DoYCan Offers Innovative Digital Solution to Address Rehabilitation Needs of China's 13 Million Stroke Survivors
A stroke survivor of 23 years logs into a mobile app daily to connect with rehabilitation therapists via video calls. Following an assessment, the patient performs home-based rehabilitation exercises according to a personalized digital rehab plan. To date, this app has provided remote rehabilitation services to over 500 stroke patients across more than 20 cities in China, including this individual.
This system is the result of years of research by a company named “Dongyou.” Dongyou is an internet-based digital rehabilitation platform dedicated to the development and innovation of digital rehabilitation products.
In 2016, after an accidental fall, Long Yuejun, who rarely visited hospitals, entered a professional rehabilitation institution upon the recommendation of a close friend. It was there that he gained a new understanding of rehabilitation, as the old adage “it takes 100 days to recover from tendon and bone injuries” was thoroughly debunked by the hands of rehabilitation therapists.
It was also at this time that Long Yuejun came to understand that exercise rehabilitation is a medical-grade intervention which, under the guidance of professionals, can yield twice the results with half the effort. “If my father, who suffered a stroke, could receive long-term professional rehabilitation training and treatment, his likelihood of successful recovery would be significantly increased.”
How to Alleviate the Burden of Frequent Travel Between Home and Rehabilitation Facilities for Patients Requiring Long-Term Care: Long Yuejun Has a New Idea—Leveraging Internet-Based Solutions to Address Rehabilitation Challenges for Stroke Patients, Enhance Accessibility to Medical Care, and Resolve Many Pain Points in the Healthcare Industry.
Drawing on his experience in the online education sector, Long Yuejun keenly recognized the advantages and potential of internet-based rehabilitation medicine. After conducting thorough market research, he decided to apply the principles of online education to develop digital rehabilitation therapy. In 2019, the Dongyou Tele-Rehabilitation Platform was officially launched.
Long Yuejun is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for innovation, whose ventures span a wide range of industries including finance, telecommunications, education, and healthcare. He has consistently maintained an innovative spirit and a drive to tackle challenges. “While these fields may appear loosely connected and vastly different, they actually share the same core: all are centered around IT and the internet in their business operations.” It is precisely the experience and resources accumulated across these diverse sectors that have provided substantial room for innovation in Dongyou’s business endeavors.
Regarding the application of internet-based educational experience to the field of rehabilitation medicine, Long Yuejun found that his ideas aligned perfectly with those of Xu Bin, a former colleague and a leading figure in the digitalization of Chinese enterprises, after in-depth discussions. As a result, Dongyou Platform welcomed its new leader for digital informatization. After investing in Dongyou, Xu Bin designed the system architecture and provided implementation solutions for digital rehabilitation for the platform. Currently a Ph.D. candidate, Xu Bin has previously served as Chief Information Officer at 7-Eleven, Shell China, Cedar Holdings, and Country Garden Group, accumulating extensive experience in “digital” innovation across the banking, retail, oil, and real estate industries.
Chen Qikang is the Chief Technology Officer of Dongyou. After Long Yuejun conceived the idea of launching an internet-based rehabilitation platform, his presentation at a university sparked Chen Qikang’s strong interest. As his grandmother was also a stroke survivor, Chen deeply empathized with the suffering endured by stroke patients during rehabilitation. Additionally, Chen has been passionate about computer and internet technologies since childhood; he cracked Nokia mobile phone software in the sixth grade, began programming in middle school, and founded his university’s innovation team during his college years.
During his university years, Chen Qikang joined the Dongyou team to participate in projects, and formally joined Dongyou after graduation. Thus, the foundational team structure of Dongyou was established. In the course of product development, Dongyou also assembled a rehabilitation expert team composed of leading digital rehabilitation researchers from China.
2017 marked a significant milestone in Long Yuejun’s career. He stated, “At that time, the domestic sports rehabilitation market was immature, with few professional sports rehabilitation institutions in China. The industry lacked a systematic framework and standards, and rehabilitation equipment and technologies were relatively backward. Marketing efforts were primarily driven by rehabilitation communities, which had limited functionality.”
“Because with long-term professional rehabilitation, they have the opportunity to regain the ability to walk and perform activities of daily living independently, and may even continue to engage in light work. However, currently, no stroke patients receiving home-based care can access long-term rehabilitation services. Without professional rehabilitative treatment, only 6% of patients regain walking ability and independence in daily living. This means that previously, patients had only one choice: to resign themselves to fate,” said Long Yuejun. Several founding team members have family members affected by stroke, giving them profound personal insight into this issue.
Therefore, Dongyou’s business focuses on stroke rehabilitation, which typically involves prolonged recovery cycles. “My vision has always been straightforward: to leverage internet-based solutions to enable stroke patients to access sustainable, comprehensive, and professional rehabilitation training services from the comfort of their homes,” said Long Yuejun.
Dongyou’s business model is similar to that of the U.S. digital health company Kaia Health. It leverages a mobile app to deliver personalized rehabilitation plans tailored to each patient, enabling them to alleviate physical pain and restore musculoskeletal function through exercise-based rehabilitation training at home. The product consists of three components: the therapist portal, the patient app, and the Dongyou Digital Rehabilitation Cloud Platform.
Rehabilitation therapists conduct online assessments of patients’ physical conditions via remote video consultations using a mobile application. They then customize and deliver personalized electronic rehabilitation training plans to patients. By logging into the mobile app to access these plans, patients can learn and perform the exercises at home, thereby enabling long-term intervention in their rehabilitation process.
“Traditional offline rehabilitation is costly due to its prolonged treatment cycles, placing a financial burden on families that they often cannot bear. In contrast, online rehabilitation provides long-term, professional rehabilitation guidance to patients and their families at a lower cost, thereby achieving higher success rates and significantly improving survival quality of life,” stated Long Yuejun. Currently, the Dongyou Rehabilitation Platform has delivered remote rehabilitation services to over 4,000 patient visits.
In 2020, Dongyou launched a pilot program for remote rehabilitation services for stroke patients in public hospitals in China, and the Home-Based Rehabilitation Committee of the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine conducted follow-up tracking and gained a comprehensive understanding of the pilot implementation.
Following the conclusion of the pilot program, the Director of the Home-Based Rehabilitation Committee of the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine provided a detailed analysis and positive appraisal of the initiative at the year-end academic annual conference. The Dongyou Tele-rehabilitation Solution was also included in the “Feasibility Study Report on Home-Based Rehabilitation,” which was submitted to the National Health Commission of China. It is understood that Dongyou has been closely aligning with the development of national standards and regulations, participating in every meeting convened for the formulation of the Chinese “Guidelines for Home-Based Rehabilitation.”
Furthermore, Dongyou’s research achievements and methodologies in the field of digital rehabilitation have gained recognition from multiple large Grade A tertiary hospitals. Currently, it is engaged in scientific research collaborations with five such hospitals to expand into broader areas of rehabilitation. In the near future, remote rehabilitation will be available for a wider range of medical conditions, enabling more patients to benefit from digital rehabilitation solutions.
Currently, the Dongyou Platform has implemented and launched remote rehabilitation services. Through online “one-on-one” interactions, patients can access remote assessments, training guidance, personalized exercise plans, consultation and Q&A, as well as informational services. As the platform matures further, it will offer a comprehensive, one-stop home-based rehabilitation service ecosystem, including rehabilitation equipment, medications, in-home care services, social sharing features, and AI-powered intelligent support.
Next, Dongyou will apply AI technology to its online rehabilitation training system. By leveraging wearable smart hardware for detection and monitoring, the system collects physiological data and combines it with medically authoritative assessment methods to automatically generate evaluation reports. Through our AI-powered rehabilitation training platform, targeted and personalized training plans are created, enabling faster and more accurate services for home-based patients. Patients can monitor their rehabilitation progress in real time from home and access expert-certified rehabilitation assessments and training protocols. Dongyou is currently planning a fundraising round.