Digital Healthcare Reaches Deepest China: Internet Medical Services Take Root in Aba Prefecture

Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture is located at the southeastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, at the junction of the northern end of the Hengduan Mountains and the high-altitude canyons of northwestern Sichuan. It features elevated terrain and vast territory. The phrase “The Jinsha River Gorge gives rise to a thousand peaks; auspicious snowflakes dance amidst sturdy pines” aptly describes its breathtaking scenery.

However, the once-formidable natural barriers have fostered a thriving tertiary sector in Aba Prefecture, while also becoming an insurmountable obstacle to its economic development. As of 2020, this vast region, covering more than 80,000 square kilometers, retained only 820,000 permanent residents; its annual gross domestic product (GDP) stood at RMB 41.175 billion, accounting for less than 1% of Sichuan Province’s total.

A sluggish economy and sparse population have triggered a series of ripple effects. In the healthcare sector, for instance, although the prefectural capital of Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture is home to a relatively well-equipped prefectural hospital, it can only manage basic medical conditions. Patients with complex or refractory diseases must be referred to Chengdu, located 300 kilometers away, for treatment.

For those who have never ventured beyond the mountains in their entire lives, this mountainous route often represents a distance that is difficult to traverse.

Aba Prefecture, Located on the Southeastern Edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The current state of healthcare in Aba Prefecture is a microcosm of many remote counties and townships across China. The region suffers from a severe shortage of human resources and lacks the capacity to attract high-quality external medical resources. To resolve this long-standing impasse, the only viable solution currently available lies in the connectivity enabled by the internet.

In the early days, the “Internet + Healthcare” wave swept across China. In 2019, the Health Commission of Aba Prefecture finalized a policy to leverage innovative technologies to overcome medical resource scarcity and launched an open tender to the entire society.

Many healthcare IT companies were drawn by the region’s reputation, but when it came to discussing specific solutions, the vast majority had to withdraw due to a multitude of constraints, including geographical conditions, harsh weather, economic limitations, and technological barriers. Only a small fraction possessed both the capability and the willingness to participate in the development of internet-based healthcare in Aba Prefecture, thereby reshaping the medical care environment for its residents.

LIANREN Digital Health proposed the establishment of a “Internet + Healthcare” telemedicine cloud platform. Centered on the Aba Prefecture Health Commission, this project facilitates coordination with provincial-level platforms and extends coverage to five counties, leveraging technologies such as 5G, AI, and big data to provide Internet + healthcare services to local residents.

To ensure thorough communication with the Health Commission of Aba Prefecture and meticulously attend to every detail of platform development, LIANREN Digital Health’s sales team for the Sichuan-Tibet region became frequent travelers along the 300-li mountain routes. To drive the project forward, they made at least one trip per month, maintaining this rigorous schedule for two years.

Even during holidays, Chen Hao and his team were always on the road. During China’s National Day holiday in 2021, Chen Hao set off for the mountainous regions under the bright October sun in Chengdu, only to be met with heavy snowfall as soon as they entered the prefecture. Three days later, while returning from Aba Prefecture, Chen Hao and his team encountered severe snow accumulation on the expressway. Their vehicle’s tires skidded during driving, narrowly avoiding a traffic accident. They ultimately sought help from local Tibetan residents unfamiliar to them, borrowing tire chains to safely descend the mountain.

Chengdu was bathed in bright sunshine in October, but heavy snow began to fall just after entering the prefecture. For Chen Hao and his team, such a perilous journey was nothing out of the ordinary.

As the National Day arrives once again, the internet healthcare platform built by LIANREN Digital Health for Aba Prefecture has been operating in an orderly manner. Discussing the value of this platform, Chen Hao, who oversaw the entire project, emphasized its role in empowering primary care physicians, but ultimately highlighted the benefits for patients.

“In the past, the outpatient hall of West China Hospital was always filled with people who had traveled over mountains to get there, waiting from dawn until daybreak just to see a doctor, only to often find that their minor ailments did not require treatment at a tertiary hospital.”

“With the advent of internet platforms, patients no longer need to undertake arduous journeys burdened by uncertainty and fear as they did in the past. Instead, they can access remote outpatient consultations, remote specialist consultations, two-way referrals, and remote diagnostics at county-level hospitals, thereby benefiting from high-quality medical resources provided by tertiary hospitals. Empowered by innovative technologies, we are witnessing healthcare applications that are more equitable and inclusive.”

Aba Prefecture is a microcosm of LIANREN Digital Health’s efforts to enhance primary healthcare capabilities. From a broader perspective, the company aims to implement more comprehensive and effective designs for information technology infrastructure in primary healthcare, thereby accelerating the development of tiered diagnosis and treatment systems.

For instance, in the extremely impoverished Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, there is an urgent need for basic medical infrastructure at this stage. Therefore, LIANREN Digital Health has proposed a solution involving the construction of Public Health Medical Treatment Centers for Major Diseases. The project is expected to establish one prefecture-level (city) center and eight county-level centers, integrating functions such as health education, testing and monitoring, health emergency response, public health services, and medical treatment, with a total planned capacity of 1,190 beds. Upon completion, the project will effectively alleviate the severe shortage of public health medical treatment resources across the prefecture and comprehensively reshape Liangshan’s public health capabilities.

Since its establishment in 2019, LIANREN Digital Health has been dedicated to exploring big data services in healthcare. In December 2020, it successfully obtained the qualification as the sole operator of healthcare big data in Shandong Province, thereby securing government-authorized data operation rights. This has effectively addressed core industry pain points, including unclear data sources, inconsistent standards, and security risks.

Subsequently, LIANREN Digital Health independently developed and launched the “Renshu” Data Governance Platform, which boasts robust capabilities in data governance, technology, and engineering. The platform supports massive-scale data processing and data encryption. In the field of data governance, the company has secured numerous patents and software copyrights, including 140 cumulative patent applications, seven nationally recognized qualifications, and 172 software copyrights.

In terms of business operations, to address the differentiated needs arising from diverse geographical environments and varying levels of public health infrastructure, LIANREN Digital Health has established three core business lines: big data platforms and cloud services, big data applications, and internet-based health services. Building on this foundation, the company has developed a portfolio of products including chronic disease management solutions, internet platform construction and operation/maintenance services, and regional medical platform development. These offerings serve regulatory authorities and healthcare institutions, while also enabling collaboration with insurance providers and pharmaceutical/medical device companies, thereby facilitating their participation in the development of primary healthcare systems.

LIANREN Digital Health’s Strategic Layout

The cumulative achievements of the past have collectively shaped LIANREN Digital Health as it stands today. It is precisely through continuous trials in practice that the company has developed the capability to build medical big data platforms under various arduous and challenging conditions.

Returning to the topic of building an internet healthcare platform in Aba Prefecture. Although LIANREN Digital Health’s current efforts have begun to yield results, Chen Hao believes that the development of digital capabilities in primary healthcare should not be a one-off endeavor; rather, like hospitals themselves, it must be continuous and keep pace with the times. Therefore, trips to and from Aba Prefecture will continue in the future.

Next, LIANREN Digital Health will continue to strengthen the empowering role of AI and big data technologies in enhancing local medical capabilities. Leveraging the continuing education system of the medical consortium, it will steadily improve the professional expertise of primary care physicians, promote departmental development, and incrementally enhance the hard power of healthcare services in Aba Prefecture.

When asked if he regretted participating in the long and arduous effort to build primary healthcare infrastructure, Chen Hao simply smiled.

He stated, “As a state-owned enterprise, LIANREN Digital Health must consciously assume its mission and actively respond to the call of the ‘Healthy China 2030’ Planning Outline. We must go where others are unwilling to go and tackle the ‘hard nuts’ that others shy away from, bringing our products and services to the grassroots levels where they are needed most. This contributes to the development of China’s tiered diagnosis and treatment system and delivers inclusive benefits to the general public at the grassroots level. By truly achieving our vision of ‘creating first-class digital intelligence services to safeguard the healthy lives of all people,’ we have generated value that others cannot replicate. Thus, these hardships naturally become meaningful.”