Hospitals Rush into a $100 Million Healthcare IT Innovation Initiative Amid National Mandate
“We don’t have much time left!” lamented the director of the information center at a tertiary Grade A hospital during CHINC 2024.
In accordance with Document No. 79 issued by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), all central and state-owned enterprises are required to achieve 100% replacement of their office automation (OA) systems with information technology application innovation (Xinchuang) solutions by 2027. As the initiative approaches its final assessment phase, hospitals are accelerating their efforts.
Bidding data clearly reveals the robust demand for information technology application innovation (Xinchuang) within the healthcare system. Since 2020, both the number of Xinchuang projects and their transaction values in the healthcare sector have surged significantly. The total bidding transaction amounts from 2020 to 2022 were RMB 180 million, RMB 358 million, and RMB 3.191 billion, respectively. In 2022, healthcare Xinchuang bidding volumes experienced explosive growth, indicating that Xinchuang initiatives in the medical field are progressing with great momentum.
The transaction amount for 2023 was not disclosed, but many industry experts stated that the value and volume of medical information technology innovation (Xinchuang) tenders achieved a historic, explosive growth in 2023, resulting in several large-scale orders. For instance, in November 2023, the Xinchuang informatization project for the new campus of Zhengzhou Anorectal Hospital, valued at RMB 110 million, was awarded to China Unicom Digital Tech.
In 2024, the adoption of domestically developed IT innovations in China’s healthcare sector accelerated further. On April 8, Fuqing Maternal and Child Health Hospital issued a tender announcement for a major procurement project worth RMB 38.71 million focused on such domestic IT solutions. As of press time, the total value of publicly disclosed procurement demands for domestic IT innovations and informatization across various regional healthcare systems had exceeded RMB 90 million.
On the technology supply side, preparations are in full swing as companies accelerate their transition toward information technology application innovation (Xinchuang). VCBeat observed two phenomena at CHINC: first, the conference featured a dedicated “Xinchuang Special Session” forum for the first time, where numerous hospital administrators shared practical achievements and experiences in medical Xinchuang initiatives; second, “Xinchuang” elements were ubiquitous in the exhibition area, with many vendors establishing specialized Xinchuang exhibition zones and launching new Xinchuang products.
“Xinchuang” (Information Technology Application Innovation) has become a high-frequency term in the healthcare industry. This article synthesizes keynote speeches from experts at the Shanghai Health and Health Statistics Center, Nanjing Health Information Center, and Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, along with interviews with multiple healthcare IT enterprises. It outlines the Xinchuang construction requirements on the hospital side and shares practical exploration achievements from the industry side.
The essence of Xinchuang (Information Technology Application Innovation) is to “eliminate chokehold vulnerabilities” by achieving full-industry-chain substitution centered on foundational hardware and software. The Chinese government has incorporated the Xinchuang industry into its national strategy, proposing a “2+8+N” application framework. This framework starts with Party and government organs as the foundation and gradually expands to eight key industries critical to national welfare and people’s livelihoods, as well as broader consumer markets. The healthcare industry is included among these sectors.
The IT Application Innovation (Xinchuang) industry chain comprises basic hardware, basic software, application software, and information security, with chips, operating systems, and databases being the most critical components.
Although efforts to promote IT application innovation in the healthcare sector have been underway for many years, progress has been minimal. This is due to the unique characteristics of the healthcare industry and the fact that IT application innovation itself is a complex systems engineering endeavor. Based on insights from expert presentations, the following challenges exist in advancing IT application innovation within the healthcare industry:
First is the closed nature of the healthcare industry ecosystem., medical services are closely and complexly interconnected, requiring comprehensive design in terms of both technical reserves and engineering implementation, which demands significant investment of human and financial resources from healthcare institutions;
Next are the challenges encountered during the information technology application innovation (Xinchuang) transformation process., such as difficulties in migration due to the massive volume of medical business data, inconsistent performance and service quality of XC (information technology application innovation) products, product incompatibility during system integration, insufficient practical experience of healthcare vendors in XC implementation, and a shortage of specialized XC talent;
Following the Xinchuang (IT Application Innovation) Transformation, urgent challenges remain to be addressed, including ensuring the continuous and stable operation of systems, addressing novel security issues arising from IT application innovation products, overcoming the immaturity of the IT application innovation ecosystem, and establishing unified data standards.
Fuxin Sci-Tech Innovation added,The unification of technical standards and protocols is the most significant challenge in the adaptation and integration process of Xinchuang products.Due to the adoption of differing technical standards and protocols by various devices or software, incompatibility between them can lead to obstacles in information transmission and processing. In the process of promoting domestically produced IT innovation (Xinchuang), it is essential to ensure that new domestic products are compatible with existing information technology infrastructure and technical environments, thereby achieving seamless integration and interoperability. This is a complex and challenging task that requires substantial resource investment.
Furthermore, multiple experts emphasized the importance of information technology application innovation (Xinchuang) in databases during their speeches. As the foundation for data management and informatization, databasesMigration and debugging between legacy and new databases, stable operation of the new database, and compatibility and adaptation with other hardware and software are critical foundations for ensuring the advancement of China’s information technology application innovation (Xinchuang) initiative.The security, stability, and efficiency of databases are also directly related to the quality and efficiency of medical services. However, domestic databases still have many problems in terms of technical level and application practice.
Fuxin Kechuang stated,Data migration risks also constitute a significant challenge in the adaptation and integration process of information technology application innovation (Xinchuang) products.During data migration, issues such as incompatible data formats, data loss, and data errors may arise, potentially even causing paralysis of the legacy system. Therefore, ensuring the reliability and security of data migration constitutes a key challenge in the adaptation process for China’s indigenous innovation and domestication initiatives.
Jingyi Technology noted that there is still room for optimizing the performance of domestic databases.Hospital information systems are complex and extensive, involving a large volume of concurrent transactions and generating massive amounts of data. This necessitates that domestically produced databases possess robust capabilities in high-concurrency processing, big data handling, complex data analytics, and artificial intelligence integration.
Meanwhile,The healthcare industry also lacks mature development tools for database migration, backup, and data recovery, as well as management tools for database performance monitoring and tuning., thereby limiting database operations and maintenance capabilities. It is also worth noting that while domestically developed, self-controllable databases offer security advantages, their security still needs to be validated and enhanced through practical application in a wider range of scenarios.
When an industry is still in its embryonic stage, not everyone knows where the exit lies, yet pioneers always emerge to expand the imagination of those who follow. In the process of advancing medical information technology innovation (medical Xinchuang), many healthcare systems have already charted a practical path: starting with the replacement of peripheral application systems, such as non-core business functions, and gradually transitioning to the replacement of core business systems.
In December 2023, all 89 database-related application software systems at Chenggong Hospital Affiliated to Xiamen University were officially migrated to and operating on domestic database systems, with a cumulative total of 3.12405 billion data records transferred. This milestone marks the hospital as the first to achieve full-scenario application of domestically produced information systems, successfully completing its transition toward indigenous innovation in information technology (Xinchuang).
During the same period, institutions such as the Chinese PLA General Hospital and Peking University First Hospital successively completed the information technology application innovation (Xinchuang) replacement of their core systems at various stages, setting a demonstrative example for healthcare institutions across China.
To better advance the adaptation and transformation for information technology application innovation (Xinchuang), many localities have begun establishing Xinchuang laboratories. These facilities provide testing environments for Xinchuang compatibility, conduct experiments and showcase outcomes related to the Xinchuang adaptation of application systems, and serve as platforms for cultivating talent in Xinchuang development and operations and maintenance.
Cao Jianfeng, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Health and Statistics Center, stated in his speech that on the basis of achieving autonomy and controllability, the development of healthcare information technology requires selecting technical routes characterized by independent innovation and capable of sustained, independent evolution. Laboratories in Shanghai focused on IT application innovation (Xinchuang) in healthcare have brought together ecosystem partners across various fields—including chips, server operating systems, databases, and independent software vendors (ISVs)—to conduct in-depth functional and performance testing based on real-world business scenarios, working collaboratively to establish industry best practices.
As mentioned in the case, domestic databases currently included in the Information Technology Application Innovation (Xinchuang) catalog include Dameng, Kingbase, Shenzhou General, HighGo, and GBase. Among them, Dameng and Shenzhou are similar to Oracle; although Kingbase is based on a modified version of PostgreSQL, its syntax is closer to Oracle, while HighGo is nearly identical to PostgreSQL. In other words,Information systems that support both the PostgreSQL and Oracle ecosystems are compatible with mainstream domestically produced databases.。
A Wide Array of Healthcare IT Innovation Products: How to Select Healthcare IT Innovation Projects? Yang Yang from Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital Offers Recommendations from the Perspective of Healthcare Institutions:
First, select a robust and mature technical roadmap;
Second, select systems on the regional information platform that have a broad service scope and relatively low business criticality for replacement;
Third, select key departments in top-tier tertiary hospitals to implement non-core system replacements;
Fourth, in cases involving only the replacement of service deployment, select a system or solution with good compatibility with existing office infrastructure.
Driven by multiple factors, including policy support and hospital demand, basic hardware and software companies have intensified their efforts to expand into the healthcare sector, while medical application software vendors have successively launched information technology innovation products.
At CHINC, Kingbase, a leader in domestic databases, launched the Kingbase Cloud Database Appliance; SmartMore presented its lightweight hyper-converged Xinchuang cloud infrastructure; and Sangfor Technologies partnered with Winning Health to release the “fully automated” WeiXin Cloud 3.0. Huimei Technology’s CDSS has achieved compatibility and mutual recognition with over 20 mainstream Xinchuang vendors. Donghua Medical’s HRP system has completed adaptation for full localization, with its material supply chain module now fully operational. Kyee Technology has comprehensively covered Xinchuang adaptation across its cloud product portfolio, earning nearly 200 adaptation certification certificates for its full-stack Xinchuang solutions. Fuxin Kechuang shared on-site case studies of implementing its domestically developed system centered on the “Childcare and Early Childhood Health Information System.”
VCBeat learned from interviews that previous efforts to build the IT application innovation ecosystem have mostly focused on individual products, lacking comprehensive solutions for full-scale IT infrastructure localization. “Since every component of the IT architecture needs to be replaced, in addition to the performance and stability of each individual component, compatibility among different components, joint tuning, and continuous upgrades are all critical.” Therefore,In the future, IT application innovation ecosystem collaborations should be conducted on a business-unit basis, rather than through isolated compatibility efforts between individual products.
Winning Health and Sangfor Technologies have jointly established a Joint Laboratory for Healthcare Information Technology Application Innovation (ITAI), providing services in optimization and integration, compatibility adaptation, full-stack testing, and version release for their entire product lines. Leveraging this laboratory, both parties can provide a stable environment for numerous healthcare ITAI projects and products, ensuring that the healthcare ITAI products procured by hospitals are secure, stable, effective, and reliable.
Meanwhile, some vendors have responded to the shortage of talent in the information technology application innovation sector. For example, Kingbase has collaborated with key partners and users, including Winning Health, Donghua Medical Information, Wonders Information, Chongqing Zhonglian, Jiuyuan Yinhai, China Telecom, and Changhai Hospital, to provide database training. These efforts aim to cultivate core database talent and strengthen workforce development within the healthcare industry.
Overall, the localization and innovation initiative in healthcare IT is a systematic engineering endeavor. It requires not only the joint participation and collaborative efforts of the government, domestic ICT infrastructure providers, leading medical software enterprises, and industry experts, but also a phased approach—from easy to difficult—to address challenges such as databases, operating systems, browsers, peripheral device drivers, and medical equipment integration, taking into account the breadth and complexity of healthcare scenarios, thereby driving the deepening and evolution of this initiative.
Xinchuang has become a defining challenge of our times across all industries. For stakeholders in the healthcare sector, advancing Xinchuang initiatives is not only an imperative response to external pressures but also a proactive transformation driven by evolving demands.