123 Smart Healthcare: Implementing Digital Care Pathway Management to Make Health Perceptible and Healthcare Compassionate

Recently, the 2022 China Oncology Conference held in Hangzhou once again captured the attention of the entire industry. For a long time, cancer treatment has been the focal point within the field, often overlooking the long-term impact of cancer rehabilitation on patients. In his address at the rehabilitation sub-forum, Fan Daiming, Chairman of the China Anti-Cancer Association and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, stated, “Oncology rehabilitation is an area where we have fallen short in the past. Moreover, the final component of the integrated oncology care model—‘prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation’—culminates in ‘rehabilitation.’”

Academician Fan Daiming Delivers Remarks at the Venue

In the past, constrained by various factors, cancer patients often faced a reality of having no effective treatments available and lacking proper medical oversight. Today, with advancements in diagnostic and therapeutic technologies within the oncology field, new technologies, novel drugs, and innovative treatment regimens are continuously driving clinical practice toward greater precision. As a result, an increasing number of cancers are being brought under control, making long-term survival with the disease a new norm for cancer patients. Within the framework of systemic cancer treatment, cancer rehabilitation constitutes a critical component, and the implementation of refined, whole-course patient management serves as the cornerstone for achieving high-quality oncology care.

Globally, cancer is one of the leading causes of death. As a country with a large population and an increasingly aging demographic, China faces mounting pressure in cancer prevention and control. According to the World Health Organization’s 2020 report on the global cancer burden, there were 4.57 million new cancer cases in China in 2020, representing an increase of approximately 500,000 cases compared to the 4.064 million new cases reported by the National Cancer Center for 2016.

A team led by Professor Chen Wanqing from the National Cancer Center at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, published a paper in the Chinese Medical Journal predicting that in 2022, there were approximately 4.82 million new cancer cases and 3.21 million cancer-related deaths in China. Cancer not only causes severe harm to patients and their families but also poses significant threats to society. To further enhance cancer prevention and control efforts, China is implementing the “three early” principles (early detection, early diagnosis, and early treatment) while simultaneously advancing the chronic disease management model for cancer.

As stated by Academician Fan Daiming, the survival duration and quality of life of cancer patients after treatment are directly associated with whether they undergo cancer rehabilitation. Clinical evidence indicates that specialized, standardized out-of-hospital management can alleviate patient symptoms, reduce postoperative complications, and extend the survival period of cancer patients; for some patients, the efficacy of out-of-hospital rehabilitation management is even comparable to that of Keytruda (K drug) and Opdivo (O drug).

In January this year, Professor Li Qiang from Sichuan Cancer Hospital and Professor Shi Qiuling’s team from Chongqing Medical University published a paper in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, providing the first global validation that a whole-course management model based on patient-reported outcomes—“active symptom monitoring–early warning–feedback”—can accelerate postoperative recovery in lung cancer patients. This study clinically substantiated the efficacy of active management models in cancer rehabilitation.

Therefore, during the period in which patients live with their disease, strengthening whole-course disease management services, conducting regular follow-ups and continuous monitoring, reducing the risk of complications, and improving quality of life have become new priorities in healthcare services. However, China currently still faces an imbalance in the distribution of medical resources and an overall shortage of high-quality medical resources. In-hospital treatment remains the primary focus, while comprehensive rehabilitation management and whole-course disease management for discharged patients are lacking. This results in discharged patients being unable to receive sustained professional management, highlighting an urgent need to improve rehabilitation outcomes for cancer patients.

Since the implementation of the Healthy China Strategy, China’s health sector has begun shifting from a “disease-centered” model to a “people’s health-centered” approach. At the policy level, the state has successively issued multiple documents, including the Guiding Opinions on Actively Promoting Medical Insurance Payment for “Internet+” Medical Services, the Detailed Rules for the Supervision of Internet-Based Diagnosis and Treatment (Draft for Comment), the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Health Informatization, and the Functional Guidelines for Information Systems in Public Hospital Operational Management. Digitalization and value-based healthcare have become guiding principles.

As the wheels of time roll forward, digitalization is inevitably a key direction for the development of healthcare. In addressing the “intractable challenge” of cancer rehabilitation and out-of-hospital patient management, digital health undoubtedly offers the optimal “treatment plan.”

At the Rehabilitation Branch of the 2022 China Oncology Congress, Liu Yanbin, CEO of One-Two-Three Smart Healthcare Group, spoke as a representative of digital healthcare. He stated that digital management serves as a beneficial complement to the current medical model. On one hand, it helps hospitals strengthen their digital infrastructure and enhance out-of-hospital management, providing whole-course disease management services to patients and improving treatment outcomes. On the other hand, it helps patients reduce medical expenditures, yielding significant health economic benefits.

Liu Yanbin, CEO of 123 Smart Healthcare Group, Speaks at the Venue

As a digital health enterprise providing integrated, full-course disease management services in specialized medical fields, 123 Smart Healthcare Group leverages digital and artificial intelligence technologies to streamline out-of-hospital patient management pathways. Equipped with professional treatment management teams and collaborating with offline physical hospitals, the Group delivers integrated in-hospital and out-of-hospital rehabilitation management services that seamlessly combine online and offline care. This approach maximizes continuous management, dynamic monitoring, and timely intervention, thereby reducing patient complications, shortening the overall treatment cycle, and lowering medical costs.

Patient Management Platform

According to statistics, this disease management approach can save patients RMB 800 per visit in non-medical expenses, reduce consultation time by 3.5 days per patient, shorten the average length of hospital stay by 2.7 days, and improve post-discharge rehabilitation outcomes by 30 percentage points.

“Beyond serving patients, digital healthcare also holds significant potential in the field of scientific research,” said Liu Yanbin. He believes that digital disease management should, on one hand, establish an intelligent service model and develop digital therapeutics to achieve patient-centered, continuous, and proactive management, thereby improving long-term treatment outcomes. On the other hand, disease management must be grounded in high-quality evidence-based medicine, embracing the concept of “service as research” to enhance the efficiency of clinical studies through evidence-based medicine and real-world data research.

As an applied science grounded in the natural sciences, medicine is evaluated by its ability to uncover new patterns of disease pathogenesis, establish novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, and improve patients’ quality of life. These criteria serve as key indicators of the caliber and value of medical research, thereby driving researchers to conduct clinical problem-oriented scientific investigations.

Disease management involves numerous urgent scientific challenges. Relevant clinical research is grounded in real-world settings; however, the inability of in-hospital data to comprehensively reflect patients’ out-of-hospital medication adherence and disease progression significantly increases the difficulty of real-world studies. It is common for frontline researchers to rely on routine clinical practices and medical record documentation to manage clinical trials. The absence of out-of-hospital data substantially undermines the value of such research, often rendering the resulting scientific findings inapplicable to actual clinical practice.

Against this backdrop, 123 Smart Healthcare Group has proposed the development philosophy of “Service as Research.” By collaborating with physicians and medical institutions, the company conducts real-world data and digital therapeutics research to unlock the potential of healthcare data elements. This approach aims to minimize the waste of data resources, maximize data value and clinical research efficiency, and drive the translation of valuable outcomes through scientific collaboration.

Scientific Research Innovation: From “Linear Drive” to “Spiral Drive”

How Exactly Can “Service as Research” Be Put into Practice? Liu Yanbin introduced that 123 Smart Healthcare Group empowers clinical research through specialized disease course management and medical data research. It assists physicians in delivering patient care while systematically collecting and organizing pre-diagnosis, intra-diagnosis, and post-diagnosis information. The accumulated data are promptly summarized for use in research projects. By designing specialized digital disease course management services, the group explores the translation of real-world studies into digital therapeutics, thereby fostering a sustainable spiral of innovation in both service delivery and scientific research. Meanwhile, it pioneers interdisciplinary international research collaborations, conducts large-scale prospective longitudinal studies, performs follow-up validation of prognostic clinical prediction models, and analyzes the efficacy of specific therapies. Furthermore, it has established a cutting-edge academic dialogue platform for digital medical research innovation, providing one-stop academic resources and services.

Currently, the company has generated innovative digital health academic achievements in the three areas of disease progression prediction (Prediction), monitoring (Monitoring), and intervention (Intervention)—hereinafter referred to as the “PMI” model—including digital prognostic clinical prediction models, patient indicator monitoring systems, and novel disease progression intervention protocols.

 Empowering In-Hospital Operations: Research Breakthroughs Within the PMI Framework

123 Smart Healthcare Group, centered on the “PMI” model, has developed and deployed the DSICM Digital Disease-Specific Integrated Management System, the IoT Proactive Health Management System, and an Integrated Research and Analysis Platform. Throughout the whole-course disease management service process, the system not only meets individual users’ needs for specialized, full-cycle disease management but also empowers clinicians by enabling dynamic, long-term patient tracking, thereby facilitating case cohort management assessment and real-world scientific research.

According to reports, the 123 Smart Healthcare Group was established with support from multiple institutions, including Fudan University’s Sixth Industry Research Institute, the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC), and the Science and Technology Literature Press. Guided by its mission to safeguard people’s life and health and to promote innovation in industrial applications and models, the group is committed to fostering deep integration between technology and healthcare. It actively participates in the development of the “Joint Laboratory for Digital Healthcare under the National Center for Comprehensive Utilization and Public Service of Scientific and Technological Information Resources (STI),” leveraging its role in supporting industry-wide common technologies and commercialization, facilitating industry-academia-research collaboration, and advancing the use of science and technology to better serve national strategies.

STI Digital Health Lab

As of now, 123 Smart Healthcare has collaborated with multiple tertiary hospitals—including Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Shanghai East Hospital affiliated with Tongji University, Wuhan Central Hospital, the Second People’s Hospital of Shaanxi Province, and the Fourth People’s Hospital of Shaanxi Province—on digital disease course management and research services. It has also signed a scientific research agreement with Huadong Hospital affiliated with Fudan University for the “Research and Application Demonstration Project on Integrated In-hospital and Out-of-hospital Case Management Technology for Diseases.” Furthermore, the company has engaged in diverse forms of collaboration with patient organizations, insurance institutions, and medical device manufacturers.

As digital healthcare continues to advance, Yiersan Smart Healthcare Group is leveraging favorable policies and rapid industry growth to implement effective out-of-hospital management, integrate medical services with scientific research, and demonstrate through concrete actions that healthcare can be more compassionate. As Zhang Laiwu, Dean of the Institute for Sixth-Sector Industrialization at Fudan University and former Vice Minister of Science and Technology, wrote in his book Internet Plus Medical Health: “Engage in the exploration of new medical models, new medical disciplines, and new medicine; fully leverage biotechnology, network technologies, big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology to continuously improve the quality of healthcare services, thereby delivering innovative services for full-lifecycle health management urgently needed to achieve the ‘Healthy China’ initiative.”