Lianren Health Leverages 'Five Ren and Six Libraries' Technological Edge to Unlock Value in Data Element Marketization Pilot Programs

As a new factor of production, data elements are regarded as the “oil” of the digital economy era. However, the value of data lies not in the data itself, but in the insights generated through computational analysis. Therefore, under the digital economy, the state’s vigorous promotion of market-oriented allocation reforms for data elements will yield substantial economic and social value.

In December 2021, the General Office of the State Council issued the Overall Plan for Comprehensive Reform Pilots on Market-based Allocation of Production Factors, to drive in-depth reforms in this area. The Plan stipulates that by the first half of 2022, the layout of pilot regions and the preparation and approval of implementation plans should be completed, with the aim of achieving phased results from the pilot work by 2023.

Pilot initiatives blossomed across China, with local governments and industry enterprises collaboratively advancing explorations in big data. In 2022, LIANREN Digital Health, a health and medical big data enterprise with state-owned central enterprise backing, reported a series of successes, signing cooperation agreements with cities such as Chongqing, Wenzhou, and Ningbo to jointly develop and apply health and medical big data.

Signing Ceremony for the Strategic Cooperation between Ningbo Municipal People's Government and LIANREN Digital Health

When an industry is still in its early exploratory phase, not everyone knows where the exit lies. At such a juncture, the moves of industry leaders serve as significant bellwethers. In this regard, VCBeat interviewed Mr. Yang Weidong, Deputy General Manager and Chief Technology Officer of LIANREN Digital Health, to explore and share the company’s insights and practices in facilitating the marketization of data elements, with the aim of providing reference for the industry.

As early as 2015, the State Council issued the Outline for Promoting Big Data Development, stating that “data has become a foundational strategic resource for the country.” In April 2020, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council released the Opinions on Building a More Complete System and Mechanism for Market-Based Allocation of Production Factors, further proposing to cultivate a market for data as a factor of production. Subsequently, a series of documents, including the Overall Plan for Comprehensive Reform Pilots on Market-Based Allocation of Production Factors and the Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Unified National Market, were successively introduced, all emphasizing the marketization of data elements as a key driver for developing the digital economy.

A review of data policies since 2015 reveals that the shift in terminology from “big data” to “data as a factor of production” reflects a policy transition from pursuing local optimization to seeking global optimization. Specifically, the policy focus has moved beyond big data applications within individual organizations, placing greater emphasis on data’s role as a factor of production in value creation and distribution, and achieving globally optimal allocation through market-based mechanisms.

Changes in macroeconomic policies will ultimately impact specific regions and entities. As China refines and implements the top-level design of its national data strategy, local governments and industry enterprises are rapidly advancing their explorations in big data.

Since its establishment, LIANREN Digital Health has actively shouldered the critical responsibility of providing support for the implementation of the “Healthy China” strategy. In 2022, it successively signed cooperation agreements on the development and application of health and medical big data with the governmental authorities of Chongqing, Wenzhou, and Ningbo, assisting these local governments in advancing the market-based allocation of data elements.

In accordance with the “Opinions on Building a More Complete System and Mechanism for Market-Based Allocation of Production Factors,” the cultivation of the data factor market primarily encompasses three aspects: promoting the opening and sharing of government data; enhancing the value of social data resources; and strengthening data resource integration and security protection. Based on this, the pathway for LIANREN Digital Health to collaborate with local governments in the development of health and medical data is clearly defined.

Taking Chongqing as an example. In December 2021, the Chongqing Municipal Health Commission released the “14th Five-Year Plan for Health Informationization in Chongqing,” which mentioned the implementation of seven new digital health services. By 2025, Chongqing aims to become a leading domestic benchmark city for smart healthcare. The document explicitly calls for building a “Health Cloud” platform and creating a resource pool for health and medical big data.

Chongqing Municipal Health Commission Signs Strategic Cooperation Agreement with LIANREN Digital Health

In this collaboration, LIANREN Digital Health and the Chongqing Municipal Health Commission will also leverage Chongqing’s “Health Cloud” to jointly build a foundational platform for health and medical big data.

Given the uneven regional distribution of medical resources in China and the varying market demands for health and medical data across different regions, LIANREN Digital Health has adopted a “multi-site implementation, comprehensive layout” strategy in selecting pilot areas. This approach aims to achieve coverage at the provincial, municipal, and county levels as extensively as possible, thereby gaining a comprehensive understanding of the development of national health and medical big data.

Wenzhou, a prefecture-level city under the jurisdiction of Zhejiang Province, is currently vigorously implementing pilot tasks for the market-based allocation reform of data elements. This collaboration will leverage the foundational infrastructure of China (Wenzhou) Digital Security Port to jointly promote the development, utilization, and industrial growth of health and medical data in Wenzhou.

Wenzhou Municipal People's Government Signs Strategic Cooperation Agreement with LIANREN Digital Health

Leveraging data to fully unlock its value is the fundamental objective of building a data factor market. To enhance the development of data resources, broaden the scope of data applications, and fully unleash the potential value of data,When assisting the government in building a data platform, LIANREN Digital Health uniformly adopted the “Five Ren” integrated architecture, which combines business innovation (“Ren Kang”), technological innovation (“Ren Xin”), data resources (“Ren Shu”), knowledge resources (“Ren Yi”), and infrastructure (“Ren Yun”).

Leveraging this architecture, LIANREN Digital Health has established five core business segments—benefiting the public, the government, healthcare providers, research institutions, and enterprises—thereby creating a closed-loop health industry ecosystem. This framework meets multidimensional business needs across different regions. For instance, in Chongqing, the focus is on convenient public inquiries, commercial insurance services, chronic disease management, pharmaceutical distribution, and data applications for pharmaceutical companies; whereas in Wenzhou, the emphasis is on health management services and empowering upstream and downstream enterprises in the big data industry chain, such as pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurers.

Moving beyond individual cases and adopting a holistic strategic perspective, LIANREN Digital Health aims to fully leverage its influence and driving force across the entire health and medical big data industry chain. The company seeks to promote the integration of cutting-edge technologies, such as big data and artificial intelligence, with local health and medical industries, thereby fostering a more robust and comprehensive health and medical big data ecosystem.

Currently, LIANREN Digital Health has established a systematic methodology for data development and utilization that spans the entire process, encompassing data, technology, and business operations.

The supply of large-scale, high-quality data resources is the foundation for building a data factor market; LIANREN Digital Health has obtained government-authorized data operation rights.LIANREN Digital Health, spearheaded by China Mobile, leverages the telecom giant’s vast user base and represents a key initiative in China Mobile’s in-depth implementation of its “5G+” strategy, driving innovative applications of 5G technology in the healthcare sector.

In April 2018, while still in the preparatory phase, LIANREN Digital Health was authorized to operate the National Health and Medical Big Data Northern Center, one of the five national pilot regional centers for health and medical big data. This made it the first enterprise in China to secure comprehensive government contracting and authorization mechanisms. With this national mandate for health and medical data operations, LIANREN Digital Health is able to lawfully aggregate nationwide health and medical big data resources, thereby building corresponding capabilities in data processing, data mining, and the development of industry ecosystem applications.

To strengthen data resource integration and security protection, LIANREN Digital Health has launched the “RenShu” big data platform, expanding the boundaries of secure data utilization.To address the challenges hindering industry development, such as the massive volume of medical data, the high difficulty in data aggregation, cleaning and enrichment, classification, and centralized storage, as well as the lack of policies and systems for data sharing and openness, and concerns over data security assurance,LIANREN Digital Health has launched the “Renshu” big data platform, a platform product with top-tier technical capabilities and security standards in the industry.

The “Renshu” Big Data Platform draws on best practices in big data storage and governance from the financial sector, while integrating the unique characteristics of the healthcare industry. It adopts a “One Lake, Three Platforms, Two Centers” architecture, which comprises a “Healthcare Big Data Lake” built on hybrid database architecture technologies; a data middle platform, a business-technology middle platform, and a development and application platform; as well as an operations and maintenance center and a security management and control center. This framework provides support for exploring operational models for health and medical big data, implementing data de-identification and encryption, and ensuring the security of data application processes.

LIANREN Digital Health relies on “RenShu” to provide five core capabilities for the “N Applications” of health big data: massive data storage, aggregation, efficient governance, shared openness, and security assurance. Currently, the “RenShu” big data platform has completed its version iteration from 1.0 to 2.0. Furthermore,LIANREN Digital Health has established six major knowledge bases, including a medical resources database, chronic disease management database, health factors database, disease database, pharmaceuticals and medical devices database, and diagnosis and treatment database. These “Six Databases,” together with the aforementioned “Five Ren” overall architecture, will jointly empower LIANREN Digital Health to better create data value and drive industry advancement.

At the same time, LIANREN Digital Health also aims to leverage its open platform, “Wuren Liuku,” to provide foundational data support for the industry while fostering greater interaction with multiple stakeholders—including pharmaceutical companies, insurers, hospitals, and government agencies—to jointly build an open ecosystem for healthcare big data.

Market-oriented allocation of data elements involves not only the circulation and trading of data in the market but also the process of data value creation. LIANREN Digital Health can expand its data business across the entire industry chain, thereby enhancing the value of social data resources.From the perspective of shareholder resources, LIANREN Digital Health can aggregate the resource advantages of its eight major investors, including China Mobile and China Pacific Insurance, in areas such as medical technology, healthcare informatization, health insurance, medical big data, and commercial channels. By engaging in extensive collaborations with national-level platforms, authoritative medical institutions, and industrial partners, the company extends its business scope from infrastructure construction to the subsequent operation of platforms and applications. It has expanded its business into three core segments: healthcare big data, internet-based healthcare services, and healthcare industrial parks, covering the entire industry chain—including public health, internet hospitals, integrated elderly care and medical services, health management, insurance innovation, pharmaceutical R&D, and medical education—thereby building a comprehensive medical ecosystem and reshaping the landscape of the medical big data industry.

Although the cultivation of the data factor market is accelerating under the guidance of relevant national policies, given that data factors differ from traditional production factors such as labor, land, capital, and information, the institutional framework required to facilitate the marketization of data as a production factor will still require a considerable period to develop.

Yang Weidong believes that the health and medical big data industry currently exhibits three distinct characteristics:

Necessity,Driven by multiple variables, including policy initiatives, technological iterations, and market evolution, the penetration of big data has injected momentum into various segments of the healthcare industry;Complexity,Over the past few decades, China’s healthcare informatization has evolved from Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and Clinical Information Systems (CIS) to intra-hospital data integration and regional clinical informatization, leading to a sharp increase in the volume and variety of medical data and a reconstruction of its value.Professionalism, big data can be widely applied across multiple industries such as internet healthcare, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. The demand for talent extends beyond just medical and IT fields; it also requires professionals skilled in data science, biotechnology, AI, and more.

“The more turbulent the industry becomes, the more essential it is to remain calm. We must be able to endure solitude, firmly root ourselves in the healthcare big data sector, and continuously strengthen our professional capabilities,” said Yang Weidong. Since its inception, LIANREN Digital Health has remained committed to leveraging data technology to facilitate the coordinated development of medical care, health insurance, and pharmaceuticals (the “Three Medical Linkages”), thereby improving medical efficiency, enhancing healthcare quality, and supporting medical security. “Our original aspiration remains unchanged. We aim to become an advanced digital health service operator by 2030, continuing to contribute to the industry.”