Mikang: Empowering the Greater Health Industry Through a Health-Oriented Medical Model and Ushering in an Era of Universal Health Diagnosis and Intervention

With the implementation of the recommendations outlined in the 13th Five-Year Plan, “Healthy China” has been elevated to a national strategy, and “preventive treatment of disease” has become a core demand of comprehensive health and medical services. The “Healthy China 2030” Planning Outline, issued by the State Council, proposes focusing on two key areas—the entire population and the full life cycle—to provide equitable, accessible, systematic, and continuous health services, thereby achieving a higher level of health for all citizens. To cover the full life cycle, priority areas must be identified based on the major health issues and influencing factors at different stages of life, with strengthened interventions to ensure comprehensive health services and protection from the fetal stage to the end of life, thereby safeguarding the health of the people in an all-around manner.

However, while hospitals have established standard paradigms for clinical treatment, there is still no viable set of standards to regulate lifestyle and behavioral issues among the general population in pre-disease and non-disease states. Overall, modern medicine remains entrenched in the disease-oriented medical model, centering on diseases to carry out prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and intervention activities. This disease-centric model largely fails to meet contemporary public demands for health.

In this context,Maikang (Medical Research Institute MK-MRI) has proposed a health diagnosis and treatment medical model., aiming to intervene in "suboptimal health status," it conducts health assessments across four dimensions—function, behavior, lifestyle, and environment—in addition to disease diagnosis; in terms of therapy, it is not limited to physical therapies such as surgery, medication, acupuncture, and physiotherapy, but rather systematically combines various therapeutic modalities; andAdvocate for the continuous implementation of full-cycle, standardized self-managed medical intervention activities.

In November 2003, Maikang was established in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. It is a provincial-level high-tech enterprise dedicated to innovative research in medical theory, consulting on the development of health diagnosis and treatment disciplines, and the R&D, application, and promotion of key technologies and generalizable elements within the health diagnosis and treatment value chain.

Zhao Weiwei, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Maikang, began his career as a physician, serving as an anesthesiologist for five years. In 1996, he joined a Sino-Swedish joint venture, where he was responsible for promoting clinical nutrition products in Shanxi Province.

At that time, clinical nutrition was just emerging in China, and Zhao Weiwei needed to extensively disseminate theories and techniques of clinical nutritional therapy to physicians and hospitals during his promotional efforts. Over the next few years, he observed significant gaps between domestic and international concepts in clinical nutrition and marketing, such as the lack of advanced therapeutic concepts, extensive rather than refined marketing approaches, and insufficient emphasis on physician education by hospitals and the industry.

Against this backdrop, Zhao Weiwei left a multinational corporation in late 2003 to found Maikang, establishing a foothold in the clinical nutrition market through “innovative, specialized marketing.” The company rapidly built a recognized brand for clinical nutrition promotion and subsequently expanded into pharmaceutical marketing, health management, academic discipline development and medical consulting, medical innovation research, and internet healthcare.

2006, Maikang was established.“MaiKang Health Assessment System + Networked Digital Health Management Platform”R&D efforts achieved networked digital health management by intervening in and managing individual health, combined with physician education, thereby forming the early version of Maikang Network.

In 2008, Maikang.com launched its first web-based digital “Personal Health Management Package Service,” earning the title of “Top Ten Brands in China’s Health Management Industry” that same year, while Zhao Weiwei was honored as one of the “Top Ten Leading Figures in China’s Health Management Sector.”

Since the launch of the “Digital Network Health Management” project in 2006, Maikang has undergone four major phases over the past fifteen years: the initial accumulation phase of “health diagnosis and treatment” concepts and technologies; the exploratory practice phase of building clinical nutrition (single-domain) health diagnosis and treatment disciplines; the exploratory practice phase of developing “functional behavioral health diagnosis and treatment” disciplines across various clinical specialties (multi-disciplinary fields); and the promotion phase of the universal health diagnosis and treatment value chain. To date,Independently pioneered and developed the innovative system of “Health Diagnosis and Treatment Medicine,” encompassing eight major disciplines, and provided disciplinary development consulting services on Health Diagnosis and Treatment Medicine to more than 30 public hospitals.The company has established a primary business layout centered on a value chain operation model that encompasses scientific research services, consulting services, MaiKang Cloud services, MaiKang Education services, and the health diagnosis and treatment medical paradigm.

Zhao Weiwei stated, “The company was named Maikang with the hope of leveraging its technology to guide the public toward healthier life activities and steer the market toward healthier business models, thereby realizing our vision of enabling accessible health diagnosis and treatment for all and leading the public onto the correct path of medical practice.”

In 2009, the Chinese government issued the Guidelines for the Construction and Management of Nutrition Departments, encouraging and guiding hospitals to establish clinical nutrition disciplines. Leveraging this policy support, Maikang entered the consulting sector for “clinical nutrition discipline construction” in public hospitals and launched its Consulting Solution for the Construction of Nutritional Diagnosis and Treatment Disciplines in 2012, signing long-term (3–6 years) commercial contracts for discipline development with more than ten public hospitals.

Zhao Weiwei stated, “This marks the first time worldwide that a public hospital has implemented the development of health diagnosis and treatment disciplines outside the realm of clinical medicine. What makes it unique is that we are not diagnosing diseases, but rather conducting medical assessments based on individuals’ nutritional and lifestyle conditions.”

Meanwhile, Peking Union Medical College Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences partnered with Maikang to undertake the National 12th Five-Year Plan research project titled “Key Technologies for the Cloud-Based Platform for Clinical Nutrition Therapy Research,” with Zhao Weiwei serving as the principal investigator, thereby launching Maikang’s journey in scientific research.

Maikang established the Medical Research Institute (MK-MRI) as the undertaking institution for scientific research tasks, including the National 12th Five-Year Plan projects, the development of local standards for clinical nutrition, and solutions for the “construction of functional and behavioral diagnosis and treatment disciplines.” This initiative launched R&D based on the theory of “Health Status Diagnosis and Treatment” and the research project on “CFB Health Classification Innovation.”

It is understood that,CFB, short for Natural Proposition Classification of Health Status in Life Activity Systems, is a novel health taxonomy developed and created by Maikang.Based on the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) established by the WHO, CFB has redefined and classified the concept of health.Expand the scope from disease statistical classification to the entire process of health status within individual life activity systems. Advocate for supporting nationwide self-help medical initiatives, adopt a medical model based on dynamic diagnostic and therapeutic cycles, and apply diverse therapies to achieve a fundamental transformation in medical intervention practices.

Maikang Medical Research Institute believes that the current medical model for humanity is the “disease-oriented medical model,” which defines health and the mission of medicine through the lens of disease. This epistemological and methodological framework in medicine is increasingly unable to meet the growing health needs of the general public. Therefore, only by thoroughly overturning this disease-centric medical paradigm can the cause of human health break free from its predicament and usher in a new era.

In recent years, the concept of healthcare and wellness has emerged and continued to develop, with medicalMedical services provided during hospitalization have also moved toward internet-based industrialization, but their scope is limited to emergency and life-saving care; health intervention activities in home and community settings lack the conditions necessary for internet-based industrialization.

Zhao Weiwei believes that China’s current healthcare system only covers the clinical treatment phase, leaving a gap in out-of-hospital interventions. The organic integration of basic medical security needs and advanced medical care needs has made the comprehensive implementation of intervention activities a pain point, particularly the standardization of out-of-hospital interventions.

The primary technical bottleneck in the internet-based healthcare and wellness industry is the “Activity Information Recording System,” which serves as an indispensable foundational element for the exchange of medical activity information and quality control. The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems currently employed in the healthcare system are centered on physicians’ clinical diagnoses and treatment modalities. However, they lack support for patients’ proactive health actions regarding the diagnosis–therapy–treatment cycle–intervention activities for general health issues related to lifestyle, behavior, environment, and functional status. Consequently, these systems fail to document the diagnosis and treatment content for general health issues encountered in daily home and social life, nor do they record health intervention activities for non-disease-related themes.

In response, in 2018, Maikang began building a cloud platform for whole-life-cycle healthy living—Maikang Cloud—dedicated to health intervention activities across the entire course of disease and the full life cycle.Maikang Cloud is equipped with the EHIAR Health Intervention Activity Information Recording System. Unlike EMRs, which are limited to use during hospitalization, EHIAR extends its scope to cover the entire life cycle and employs a language system based on the CFB health classification.

“Maikangyun’s standout feature is providing the general public with standardized action guidelines, enabling them to independently carry out medical actions. This platform can be used simultaneously by both doctors and patients,” said Zhao Weiwei. “We believe that four major medical actions—diagnosis, therapy, action management, and intervention activities—can be applied by ordinary people, provided they are supported by a corresponding medical operating system.”“By integrating online applications via the EHIAR system, Maikang Cloud engages both physicians and the general public, truly enabling medical activities to be conducted over the internet.”

The company outlined its vision for MaiKang Cloud: from the very moment life begins, MaiKang Cloud’s “Electronic Health Information Authentic Recording” (EHIAR) system commences operation.Throughout the entire life cycle, standardized thematic activities can be employed to regulate business operations, thereby addressing the distinct health needs and goals associated with different life stages—including disease, non-disease, and pre-disease states.

Currently, MaiKang Cloud is still in its trial operation phase. “In the short term, we will focus on MaiKang Cloud as our core platform and select 10 public hospitals across China to serve as demonstration wards, jointly testing and refining the platform’s functionalities,” said Zhao Weiwei. “We will also concentrate on full-course treatment services for public hospitals, involving physicians from tertiary Grade A hospitals, offline community doctors, and cloud-based physicians to establish a three-tier medical consortium. This initiative aims to integrate intervention activities across different settings, including in-hospital, out-of-hospital, and home care.”

When discussing the current constraints impeding the company’s development, Zhao Weiwei stated, “This is a highly advanced discipline, currently available only in China on the international stage. Our business model is not yet fully aligned with existing national policies. Public hospitals are designed to provide basic medical security services for critically ill and emergency patients during the acute phase of care, but have not established a truly comprehensive health assurance system; therefore, it is necessary to createIntegrated In-Hospital and Out-of-Hospital Full-Course Industrial Internet “Healthcare Diagnosis and Treatment Medicine” Value Chainonly then can it be realized. Once this value chain is established, it will disrupt the existing healthcare value chain, bring about a comprehensive transformation in human health and well-being, and give rise to a cohort of pioneering new technologies and star enterprises that will lead future industries.”

Beyond profitability challenges, Maikang also requires support in technology and talent. Looking ahead, the company still has a long way to go to realize its vision of ushering in a “new era of health diagnostics and treatment for all.” Yet, as Maikang itself states, its team embodies the spirit of perseverance and innovation, akin to the legendary Foolish Old Man who moved mountains through sheer determination. It is precisely this corporate culture that guides Maikang’s employees as they blaze new trails, pursue continuous improvement, and journey toward greater heights.