Decoding WeDoctor's 'Digital Medical Consortium': Digital-Physical Integration Opens a New Frontier in the Healthcare Industry
On April 3, the Cyberspace Administration of China stated that China’s digital economy currently ranks second globally in scale and has become one of the primary engines driving economic growth. As a key segment of the digital economy, digital health is accelerating its development; in 2022, telemedicine services across China exceeded 26.7 million patient visits, demonstrating significant market potential.
In the past two years, driven by favorable policies and market demand, digital healthcare has achieved remarkable growth in market penetration, with its business models becoming increasingly mature and standardized. In particular, following the release of the "Opinions on Further Improving the Healthcare Service System," the digital medical consortium model adopted by platforms such as WeDoctor has successfully undergone multiple rounds of policy and industrial validation, leading to a resurgence of high market expectations for digital healthcare.
Public health emergencies have sparked enormous demand for online diagnosis and treatment services. Coupled with increasing policy support for digital healthcare, breakthroughs in new technologies, and an influx of private capital, China’s digital healthcare industry is entering a boom cycle, with its market size expanding rapidly.
According to a Frost & Sullivan report, the market size of digital healthcare services in China was RMB 23.2 billion in 2019 and is projected to exceed RMB 700 billion by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37% during this period.
Amid the fervor in this sector, both primary and secondary markets have high expectations for the return on investment (ROI) and payback period of digital health investments.
Data from NetEconomy Society shows that in 2018, when the landmark policy “Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting the Development of ‘Internet + Healthcare’” was released, investment and financing in the digital healthcare market amounted to approximately RMB 11.45 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 723.74% compared with 2017. In the following years, figures repeatedly hit new highs, with financing reaching RMB 20.4 billion in 2021. Although the primary market cooled in 2022 due to the pandemic and other factors, several companies—including Yaoshibang, Fangzhou Jianke, MedSci Health, and Yuanxin Technology—filed for IPOs in the secondary market, while Dingdang Health successfully went public.
By 2023, against the backdrop of macroeconomic stabilization, the market logic of digital healthcare—combining essential public welfare needs with characteristics of the high-tech industry—has been further validated.
Recently, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the “Opinions on Further Improving the Healthcare Service System.” Serving as a roadmap for the reform of China’s healthcare system over the next decade or more, the document sets forth the goal of establishing a high-quality, efficient, and integrated healthcare service system by 2035, and explicitly states that “privately run medical institutions may take the lead in forming or participate in medical consortia.”
Industry analysis suggests that the digitalization and intelligent transformation of Medical Consortiums, as the fundamental form of integrated healthcare systems, is an inevitable trend. This includes the construction of digital Medical Consortiums and derived commercial scenarios such as digital chronic disease management and the integration of basic medical insurance with commercial health insurance, which will further expand the growth potential of the digital healthcare industry.
Judging from market feedback, on the first trading day following the policy announcement (March 24), internet healthcare-related sectors in both the Hong Kong and A-share markets rose across the board, with Dangdang Health surging 14.45% and Ping An Good Doctor gaining 6.16%.
To further analyze the window of opportunity presented by digital medical consortia, one cannot bypass the “Tianjin Model,” a regional digital medical consortium model that stands out in the industry for having validated its value across multiple dimensions, including policy breakthroughs, social benefits, and market value.
It is understood that in 2020, under the leadership of the Tianjin Municipal Health Commission and with the support of the Tianjin Municipal Healthcare Security Administration, WeDoctor Internet Hospital spearheaded the formation of a digital, tightly integrated medical consortium—the Tianjin Primary Care Digital Health Community—in collaboration with 266 primary healthcare institutions across the city.
According to media reports such as CCTV News, Tianjin’s Primary Care Digital Health Consortium has signed chronic disease management cooperation agreements with more than 200 primary healthcare institutions and seven secondary hospitals across the city, jointly establishing chronic disease management centers and creating health records for over 1.68 million patients. As of March 2023, more than 220,000 diabetic patients in Tianjin had been enrolled and included in the health stewardship responsibility system for outpatient special care services for diabetes, with patients signed up by member units of the Digital Health Consortium accounting for approximately 50% of the total. By the end of November 2022, the standardized management rate for diabetic patients who had received continuous care for more than three months at pilot primary healthcare institutions reached 81.5%, and the blood glucose control rate improved by more than 12.1%.
Furthermore, digital medical consortiums have demonstrated significant effectiveness in increasing outpatient volumes at primary care hospitals and implementing tiered diagnosis and treatment. For instance, relevant data indicate that with the improvement of digital health community construction, some primary healthcare institutions in Tianjin that have implemented reform measures have seen a 100% increase in outpatient visits, with the highest year-on-year increase reaching 280%.
Leveraging its dominant position in areas such as chronic disease management, the scaled industrial value of the Digital Health Community is gradually being realized. According to public media reports from 2022, within less than 30 months of operation, the Health Community had served over 10,000 outpatient visits, with monthly revenue exceeding RMB 100 million. A simplified analysis using common internet industry models indicates that in a medical insurance pooling area with approximately 10 million insured individuals, the Digital Medical Consortium achieved a daily diagnostic and treatment volume equivalent to that of a large Grade A tertiary hospital (10,000 visits) within 30 months, while achieving an Annual Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of RMB 100. This demonstrates that the Digital Medical Consortium business model possesses growth potential far surpassing that of traditional hospitals or purely online internet healthcare platforms.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the “Overall Layout Plan for Building a Digital China,” proposing to promote the deep integration of the digital economy with the real economy, and to drive transformations in production, daily life, and governance through digitalization. As evidenced by practices in Tianjin, digital medical consortia have achieved the “integration of digital and real elements” within the healthcare industry, exerting a profound impact on the digital health market.
From the perspective of market co-opetition, digital medical consortia have established high industry barriers. They require participants to prioritize both online and offline operations, forming a digital hospital organizational model that integrates “internet hospitals + physical hospitals.” Furthermore, deep expertise in delivering cost-effective services, innovating payment methods, and integrating the industrial chain is essential, which facilitates accelerated expansion for leading players in the sector, such as WeDoctor.
Of course, more importantly, the successful validation of the digital medical consortium business model signifies that digital healthcare will no longer be confined to peripheral services such as pharmaceutical e-commerce and online consultations. Instead, it will progressively penetrate the core of the healthcare delivery system, positioning itself as a primary growth engine in the trillion-dollar health and wellness industry.