due to low entry barriers, the industry comprises a mixed bag of practitioners, resulting in inconsistent service quality. In the early stages of industry development, the profession has yet to gain full recognition, and the scope and procedures of services provided by patient escorts remain undefined. These discrepancies often lead to disputes between patients and escort personnel. Furthermore, the lack of clear industry standards and regulatory oversight makes it considerably difficult for patients and their families to seek recourse and protect their rights after services are rendered.
Finding reliable medical escort service providers remains a major pain point for patients with such needs.
These pressing needs have also spurred a surge of enterprises into the sector. Impacted by the pandemic, a large number of patients with chronic diseases required pharmaceutical and medical services. During this period, Weiyi Health stepped up as a volunteer to support patients, offering services such as medication procurement on behalf of patients and facilitating remote medical consultations. It was these emerging demands that led Weiyi Health to launch the Yihu Platform in 2022.
Positioned as a “non-medical service supply and demand platform,” Yihu aims to help families and individuals facing difficulties in accessing medical care address their “non-medical service needs” that fall outside the scope of clinical treatment. By leveraging the “Internet Plus” model and developing city-based stations, Yihu is providing a comprehensive suite of service solutions, turning its vision into reality.
Yihu: A Non-Medical Service Supply and Demand Platform, Primarily Offering Standardized Core Services Such as "Hospital Escort," "Hospital Errand Running," "Health Consultation," and "Psychological Services."
Guo Weifeng, Founder of the Yihu Platform
According to Guo Weifeng, founder of the Yihu platform, the platform currently offers medical escort services through both full-time and part-time medical escorts. Its service coverage primarily focuses on the Yangtze River Delta region, centered around Shanghai, mainly targeting elderly patients who face difficulties in seeking medical care and patients seeking medical treatment outside their home regions. The service pricing is aligned with the current mainstream market rates. The platform currently provides order dispatch and acceptance services daily from 8:00 to 20:00 throughout the year.
“Medical escort services go far beyond simply transporting users from point A to point B. The scope of services provided by medical escorts includes not only basic assistance such as accompanying patients through medical procedures, interpreting physicians’ orders, and facilitating hospital visits, but also offering professional medical consultations to help patients understand their conditions and select appropriate treatment plans and healthcare facilities. Furthermore, medical escorts assist with follow-up arrangements, including scheduling examinations and follow-up visits, purchasing medications, and providing rehabilitation guidance, thereby ensuring that the entire medical journey is properly coordinated. These services alleviate the stress associated with seeking medical care, provide necessary practical assistance, and offer psychological support to patients,” mentioned Guo Weifeng.
The Yihu platform has optimized the patient escort service model, enhanced service efficiency, achieved rapid matching between patients and escorts, and provided convenient online services such as consultations and appointments. Furthermore, Yihu is strengthening data analysis and application to gain deeper insights into patient needs and healthcare-seeking patterns, thereby providing a scientific basis for service optimization.
When patients or their families require medical escort services, they can place orders online via the YiHu mini-program. The service process is generally as follows—
① Appointment Order Placement → Order Approval → SMS Notification
② Communication and Confirmation → Payment Completion → Platform Dispatches Order → Pre-Consultation Planning → SMS Reminder (including the medical escort’s name, contact information, appointment time, hospital address, and reminders on items to bring, etc.)
③ In-hospital Escort → Service Completion → Customer Follow-up → Order Completion
Guo Weifeng pointed out, “The Yihu Platform firmly believes that 70% of a successful medical accompaniment service stems from thorough communication and clear service disclosures between staff and patients prior to the appointment, while the remaining 30% depends on the performance of the accompaniment personnel. We consistently mandate comprehensive communication with patients.” To deliver more meticulous and attentive care, Yihu requires its accompaniment personnel to maintain a sense of reverence, respecting client privacy and their autonomy in medical decision-making; to uphold a public-welfare spirit, providing the most considerate services to patients; to cultivate compassion, treating every client with kindness, particularly those with serious illnesses, advanced age, or financial hardships; and to demonstrate professionalism, ensuring conscientious and responsible conduct throughout the accompaniment process, with close attention to service details and patient experience.
When patients require services such as “psychological support,” they can place orders online via YiHu, select a suitable counselor and area of focus, and receive offline services. This capability is underpinned by Weiyi Health’s long-standing expertise in the healthcare sector. Psychological services are provided by a subsidiary of the Weiyi Group, with service teams composed of expert specialists from professional mental health centers and nationally certified Level-2 psychological counselors. These teams offer clinical psychological services to the public, including mental health education, counseling, diagnosis, and pharmacotherapy, and possess extensive clinical experience in the intervention of severe mental disorders.
In fact, in addition to the aforementioned services, Yihu Platform’s comprehensive service portfolio also covers employee health management for enterprises and public institutions, premium personal healthcare services, government-sponsored public welfare programs, community-based elderly care, caregiving and rehabilitation, clinical psychology clinics, and more.
To better address the issue of user acquisition, Yihu has adopted a parallel business model combining B2B2C and B2C.
Yihu serves both general users, offering services such as medical accompaniment, and enterprises and institutions, providing in-depth health management solutions. Through cross-industry collaborations with individual merchants, merchant users can also place orders on the “Yihu” platform to access these services.
To deliver high-quality services, YiHu is also further refining its service chain to diversify its revenue streams—
On one hand, in addition to its services, YiHu is also improving its product supply. In February 2023, Weiyi Health signed an agreement with Yilekang, gradually strengthening the product supply chain for the YiHu online store. Currently, the product categories available on the YiHu online store include health supplements, food items, wellness products, and certain medical devices. Notably, a particular protein powder product has achieved a repurchase rate as high as 80%. Regarding the model combining escort services with an online store, YiHu stated, “During our escort services, users develop strong loyalty toward their escorts due to the trust they place in their professionalism. As a result, users often inquire about suitable products for post-recovery care. On another note, we maintain strict standards for listing products—thoroughly reviewing supplier qualifications, ensuring product traceability, and personally testing each item to ensure responsibility toward our users.”
On the other hand, Yihu is also conducting talent training through the Weiyi Health Business Academy to address the current shortage of professionals in the industry. According to Guo Weifeng, the Weiyi Health Business Academy, under Weiyi Health Management, is a platform dedicated to providing professional knowledge learning and exchange in areas such as health service management, health business knowledge, and health market maintenance. Relying on an experienced adult education management team and high-quality professional faculty, the Academy scientifically designs training programs in response to market demands, aiming to cultivate and incubate a professional, socialized workforce of health management service providers and managerial talents. It has currently launched targeted training programs for health service professionals, including “Health Managers,” “Psychological Counselors,” “Community Health Assistants,” and “Medical Accompaniment Specialists.” Corresponding experiential training courses and certification classes have been established, with training delivered through a combination of online and offline formats.
To accelerate market expansion, YiHu has launched its “100 Cities, 10,000 Partners” city partner program. Regarding the requirements for partners, Guo Weifeng pointed out that candidates should “possess certain financial strength and core businesses, have local networks in their respective cities, have experience in entrepreneurship, sales, or management, and harbor a strong passion and commitment to the general health industry.” The last point is particularly crucial.
In fact, the Academy’s development and the City Partner Program complement each other. The Academy can “accelerate the implementation of urban clinical medical health management services, tailor training to local city contexts, further expedite the precise cultivation of management and service talent, provide intellectual support to partner cities, assist local cities in establishing standardized professional teams, strengthen management and services, enhance service efficiency, and rapidly capture market share. Meanwhile, it can reinforce dynamic guidance, empowering city teams to effectively address new developments and challenges in the health services and elderly care markets, thereby achieving superior service outcomes.”
For Yihu, the objective is clear: “The Academy can promote mature and effective management and operational models, implement health talent development programs, and explore a city-partner business model for health management services centered on clinical medicine. By establishing service standards, reengineering processes, enhancing marketing, strengthening institutional management, implementing performance-based revenue sharing, cultivating talent, and expanding into related services within the broader health sector, we will further empower the ‘Big Health’ action plan across wider domains and more cities, thereby capturing a larger market and benefiting more people.”
Currently, with Shanghai’s Jinshan District as its starting point, YiHu has established platform city stations in Wenling (Zhejiang), Shanghai’s Fengxian District, Suzhou’s Gusu District, the Xiong’an New Area (Hebei), Hangzhou’s Xihu District (Zhejiang), Yueqing (Zhejiang), Shangyu (Shaoxing, Zhejiang), and Pinghu (Jiaxing, Zhejiang). Discussions with additional city partners are also underway.
Bullish on the industry's development, Guo Weifeng is accelerating his market expansion.
For him, Yihu enjoys a unique competitive edge. With over two decades of industry experience, Yihu has an in-depth understanding of Shanghai’s medical resources and specialized healthcare services. Since the launch of the Yihu platform, its online and offline operational processes have been largely streamlined within just two years, with well-developed application scenarios. By establishing and adhering to rigorous standards, Yihu has achieved a remarkable record of zero complaints since its inception. Currently, Yihu has conducted four rounds of patient escort training in the Yangtze River Delta region, cultivating nearly 120 highly qualified patient escorts. Furthermore, Yihu has established robust customer acquisition models along with city partner and community partner operational frameworks.
Everything is ready.
Nevertheless, the industry continues to face certain challenges. Further discussion between the government and the industry is still needed on how to raise entry barriers, strengthen regulatory oversight, and establish industry standards.
However, he confidently stated, “By regulating industry development, clarifying service standards, and improving service quality, medical escort services can become an important supplement to the healthcare system. They can provide comprehensive companionship and assistance to patients seeking medical care, address practical challenges they encounter during the healthcare process, and offer psychological support. YiHu will also remain committed to delivering regulated, professional, and standardized services, making greater contributions to both the industry and its users.”