Sichuan TKK Hospital Set to Open, Advancing Taikang's 'Insurance + Medical & Elderly Care' Ecosystem in the Era of Longevity

Recently, Sichuan Taikang Hospital was officially awarded the Medical Institution Practice License and the Radiotherapy Diagnosis and Treatment License issued by the Administrative Approval Bureau of Tianfu New Area, Sichuan Province, and is scheduled to officially open in mid-August.

Sichuan Taikang Hospital is the first tertiary general hospital in Southwest China to integrate medical care, teaching, and research, established by Taikang Insurance Group, a Fortune Global 500 company. Planned in accordance with the standards for Class A tertiary general hospitals in China, the hospital represents a total investment of over RMB 4 billion, with a construction area of 185,000 square meters and a planned capacity of 1,001 beds.

Sichuan Taikang Hospital

As one of the five major medical centers in Taikang’s strategic layout, the hospital has established a disciplined structure with “Health Management and Geriatrics” as the leading specialty, supported by “General Practice, Psychosomatic Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Rehabilitation.” It prioritizes “Obstetrics, Gynecology and Pediatrics; Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases; Oncology; and Palliative Care” as key disciplines, thereby meeting the public’s growing, diversified, and multi-level health needs.

As a practical implementation of healthcare initiatives funded by insurance capital, the hospital will support direct billing with commercial insurance on top of basic medical insurance coverage, providing patients with safe, efficient, and convenient services.

It is understood that, in addition to Sichuan Taikang Hospital, Taikang’s other ventures in the Chengdu area—including Taikang Community·Shuyuan, Taikang Shuyuan Hospital, and Taikang Bybo Dental—have already been established and are operational. Upon the official opening and operation of Sichuan Taikang Hospital, a comprehensive healthcare network will be formed, spanning tertiary general hospitals, specialized hospitals, community hospitals, and elderly care nursing services, thereby facilitating the further deepening and development of Taikang’s grand health ecosystem.

Amid the intensifying trend of population aging, healthcare and elderly care services across society are facing significant challenges. To invigorate existing medical resources, the national new healthcare reform has continued to encourage private investment in healthcare, igniting surging enthusiasm among social capital.

As a typical knowledge-intensive service industry, the high-quality development of hospitals is inseparable from strong support in talent and disciplinary capabilities. However, for a long time, how to attract and retain talent has always been a "major challenge" facing private healthcare institutions.

In this regard, Professor Deng Shaoping, Senior Advisor at Sichuan Taikang Hospital and former President of Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, stated that as medical insurance policies treat privately run healthcare institutions equally with public ones, and given the positive transformations within the non-public healthcare sector in recent years, public perception of privately run healthcare has evolved. Many talented professionals with both passion and expertise are now joining the privately run healthcare workforce. “For instance, our department heads include specialists who have left large Grade 3A hospitals to join Sichuan Taikang Hospital.”

Leveraging the advantages of Taikang Insurance Group’s comprehensive health ecosystem, Sichuan Taikang Hospital actively integrates high-quality internal and external medical resources. It recruits outstanding talents at all levels from both domestic and international markets and has already introduced a cohort of nationally renowned medical experts, establishing a hospital leadership team centered around Professor Deng Shaoping. Currently, the hospital employs 19 individuals with doctoral degrees and 161 with master’s degrees. Most discipline leaders are department directors or deputy directors from university-affiliated hospitals or high-level Grade A tertiary hospitals, with over 70% serving as master’s or doctoral supervisors.

Regarding talent retention, Professor Deng also emphasized that the key lies in enabling professionals to leverage their skills on robust platforms and realize their self-worth. In this regard, Sichuan Taikang Hospital prioritizes the integrated development of medical care, education, and research. It actively collaborates with Wuhan University Taikang Medical School (School of Basic Medical Sciences) and the Taikang Center for Life and Medical Sciences, steadily building a cluster of specialized medical disciplines and an integrated platform for medical practice, teaching, and research, while systematically advancing training programs for healthcare professionals and the establishment of a College of General Practice.

On March 10, 2023, Sichuan Taikang Hospital, in collaboration with its affiliated Taikang Healthcare Chengdu Clinic, established a strategic partnership with the Western Sichuan Psychiatric Association and was officially designated as a “Strategic Alliance Unit of the Western Sichuan Psychiatric Association.” This initiative aims to fully integrate high-quality health resources in the Sichuan region, link Taikang’s comprehensive medical services with top-tier regional medical academic associations, strengthen specialty development, innovate service models, organically empower business operations, and accelerate the integrated development of medical care, education, and research. To date, the hospital has initiated six hospital-level management projects, six technical projects, and seven natural science research projects. As the primary author institution, the hospital has published nine academic papers, including three SCI-indexed articles.

Digital Operating Room

In addition to building its talent pool and disciplinary capabilities, Sichuan Taikang Hospital places significant emphasis on the configuration of high-end medical equipment. Currently, the hospital operates 21 clean operating rooms and three DSA (Digital Subtraction Angiography) suites, including two hybrid DSA-CT operating rooms. It is equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic devices, such as a 320-slice high-end CT scanner, an ultra-high-performance 3.0T Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) system, internationally advanced intraoperative DSA and intraoperative CT systems, and linear accelerators. In the future, the hospital plans to introduce PET-CT, PET-MRI, and the da Vinci Surgical Robot. These advanced high-end hardware facilities complement the professional expertise of its specialists, enabling the hospital to deliver premium health management services to its clients.

During the visit to Sichuan Taikang Hospital, the keywords “safety” and “comfort” were frequently mentioned.

“Between the ICU and general wards, we have established HDU (High Dependency Unit) wards. After excluding the risk of hospital-acquired infections, family members are allowed to provide 24-hour bedside accompaniment, assisting patients with basic medical care and offering emotional support,” said Dr. Wang Tao, Director of the Department of Critical Care Medicine at Sichuan Taikang Hospital.

“Hybrid operating rooms are equipped with advanced medical imaging devices such as CT and MRI scanners, as well as surgical tables and ceiling-mounted suspension systems. These facilities enable the one-stop completion of complex surgeries, helping to shorten operative times and reduce patient suffering. Digital operating rooms support real-time broadcasting of intraoperative procedures, comparison with actual intraoperative conditions, and data retrieval. They also integrate functions for teaching and remote consultation, while achieving digital management of operating room system integration,” introduced Dr. Wan Yong, Director of the Anesthesiology and Surgery Center.

In emergency care, to ensure that patients receive diagnosis and treatment at the earliest possible moment, the hospital’s Emergency Department has established 14 resuscitation beds and three independent resuscitation rooms. Equipped with instruments such as cardiac troponin analyzers and point-of-care blood gas analyzers, the department ensures that necessary tests can be completed directly at the frontline of emergency care. Additionally, two dedicated elevators serve as a rapid green channel for emergencies, enabling direct access to the operating room within three minutes.

Hospital Interior Environment

Moreover, in terms of hospital architectural design and operations, Sichuan Taikang Hospital fully integrates the philosophy of humanistic medical care. This includes incorporating landscaped gardens into the healthcare environment to help alleviate patients’ pain and anxiety, promoting holistic healing of body, mind, and spirit. The hospital also features 144 VIP single-occupancy rooms, as well as dedicated zones such as the “Tairan” Outpatient Area and the “Tailai” Inpatient Area, all designed to ensure a comfortable patient experience.

Sichuan Taikang Hospital is also committed to achieving a "painless" medical experience. Services such as in-hospital patient guidance, green-channel access to medical care, direct billing with commercial insurance, second-opinion consultations, 24-hour service, case management, value-based healthcare, and international green-channel access are available to meet customers’ customized healthcare needs.

As can be seen, Sichuan Taikang Hospital adheres to a patient-centered philosophy, placing strong emphasis on safety and comfort. It provides comprehensive humanistic care and privacy protection, strives to alleviate patients’ suffering from disease, and is committed to delivering high-quality, compassionate “painless” medical and healthcare services.

Through Sichuan Taikang Hospital, we see the innovative solutions proposed by Taikang to address the challenges of the longevity era.

On the one hand, in the era of longevity, as age increases and physical functions decline, living with chronic diseases will become the norm for the elderly, and integrated care can better meet their eldercare needs. However, at present, general hospitals, primary healthcare, and long-term nursing and rehabilitation have not formed effective connections and integration.

On the other hand, the demographic structure in the era of longevity will shift from a pyramid to a columnar and then an inverted pyramid shape, leading to profound changes in the underlying logic of the entire social security system. This will drive individual funding models to become mainstream, with third-pillar insurance playing an increasingly important role. Cost containment has become an inevitable trend, which will have a profound impact on the medical services industry and the internal structure of hospitals.

From this perspective, the future investment by insurance companies in the medical and elderly care industries, promoting the deep integration of insurance and the broader health industry, will be a long-term trend. This is also the focus of Taikang.

As early as 2007, Taikang entered the medical and elderly care industry. In 2013, Taikang Healthcare was launched. Taikang innovatively integrated insurance with physical medical and elderly care services, creating holistic, end-to-end, and full-lifecycle products and services for customers. It established three closed loops encompassing longevity, health, and wealth, thereby forming a new “four-in-one” business model featuring “vibrant elderly care, premium healthcare, superior wealth management, and life care.” Leveraging the inherent and powerful synergy between insurance and the elderly care and medical industries, and driven by the dual engines of health services and insurance payment, Taikang actively explores innovations in commercial insurance. By enhancing the supplementary payment role of commercial insurance, it better realizes the cost-containment value of insurance and provides seniors with more integrated innovative solutions combining medical care, elderly care, and insurance.

Currently, Taikang has established five major medical centers across China: Taikang Xianlin Gulou Hospital, Taikang Tongji (Wuhan) Hospital, Sichuan Taikang Hospital, Ningbo Taikang Brain Hospital (under preparation), and Shenzhen Qianhai Taikang International Hospital (under preparation), with a nationwide network of over 5,000 medical beds. Taikang Community’s high-quality senior living communities have also been deployed in 30 cities across core regions, including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Bohai Rim, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Southwest China, and Central China.

As one of the five major medical centers under Taikang Healthcare, Sichuan Taikang Hospital has firmly implemented Taikang’s healthcare strategy, achieving tangible progress and results in integrating healthcare with insurance and combining medical care with elderly care.

For instance, in the integration of healthcare and insurance, Sichuan Taikang Hospital has formed a “Medical-Insurance Alliance” with Taikang Life Insurance’s Sichuan Branch, leveraging Taikang’s insurance and medical resources to provide high-net-worth clients with higher-quality, more systematic services in insurance, health, and asset management. In the integration of medical care and elderly care, Sichuan Taikang Hospital engages in multi-level collaboration with Taikang Community·Shuyuan and Shuyuan Rehabilitation Hospital to jointly build an integrated, full-cycle medical and elderly care service platform. Initiatives include conducting research on geriatric and rehabilitation topics, establishing a two-way referral mechanism, and providing customized, continuous health management and diagnostic and treatment services to community residents.

In the future, with the opening of Sichuan Taikang Hospital, the institution will accelerate the integrated development of medical care, education, and research, advance the distinctive “integration of healthcare and insurance” and “fusion of medical and elderly care” model of Taikang Healthcare, and—together with other medical centers, self-owned physical medical institutions such as Taikang Community Rehabilitation Hospitals, and the external nationwide medical service network covered by Taikang Health Connect—form a comprehensive national service network and robust medical service capabilities radiating across China. Building on this foundation, Taikang will integrate its insurance payment system with its comprehensive medical, elderly care, rehabilitation, and palliative care service system to create products and services covering the entire lifecycle, further deepening Taikang’s “Insurance + Healthcare” closed-loop health ecosystem.

As stated in the book The Age of Longevity, “The prospects for the health industry are unprecedented; the medical and health services sector will become a major industry of the future. We believe that Taikang’s ‘payment + service’ model will unleash greater potential amid this wave of social transformation.”