Medlinker Concludes Internet-Based Chronic Disease Management Competition, Showcasing a Blueprint for High-Quality Industry Development
Not long ago, at the High-Quality Development Summit for Internet Hospitals held by Peking Union Medical College Hospital, the following data were released: In December 2018, there were only slightly over 100 internet hospitals across China; by December 2020, this number had grown to more than 1,100, with approximately 500 additional internet hospitals established in the first half of 2021.
Internet hospitals are continuously being established, and the industry’s rapid growth is promising. However, development should not rely solely on speed; ensuring high-quality development is the top priority. On September 23, the National Summary Conference of the 2021 Internet-Based Chronic Disease Management Competition, hosted by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and co-organized by Medlinker Internet Hospital, concluded in Beijing. Over the course of six months, the competition collected case submissions from physicians across China. This large-scale “academic exchange” event, with nationwide reach, has enabled more physicians to grasp new concepts, advances, and technologies in internet-based chronic disease management, promoted academic exchanges within the industry, and introduced new trends and insights for the industry’s high-quality development.
In 2019, deaths attributable to chronic diseases accounted for 88.5% of all deaths in China, and the prevention and control of chronic diseases remain a significant challenge for both society and the academic community.
Internet technology has provided new pathways for better addressing the challenges of chronic disease prevention and control. Online payment and delivery systems have bridged the “last mile” in medication distribution; internet hospitals have connected patients with a broader pool of specialist resources, thereby improving the accessibility of medical services; and the digitization of patient medication records and follow-up management files facilitates the accumulation of physician–patient databases and the development of precision medicine models, while also increasing the frequency of interactions between patients and providers.
As Zhang Junqing, Secretary-General of the Endocrinology and Metabolism Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, noted in his address at the summary meeting of the Chronic Disease Management Competition, internet healthcare technologies enable medical services to better assist physicians in caring for patients, improve overall efficiency, and extend the benefits of healthcare to a broader population. However, all of this rests on a fundamental premise: internet healthcare must be standardized and pursue high-quality development.
Where Lies the Key to High-Quality Development of Internet Healthcare? Insights from the Chronic Disease Management Competition.
This six-month-long competition serves as a bridge between experts and young physicians, established by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and Medlinker. Through rigorous case screening and expert review, high-quality cases are brought to light, allowing physicians across China to reference and learn from them. In this way, premium physician resources and internet healthcare expertise are no longer confined to top-tier institutions; primary care physicians’ cases can also be refined and improved under the review and commentary of industry experts, making the event a veritable “grand lecture hall” for internet-based chronic disease management.
It can be said that, against the backdrop of an internet healthcare industry that is not yet “fully mature,” the series of initiatives undertaken by the Internet Chronic Disease Management Competition essentially constitutes a top-down “course correction,” serving as an effort to standardize the internet healthcare sector.
Medlinker is committed to promoting standardized development within the healthcare industry. The Internet-based Chronic Disease Management Competition is just one of many initiatives undertaken to achieve this goal.
In June this year, Medlinker established an Academic Committee, inviting dozens of leading discipline experts and professors who have dedicated many years to various disease fields, including Academician Cheng Shujun, a renowned Chinese expert in tumor etiology, and Liu Lisheng, former President of the World Hypertension League. The committee covers multiple disciplines such as oncology, endocrinology, infectious diseases, and cardiovascular medicine. This gathering of prominent experts is essentially designed to provide authoritative guidance for Medlinker’s efforts in standardizing internet-based healthcare services.
In addition to assembling “authoritative experts,” Medlinker has consistently focused on “professional endeavors” by continuously delivering achievements in discipline construction. In mid-2026, Medlinker successively participated in the development of the Chinese Expert Consensus on Online Management of Diabetes in Internet Hospitals and the Expert Guidance on Internet-Based Management of Common Drug-Related Adverse Reactions in Patients with Liver Cancer. Beyond these two published outputs, Medlinker also announced the launch of the Expert Consensus on Internet Diagnosis and Treatment Management for HIV/AIDS. With two deliverables already released and a third imminent, these discipline-construction achievements represent industry standards designed by Medlinker to regulate out-of-hospital management processes in internet healthcare across various specialties, thereby standardizing treatment for the corresponding diseases. There is now a consensus within the industry that Medlinker is one of the few internet healthcare companies centered on discipline construction.
Just last week, Medlinker made new progress in disciplinary development: it joined hands with more than ten domestic vascular surgery experts to launch the “Project on Exploring New Models for Chronic Disease Management in Vascular Surgery.” The project is led by Professor Chen Zhong, a renowned vascular surgery expert and Director of the Vascular Surgery Center at Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University. Professor Chen also serves as President of the Vascular Surgeons Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, Head of the Vascular Surgery Group under the Surgical Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, and Chairman of the Vascular Surgery Branch of the Beijing Medical Association. By “accumulating data and having the project’s expert panel jointly discuss, formulate, and publish expert consensus statements,” Medlinker continues to collaborate with top industry experts to expand internet-based management standards for various diseases, underscoring its strong commitment to disciplinary development.
“As Wang Shirui, Founder and CEO of Medlinker, has pointed out, the development of internet hospitals in the present and future is not intended to disrupt or replace traditional hospitals, but rather to serve as a robust complement to conventional healthcare models. Throughout its growth, Medlinker has adhered to the same logic as traditional hospitals: starting with discipline construction and gradually refining online management standards, ultimately achieving comprehensive, closed-loop management of diseases encompassing early screening, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation.”
If expert resources and industry standards represent the “top,” then Medlinker is leveraging its own strength to drive top-down improvements, making the internet healthcare industry more robust. The recent Internet Chronic Disease Management Competition is merely a microcosm of Medlinker’s disciplinary development and commitment to serious medical care.
At this Chronic Disease Management Competition, physicians from across China shared case studies of patient management via internet-based platforms. These cases included typical examples from various medical specialties, setting a benchmark for physicians nationwide in managing patients through digital health services. More importantly, the practical insights gained from real-world implementation have sparked new reflections within the industry.
During the Outstanding Case Sharing session of the Internet Chronic Disease Management Competition Summary Meeting, Liu Pingqing, the first-place winner in the Infectious Diseases category, stated in his case presentation: “Through Yilian, Dr. Liu and patients can engage in frequent one-on-one communication, which has significantly improved patients’ healthcare experience and treatment adherence. At one point, a new antiviral medication was unavailable locally, but this urgent need was promptly addressed via the internet platform.”
Dr. Liu Linxia, the top-ranked specialist in respiratory medicine, believes that comprehensive physician intervention throughout the entire care process is truly indispensable. Online platforms can facilitate many tasks that are difficult or even impossible to accomplish in offline settings, such as timely follow-ups, particularly in encouraging smoking cessation, controlling risk factors, and ensuring adherence to maintenance medications for stable-phase disease. By providing patients with reminders, the platform helps them cooperate with treatment more effectively and promptly, thereby improving compliance.
Zhu Chonggui, the top-ranked specialist in endocrinology, has customized an internet-based chronic disease management plan for his patient: the patient monitors heart rate twice daily, along with bowel movement frequency and body weight; any discomfort can be promptly addressed through online consultations with Dr. Zhu via the Yilian Online Clinic. Weekly complete blood count (CBC) reports are reviewed online to facilitate timely adjustments to the medication regimen.
Dr. Chen Kaixuan from the Department of Oncology candidly stated in an interview: “Diagnosing and treating patients is not actually the hard part; what’s challenging is follow-up care, which consumes considerable time and energy. The MedUnion platform helps us manage and support patients more effectively and efficiently by reminding them when to take their medications, whether dosage adjustments are needed, and so on.”
These “vivid” clinical cases, contributed by physicians from across the country, precisely reflect the core demands of both doctors and patients regarding internet-based healthcare. As Professor Zhang Junqing noted at the closing session, advancements in internet technology have significantly extended the reach of medical services. This expansion not only facilitates more efficient utilization of healthcare resources but also enhances the efficiency, breadth, depth, and overall quality of medical care. In the management of chronic diseases, internet technology enables healthcare services to extend beyond hospital settings, transforming traditional offline, one-on-one management into continuous, one-to-many care models.
However, these cases also send a clear message to the industry: if internet healthcare is developed solely through top-down design, it risks becoming an “ivory tower”—possessing only theoretical frameworks while lacking systematic feedback and adjustments from physicians. By collecting clinical cases, physicians across China can not only acquire advanced expertise but also feed these insights back into the standardized protocols established for various diseases. This facilitates optimization in processes, technologies, and concepts, thereby fostering a bottom-up cycle of industry development. This is another objective that the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and YiLianXiang aim to achieve through this competition.
Only through top-down regulation and bottom-up adjustment can the internet healthcare industry achieve high-quality development. Healthcare is a slow-moving industry, and so is internet healthcare; “high-quality development” must take precedence over “rapid expansion.” Internet healthcare companies need to give greater consideration to how multiple stakeholders can jointly foster a virtuous cycle that enables physicians to better serve patients and remain accountable for patient treatment outcomes.