Digital Medical Consortium Revitalizes Chronic Disease Management: Tai'an and WeDoctor Deepen Construction of Digital Health Community for Chronic Conditions
On July 25, the Tai’an Municipal People’s Government of Shandong Province signed a cooperation agreement with WeDoctor Group to launch a “Digital Health Services for Chronic Diseases” initiative, thereby advancing the development of Tai’an’s Digital Health Consortium for chronic disease management.
It is reported that last year, Tai’an City launched a pilot program for a Digital Chronic Disease Health Consortium in Daiyue District. “Doctor, how are my blood sugar levels?” “They are very stable. The management has been effective during this period of medication reduction, but you must not let your guard down. Special attention to diet and exercise is essential to maintain good control.” In Xujiawen Village, Zhuyang Town, Daiyue District, Tai’an City, village doctor Xu Luyong is providing health management services to residents. For elderly villagers with chronic diseases, he conducts monthly follow-up visits under the guidance of physicians at the town health center.
In Zhuyang Town, 96 elderly residents suffering from the “three highs” (hypertension, hyperglycemia, and hyperlipidemia) are identified as a key population for chronic disease management. Family doctor teams, composed of staff from the town health center and village doctors, provide them with routine chronic disease management services. Following Tai’an’s initiation of the digital health consortium for chronic disease management, these elderly individuals can now access comprehensive, detailed, and continuous health management services from home through digital devices such as mobile cloud clinic vehicles and portable cloud clinic kits that bring medical care directly to their doorsteps.
Figure | In Tai'an, Shandong, village doctors use cloud-based mobile diagnostic kits to provide in-home health management for villagers
With the comprehensive rollout of Tai’an’s Digital Health Community for Chronic Diseases, chronic disease patients across the city will benefit from standardized management and clinical services, as well as diversified and refined health management services.
As early as 2019, the Tai’an Municipal Government entered into a strategic partnership with WeDoctor, becoming one of the first prefecture-level cities in China to explore the digital health community model. It established the nation’s first internet hospital dedicated to chronic disease management and issued the country’s first online medical insurance settlement receipt. Within just over a year, Tai’an successfully developed the “Tai’an Model,” a comprehensive chronic disease management approach featuring the integrated coordination of internet services, medical insurance, healthcare delivery, and pharmaceuticals. This model initially achieved the “two increases and one decrease” goal: improved quality of chronic disease medical and health management services, enhanced patient health indices, and reduced burden on the medical insurance fund. As an innovative benchmark for the “three-medical linkage” reform (integrating medical care, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals), the “Tai’an Model” has been replicated and promoted throughout Shandong Province and in other provinces and municipalities across China.
One of the key experiences of the “Tai’an Model” is to leverage internet hospitals to establish an internet-based medical consortium by focusing on chronic disease management. Specifically, the Tai’an Weiyi Taishan Hospital Internet Hospital has formed a chronic disease internet medical consortium with 15 secondary-and-above hospitals across the city. Offline joint chronic disease clinics and online zones for follow-up consultations and medication purchases have been established within member hospitals of the consortium. By integrating offline and online services, the model provides integrated, end-to-end services for outpatients with chronic and special diseases, including follow-up visits, prescription renewals, medical insurance settlement, and medication dispensing. Meanwhile, digital medical communities are jointly built with various counties, districts, and cities. Cloud-based mobile consultation vehicles, cloud consultation kits, and medical-health workstations are deployed in primary healthcare institutions to create “mobile hospitals.” Digital tools and intelligent equipment are utilized to build an internet-based tiered diagnosis and treatment platform, thereby establishing a closed-loop service system for comprehensive chronic disease management at the grassroots level.
Figure | 15 Public Hospitals in Tai'an City Have Established Joint Outpatient Clinics for Chronic Diseases
Currently, the Internet-based Medical Consortium for Chronic Diseases in Tai’an City has covered 236,000 outpatients with chronic and special diseases across the city, alleviating over 20% of the outpatient pressure on hospitals. The construction of the “Mobile Hospital” under the Digital Medical Community has extended to 30 townships and sub-districts in Tai’an City, facilitating grassroots healthcare institutions to gradually achieve online diagnosis and treatment, remote consultations, two-way referrals, and online prescription issuance, thereby better delivering basic public health examinations, chronic disease screening, family doctor contract services, and health management.
To further enhance service efficiency, the Tai’an Municipal Government and WeDoctor Group have once again signed an agreement to deepen their cooperation, innovatively advancing the construction of the “Tai’an Chronic Disease Digital Health Community.” This initiative integrates and upgrades the chronic disease internet-based medical consortium and the digital medical community, enabling participation from medical institutions at all levels across the city. It also actively explores reforms in health insurance payment methods, such as “global budgeting with retention of surpluses.”
Following the upgrade, Tai’an Weiyi Taishan Hospital Internet Hospital invested in building a digital chronic disease management platform. This initiative leverages clinical diagnosis and treatment support from secondary hospitals and above, utilizes township health centers and community health service centers as connecting links, and relies on family doctor teams as the foundational network. By establishing a “four-tier linkage” among municipal, county, township, and village medical institutions, and implementing a “three-professional collaborative management” model involving general practitioners, specialists, and health managers, the platform aims to deliver comprehensive medical and health management services for patients with chronic diseases.
Figure | Tai'an Municipal Government Signs Agreement with WeDoctor to Advance the Construction of Tai'an’s Digital Health Community for Chronic Disease Management
Li Lanxiang, Deputy Secretary of the Tai’an Municipal Party Committee and Mayor of Tai’an City, stated that in recent years, Tai’an City has continuously deepened exchanges and cooperation with WeDoctor Group, focusing on advancing the integrated reform of medical insurance, medical services, and pharmaceuticals through the “Internet + Medical Insurance + Healthcare + Pharmaceuticals” model, thereby making solid progress in the development of health services. The signing of the strategic cooperation framework agreement between Tai’an City and WeDoctor Group marks a new chapter in leveraging complementary strengths and achieving win-win outcomes for all parties involved. It is hoped that all parties will faithfully implement the provisions of the agreement, continuously expand the scope of cooperation, improve cooperative mechanisms, and accelerate practical collaboration in areas such as digital healthcare networks and the integrated elderly care and health industry, striving to achieve tangible results and fruitful outcomes. All counties, districts, and cities, as well as medical institutions at all levels, should attach great importance to and actively participate in the construction of the Digital Health Community for Chronic Disease Management, promote the balanced distribution of high-quality medical resources, and continually narrow regional and urban-rural disparities.
Liao Jieyuan, Chairman and CEO of WeDoctor Group, stated that through this collaboration, WeDoctor will continue to enhance the development of its digital chronic disease management platform. Together with medical institutions at all levels in Tai’an City, WeDoctor will jointly advance the establishment of integrated online-offline joint outpatient clinics for chronic diseases, promote the vertical flow and effective sharing of high-quality medical resources, comprehensively improve the diagnostic, treatment, and health management capabilities of primary healthcare institutions, and achieve disease-specific, end-to-end chronic disease management services.