WeDoctor Showcases China's Digital Healthcare Model at Fifth Future Investment Initiative Summit Amid Hong Kong IPO Filing

“Globally, as multiple industries usher in a post-pandemic revival, which investments will yield the greatest benefits for humanity? And what changes do you most look forward to?” From October 26 to 28, the Fifth Anniversary Conference of the Future Investment Initiative was held simultaneously via transoceanic video link, with Beijing and Riyadh serving as dual main venues. Centered on these themes, influential figures from around the world—including political leaders and business titans—exchanged collaborative solutions to address common public and social challenges within the framework of the global agenda, sharing forward-looking insights and international business perspectives on restarting socio-economic development.

As a leading figure in China’s digital healthcare industry, Liao Jieyuan, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of WeDoctor, attended the conference at invitation and delivered a keynote speech titled “Digital Restructuring of China’s Healthcare System Amid the Pandemic,” sharing with the global community China’s innovative practices in leveraging digitalization as an engine to reshape healthcare management and service delivery models.

“We pay special attention to the word ‘reshape,’ asking where this reshaping begins. Without an innovative linking pivot between information technology and healthcare services, true integrated development cannot be achieved.” Looking back on the evolution of digital healthcare, Liao Jieyuan pointed out that internet hospitals, serving as the link between information technology and healthcare services, are becoming the “pivot” for reshaping pharmaceutical and healthcare management and service models.

The rapid development of internet hospitals has not only facilitated the introduction of a series of national policies promoting “Internet + Healthcare” through innovative practices, but also driven the explicit inclusion of diagnostic and treatment services provided by internet hospitals into the scope of medical insurance coverage, thanks to their outstanding performance in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

“During extraordinary times, platform-based internet hospitals have fully demonstrated their advantages in resource allocation and precision services,” introduced Liao Jieyuan. At the peak of the epidemic, WeDoctor Internet Hospital fulfilled 97% of the online follow-up consultation and medication purchase needs for 408,000 patients with severe chronic conditions in Wuhan. During this period, the data synchronized daily by the platform to the competent authorities became a crucial “observation point” for tracking the progress of epidemic control. It was at this juncture that the National Healthcare Security Administration introduced policies enabling bulk procurement of digital medical services from internet hospitals through the national medical insurance fund, thereby rapidly accelerating the adoption of internet-based diagnosis and treatment services in households across the country.

At this new stage of development opportunities, the key value “focus” of “Internet Hospitals” in the present and near future lies in Internet-based Medical Consortia.

“Medical alliances will drive a shift in the flow of China’s trillion-yuan medical insurance purchases, truly unleashing the vast potential of commercial health insurance in China.” Liao Jieyuan believes that China’s medical insurance payment system is entering a new track: as medical insurance transitions to purchasing services from “Health Maintenance Organizations,” it will inevitably further drive transformation across the entire healthcare system.

In fact, WeDoctor has been actively participating in and leading this transformation. In 2019, leveraging the Taishan Internet Hospital for Chronic Diseases as its platform, WeDoctor collaborated with 17 public hospitals at secondary level or above and 88 primary healthcare institutions in Tai’an, Shandong Province, to jointly establish an Internet-based Medical Consortium for Chronic Disease Management. This initiative assumed responsibility for follow-up consultations, medication procurement, and management services for local patients with chronic diseases, becoming the first case in China where municipal medical insurance departments directly paid for digital chronic disease management services.

In 2020, the Shandong Internet Medical Insurance and Digital Health Service Platform, initiated and operated primarily by WeDoctor, was launched, marking the first time that the entire process of “three-medical linkage”—integrating internet-based healthcare services, pharmaceuticals, and medical insurance—was truly interconnected. The platform is gradually establishing comprehensive digital health profiles covering residents’ entire lifespans, and by enhancing pre-event actuarial capabilities, in-event risk control capabilities, and post-event claims settlement capabilities, it has laid a solid foundation for the integration of basic medical insurance and commercial health insurance.

In October of the same year, under the joint guidance of the Shandong Provincial Healthcare Security Administration and the Jinan Municipal Healthcare Security Administration, the Shandong Internet Medical Insurance and Health Service Platform, in collaboration with ten domestic insurance companies, officially launched “Qilu Bao,” a regional supplementary medical insurance product. The number of policyholders exceeded 717,000 in its first year. This year, the upgraded “Qilu Bao 2021” has continued to attract active enrollment from users since its launch. By supporting payments through individual medical insurance accounts and enabling family mutual aid, this commercial insurance product has not only activated funds in individual medical insurance accounts but also significantly leveraged fundraising for commercial insurance.

In January 2020, the Tianjin Municipal Government and WeDoctor reached a cooperation agreement to jointly build a Digital Health Community, among other initiatives. Under the guidance of the Tianjin Municipal Health Commission, WeDoctor Internet Hospital in Tianjin took the lead in collaborating with 267 primary healthcare institutions to establish a closely-knit internet-based medical consortium—the Tianjin Primary Care Digital Health Community. With chronic disease management as the entry point, the Digital Health Community has been exploring the implementation of a payment method based on bundled payments by disease type and per capita. It has begun to implement an incentive and constraint mechanism of “retaining surpluses and not covering deficits” under global budget management, based on assessments of healthcare and health management quality.

In this development trajectory, internet-based medical consortia have demonstrated significant commercial value and expansive potential for growth. It is reported that the revenue generated by WeDoctor’s internet hospitals in cities such as Tai’an, Jinan, and Tianjin has already reached the scale of tertiary hospitals.

“Digital healthcare reforms at the regional level are spearheading the transformation of China’s healthcare system, while the integration of capabilities within regional medical systems is giving rise to new healthcare business models.” Liao Jieyuan stated in his concluding remarks that the pandemic, healthcare reform, and digitalization are accelerating the shift of China’s healthcare system from a “treatment-centric” model to a “health-centric” one.