Yikang Interconnect Files IPO Prospectus: Pioneering End-to-End Digital Solutions for County-Level Integrated Medical Communities
In February 2021, the Secretariat of the State Council’s Leading Group for Healthcare Reform designated Sanming City as a national base for promoting best practices in deepening healthcare reform. Over the past year or more, the “Sanming Healthcare Reform” model has been gradually rolled out across China as a blueprint for reform.
“Promoting the decentralization of medical resources” is one of the core essences of the Sanming healthcare reform. Establishing close-knit county-level medical consortia represents a key reform initiative in this effort, specifically by integrating county-level medical institutions to form a general hospital; township health centers are fully taken over by the general hospital and operate as its branch hospitals; these branches further extend services by establishing village clinics in administrative villages, thereby achieving integrated three-tier medical service delivery across county, township, and village levels. With highly centralized and unified management of personnel, finances, and materials, the consortium operates as a single entity, jointly serving as the “gatekeepers” of public health within the county.
In 2017, Yikang Internet (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yikang Internet”) participated in the establishment of China’s first health-centered, closely integrated county-level medical consortium in Jiangle County, Sanming City, Fujian Province, pioneering a county-level development model for digital healthcare services. Through this process, Yikang Internet has accumulated extensive experience.
As aA High-Tech Enterprise Positioned as a Digital Health Brand Service Provider, Yikang Internet is currentlyChina’s Only Full-Chain Solution for “Health-Centered” Medical Consortiums...company. Based on this, VCBeat conducted an interview with Mr. Yu Chunlong, Chairman of Yikang Internet. Taking this opportunity, we will provide a preliminary exploration of Yikang Internet’s full-chain solution.
“I believe that what we are doing aligns with the systems engineering theory articulated by Mr. Qian Xuesen.”
Qian Xuesen pointed out that a system is an integrated whole composed of interconnected, interacting, and mutually influencing organizational components, which possesses certain functions. Systems engineering thinking requires adhering to holistic, big-picture, and macro-level perspectives, as well as the principles of overall planning and collaboration, when observing, analyzing, and solving problems. It also insists on examining the material world through a developmental, holistic, and dialectical lens.
In Yu Chunlong’s view, healthcare reform and the development of medical consortiums are such systematic endeavors. This perspective has been shaped by his academic background—a master’s degree in software engineering from Peking University and a doctorate in management from the University of Lyon in France—as well as his professional experience at Digital China and WeDoctor Group.
It was precisely on this basis that Yikang Internet was established in Beijing in 2017. He and Yikang Internet devoted themselves to the new healthcare reform, starting with information technology systems and participating in the construction of the “health-centered” medical consortium project in Jiangle County, Sanming City.
Jiangle County Medical Community Construction Project is built upon an integrated medical community information platform, leveraging digital technologies to organically consolidate healthcare resources across the county. It has established a “health-centered” smart medical community cloud platform, forming seven distinctive application modules: comprehensive management, operational management, population health management, medical collaboration, and capacity building.
Panoramic View of the Jiangle County Medical Community Source: Yikang Internet
Furthermore, Yikang Internet has participated in the construction of the “four-level linkage” (city, county, township, and village) medical consortium at Yongan General Hospital, a benchmark institution for the integration of medical care and disease prevention in Sanming City. Through its deep involvement in the Sanming healthcare reform, Yikang Internet has accumulated extensive and successful experience in medical consortium development. To date, it has assisted numerous hospitals in Fujian, Tianjin, Shanxi, Qinghai, and other regions in completing their medical consortium reforms.
Yu Chunlong told us that, from the perspective of service recipients, Yikang Internet can help hospitalsBuild a closed-loop system covering the entire continuum of care, including pre-admission health management, in-hospital diagnosis and treatment, and post-discharge disease rehabilitation management.. On the other hand, from the perspectives of tiered diagnosis and treatment and rational allocation of medical resources, itsFacilitating Two-Way Referrals Between Hospitals at Different Levels to Achieve Optimal Utilization of Medical Resources Across InstitutionsThus, it helps the Medical Community build a complete closed-loop medical ecosystem centered on “health.”
Following the implementation of the Medical Community project, public health resources within medical and health institutions at all levels and of all types across the region can be integrated from a county-wide perspective. This enables urban and rural residents to access comprehensive, multi-tiered, and full-process integrated services, ranging from disease prevention to treatment, from daily healthcare to post-illness rehabilitation, and from primary general practice to specialized care.
Taking the regional health management platform application of Yikang Internet as an example, the platform first integrates data from healthcare institutions at all levels and consolidates it into a health record data center. It then leverages artificial intelligence and big data technologies to categorize the entire population into groups such as healthy individuals, those in sub-health status, high-risk populations, patients with chronic diseases, and special needs populations, while implementing tiered and standardized classification for patients with chronic conditions.
Source: Yikang Internet
Within the medical consortium, specialists, general practitioners, and village clinic physicians form health management teams to provide residents with personalized and targeted services, including health education, follow-up management, health task assignment, and refined management. When residents' health indicators deviate from normal ranges, they enter the healthcare system for treatment, with efficient referrals completed across hospitals at different levels based on the progression of their conditions.
Overall, this application is based on the National Basic Public Health Services and integrated with the family doctor contract service system, combining the collection, aggregation, analysis, and application of population health data.It can effectively shift the focus of resident health management upstream, facilitate the transition from a "disease-centered" to a "health-centered" approach, and improve residents' health outcomes.。
“Product strategy is first built on an understanding of market demand and policy direction, and then integrates these demands into the product chain.”
The rationality of resource allocation significantly impacts the production efficiency of a system. China’s healthcare service system suffers from severe supply-demand imbalance, particularly due to the low mobility of medical resources on the supply side, which seriously hinders healthcare service efficiency. Especially against the backdrop of an aging population and rising medical demand, reform must accelerate without delay.
Medical Consortiums can break down barriers between institutions both vertically and horizontally, establish mechanisms for the circulation of medical resources, and promote the formation of a tiered diagnosis and treatment system. This can significantly address inefficiencies in healthcare services caused by the structurally irrational distribution of resources. The value of medical consortiums to the healthcare ecosystem is self-evident, and policy guidance on their development has become increasingly clear.
Yikang Internet was established in response to urgent market demands and guided by policy directives,"Developed a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for medical consortiums, with business coverage including health-centered medical consortium projects, medical consortium capacity-building initiatives, and regional health management center projects."。
Source: Yikang Internet
According to reports, as of now, Yikang Internet has completed the layout of medical consortium solutions for 16 districts and counties, and has explored a "721" product model to adapt to the resource differences in different regions.
“7” Represents Standardization, is a standardized system architecture of the product derived from summaries of successful experiences and scientific theories;“2” represents personalization, i.e., fully integrating local medical characteristics into the overall design;“1” represents customization, maximizing alignment with user needs. The “7+2+1” model enables products to be tailored to local conditions, thereby helping clients rapidly complete the construction of medical consortia.
In addition to its successful experience in building medical consortia, a key feature of Yikang Internet isEmphasizing Industrial and Research Collaboration. It has established close collaborative relationships with leading research institutions such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, the Zunyi Academician Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Xiong’an Academician Center. Furthermore, it has undertaken tasks related to the translation of scientific and technological achievements in areas such as strengthening grassroots medical service capabilities, led by academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and involving the joint participation of numerous medical experts and professors.
Source: Yikang Internet
Finally, regarding Yikang Internet’s future plans, Yu Chunlong stated that in the short term, the company hopes to expand the coverage of its medical consortium construction solutions to more regions, helping local healthcare systems improve operational efficiency and enabling more people to benefit from healthcare reforms. Meanwhile, to ensure the promotion of its product solutions, Yikang Internet expectsThe team will continue to expand in the near term, and a new round of financing has already been initiated.。