WeDoctor's Digital Medical Consortium Empowers 'Ethnic Unity Specialty Alliance' to Expand Access to Traditional Chinese and Ethnic Medicine Services

Recently, to better promote the development of ethnic medicine, the “Ethnic Unity Specialty Alliance” project of the China Association for the Promotion of Ethnic Trade was launched in Beijing, with the first batch of 12 hospitals joining as alliance members. The alliance adopts a digital medical consortium model, with WeDoctor’s Shandong Bianque Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Industry Group (hereinafter referred to as “Bianque Group”) responsible for the construction and operation of the alliance’s digital platform, initiating new explorations into leveraging digital medical consortia to enhance service capabilities in ethnic medicine. It is expected that patients across China will soon be able to access specialized diagnostic and treatment services for ethnic medicine through the online platform.

This marks WeDoctor’s exploratory implementation of its digital medical consortium model in cross-regional specialty alliances, following the successful establishment of urban close-knit medical consortia, chronic disease management consortia, and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) consortia. Meanwhile, the inclusion of distinctive diagnostic and therapeutic services of ethnic minority medicine into WeDoctor Digital Hospital’s service portfolio represents a significant expansion of WeDoctor’s digital TCM business segment.

The “Ethnic Unity Specialty Alliance,” with the Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Minzu University and the Liaoning Province Mongolian Medicine Hospital serving as collaborative hospitals, provides specialized technical expertise in ethnic medicine for specific diseases and promotes it to other alliance hospitals. These two hospitals respectively boast key distinctive specialties such as Mongolian Medicine Dermatology and Mongolian Medicine Hematology, possessing unique advantages in the diagnosis and treatment of related conditions, thereby attracting patients from across China. The Alliance has selected three specialties—dermatology, hematology, and hepatology—which see a high volume of out-of-region patients, as the first batch of projects for implementation and promotion.

Specialty alliances have long served as a critical mechanism for promoting regional equity in specialty care capacity and addressing the challenges patients face in seeking cross-regional medical treatment. However, due to difficulties in resource integration and barriers to information interoperability and sharing, these alliances often suffer from loose organizational structures and inconvenient patient access channels during their development, thereby limiting the effective downward extension of high-quality resources to primary care settings. Therefore, for cross-regional ethnic medicine specialty alliances, establishing standardized, specialized diagnostic and therapeutic services for specific diseases within the alliance represents both the core objective and a significant challenge.

In light of this, the “Ethnic Unity Specialty Alliance” has actively embraced digitalization, partnering with Bianque Group to establish a specialty alliance based on the digital medical consortium model. By leveraging a digital platform to achieve comprehensive connectivity of resources within the alliance and to create an online-offline closed-loop service for patients, the alliance enhances the quality and expands the capacity of medical resources, thereby improving the accessibility of specialized diagnostic and therapeutic techniques characteristic of ethnic medicine.

Fan Jiping, President of Bianque Group, stated that the group will fully leverage WeDoctor’s mature experience in building and operating digital healthcare platforms, as well as its integrated online-to-offline advantages across medical care, pharmaceuticals, insurance, wellness, and distribution. By deepening cooperation with the China National Association of Industry and Commerce for Ethnic Minorities’ Trade and its member hospitals, Bianque Group aims to jointly develop standardized whole-course disease management models for specialized ethnic medicine disciplines. Furthermore, the group will actively explore new pathways for online medical education services in these specialized fields, using digitalization to promote ethnic medicine beyond ethnic regions and establish a more accessible service network for patients across China.

The Digital Medical Consortium model is an innovative framework developed by WeDoctor through its efforts to promote the digitalization and intelligent transformation of the healthcare industry. By leveraging digital technologies, this model addresses the persistent challenge of “connected but not integrated” operations within medical consortiums, effectively facilitating the expansion and balanced distribution of high-quality medical resources, implementing tiered diagnosis and treatment systems, and enhancing primary care service capabilities. As China’s largest digital health service platform, WeDoctor operates three core business segments: Digital Healthcare, Digital Pharmaceuticals, and Digital Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Leveraging digital hospitals established across various regions as strategic hubs, WeDoctor has pioneered regional Digital Medical Consortia and successfully implemented an effective model for Digital TCM Medical Consortia within the TCM sector.

Bianque Group serves as the operating entity for WeDoctor’s digital Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) business segment. Leveraging WeDoctor’s digital capabilities, Bianque Group has established a digital TCM medical consortium in Jinan, covering more than 150 primary healthcare institutions. By creating an integrated “online + offline” service model, it provides citizens with end-to-end services including online consultations, real-time medical insurance settlement, herbal decoction services, and home delivery of medications, enabling patients to access “renowned physicians and quality medicines” without leaving their homes. Through the establishment of a shared “Cloud Pharmacy,” the Bianque Digital TCM Medical Consortium achieves centralized and scaled pharmaceutical supply, reducing operational costs for member institutions while ensuring uniform quality standards for medications. Since its establishment over a year ago, the consortium has served more than 550,000 patients through its online services.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) boasts prominent advantages, including a broad range of indications, low medical costs, and ease of promotion and application. Over thousands of years of inherited practice, it has gradually developed distinctive strengths in many specialized fields and for specific diseases. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the development of TCM has been elevated to a national strategic level. From the issuance of the Outline of the Strategic Plan for the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (2016–2030), to the release of the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and further to the clarification of implementation plans through the Implementation Plan for Major Projects on the Revitalization and Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the call for revitalizing TCM has been fully sounded. The recently issued Opinions on Further Improving the Healthcare Service System points out that TCM should play an important role in preventive treatment of disease, the treatment and rehabilitation of major diseases, the prevention and control of infectious diseases, and public health emergency response.

Currently, the insufficient total volume of high-quality traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) medical resources, unbalanced development across regions and between urban and rural areas, and weak TCM service capacity at the primary care level remain significant factors constraining the ability of TCM to benefit a broader population. As an experience-based medical system, TCM faces considerable challenges in talent cultivation; ethnic minority medicines, in particular, struggle to expand beyond their native regions due to geographical constraints and distinct ethnic cultural characteristics. The 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine points out the path forward for both TCM and ethnic minority medicine by emphasizing the need to “optimize and strengthen TCM specialty disciplines and diseases where it holds advantages, and enhance the capabilities of ethnic minority medicine in specialized care, pharmaceutical preparations, and informatization.” The participation of innovative forces, represented by WeDoctor’s Digital Medical Consortium, will significantly unleash the immense potential and vitality driving the revitalization and development of traditional Chinese medicine.