WeDoctor Launches China's First Integrated TCM and Western Medicine Online Fever Clinic on National Home-Based Medical Care Platform

In accordance with the State Council’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism’s “Notice on Doing a Good Job in Internet Medical Services for COVID-19,” China’s first online fever clinic integrating traditional Chinese and Western medicine was launched on December 13. Accessible via the homepage of the “National Home Healthcare Security Platform,” this clinic serves patients across China presenting with COVID-19-related symptoms who meet the home isolation criteria outlined in the “Guidelines for Home Treatment of Individuals Infected with the Novel Coronavirus.” It provides online prescriptions for managing COVID-19-related symptoms and offers home delivery of medications. The launch of this online fever clinic will help alleviate the overcrowding observed in offline medical institutions’ fever clinics in various regions in the near term and for some time to come, enabling more patients to access quicker and safer medical services.

For individuals with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 infections, particularly key populations such as children, pregnant and postpartum women, the elderly, and patients with severe chronic diseases, the platform’s Western Medicine Fever Clinic provides 24/7 services including symptom consultation, online medical consultations, and medication guidance, with a response time of within three minutes. Meanwhile, the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Fever Clinic leverages the advantages of traditional TCM by employing syndrome differentiation and individualized prescriptions, delivering medications directly to patients’ homes. This enables users to access convenient medical consultations, use medications scientifically, and manage epidemic prevention at home, thereby avoiding the risk of cross-infection associated with in-person hospital visits.

The “National Home-Based Healthcare Security Platform” was initiated by the Internet Medicine Branch of the China Health Care and International Exchange Promotion Association, and jointly established by WeDoctor and the Sanming Procurement Alliance in collaboration with healthcare institutions and physicians nationwide. Users can conveniently access the platform by navigating to “Home-Based Healthcare Security” through the “Medical Services” menu on the “WeDoctor” WeChat official account, or by logging into the “WeDoctor App.”

China’s First Online Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine Fever Clinic Goes Live

Recently, with the introduction of the “Ten New Measures” for epidemic prevention and control, population mobility across China has increased, leading to a rapid rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases. This surge, compounded by an increase in flu patients during the autumn and winter seasons, has resulted in long queues outside fever clinics at hospitals in many regions. In some areas, wait times for fever clinic consultations have even exceeded six hours.

The “Guidelines for Home Recovery of COVID-19 Patients,” formulated by the Internet Medicine Branch of the China Healthcare and International Exchange Promotion Association, has also been launched on the platform. Experts from the branch will subsequently release professional guidance in the form of short videos to address concerns of public interest. Regarding the choice of medical consultation modalities, Professor Zhang Wenhong from Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University stated in an article that 99.5% of individuals may not need to visit a hospital; their issues can be resolved by family doctors at community health service centers or physicians at hospital fever clinics through telephone consultations, online consultations, or in-person visits.

To leverage the advantages of internet healthcare platforms in organizing and allocating medical resources, on December 12, the Medical Treatment Group of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council for COVID-19 issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in Internet Healthcare Services for COVID-19," pointing out that medical institutions may provide online diagnosis and treatment services to patients with COVID-19 through internet diagnosis and treatment platforms, in accordance with the requirements of the latest version of the Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia.

In response to the spread of COVID-19 across various regions and the surge in public demand for fever clinic services, and actively implementing the “Notice” issued by the Medical Treatment Group of the State Council’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism, the “National Home Healthcare Security Platform” has taken proactive measures by spearheading a service upgrade. WeDoctor General Internet Hospital has rapidly launched an “Online Fever Clinic” on the platform, featuring both a “Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Fever Clinic” and a “Western Medicine Fever Clinic”—marking China’s first online fever clinic integrating TCM and Western medicine.

Guided by national policies, digital healthcare platforms such as the “National Home-Based Medical Care Assurance Platform” can further leverage the convenience and efficiency of internet-based medical services, thereby enhancing the healthcare system’s capacity to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and jointly safeguarding public health in the new normal of epidemic prevention and control.