Can Meiview Dental Hold Its Ground in the Digital Transformation Era with 'Medical + Tech'?

Driven by population aging, heightened health awareness, and increased purchasing power, the demand for dental care continues to rise, ushering the industry into a golden period of development. According to the “2020 Dental Care White Paper” released by VCBeat, the scale of China’s dental medical services industry exceeded RMB 130 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of approximately 24%.

The sector is booming, continuously attracting new entrants and sparking ongoing discussions about the dental industry. This trend was particularly evident at the recently held Top 100 Future Healthcare Companies Conference: at the Future Healthcare Strategy Summit, Ms. Zhu Liya, Founding Partner and CEO of MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP, delivered a keynote address titled “Technology Drives the Future, Building a New Model for Dental Diagnosis and Treatment,” drawing a packed audience and generating a highly enthusiastic atmosphere.

Why has this presentation generated such significant interest? The reason lies in the fact that, despite its allure, the dental business remains largely traditional, particularly in terms of informatization. This has hindered rapid improvements in overall service quality and operational efficiency across the dental industry. MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP’s extensive experience in informatization and digitalization has undoubtedly introduced new possibilities and directions for the sector.

How is MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP building a new model of dental diagnosis and treatment through “technology + healthcare”? What achievements have been made so far? In response to these questions, VCBeat attempts to uncover the answers by reviewing the content of conference presentations.

Currently, China’s dental care services market is still dominated by regional dental chain institutions. Although the dental care market has expanded rapidly alongside rising living standards, these regional chains are trapped in a predicament of survival and development. They face numerous barriers, including intensifying competition, patient attrition, medical technologies and equipment lagging behind industry advancements, a scarcity of high-quality talent, the absence of systematic training mechanisms, and persistently high operational and management costs.

Against this backdrop, since its inception, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP has introduced the overseas “DSO” model and adapted it to local conditions to create a “DSO” model tailored to the characteristics of China’s dental industry. This model empowers outstanding Chinese dental chain brands and experts through strategic investment, standardization, enhancement of medical technologies, and brand management, thereby enabling their personalized development.

In other words, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP empowers dental institutions across multiple dimensions—including healthcare, capital, talent, operations, and management—thereby helping industry practitioners address the challenges of chain expansion.

Unlike the “DSO” model in the United States, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP integrates multiple roles—including industrial investment company, management company, headhunting firm, internet company, physician group, and medical standards setter. It not only helps dental healthcare institutions address operational challenges but also aims to empower them to scale up and strengthen their market position, fostering their development into leading players within their respective regions or niche sectors.

In the course of practice, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP has continuously innovated and iterated on the “DSO” model. The results have been gratifying: over a period of approximately five years, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP has grown from a single clinic to a network comprising 16 brands, covering 35 cities across China, with 185 dental clinics and hospitals. Its monthly revenue has surged from the tens of millions three years ago to over one hundred million today.

It is understood that Mei Wei Dental Group has maintained positive operating cash flow and profits in both last year and this year. This indicates that its “DSO” model has been successfully validated and gained market recognition. Moving forward, Mei Wei will continue to deepen its DSO model, helping more dental institutions achieve stable and sustainable growth.

“MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP has always prioritized informatization, committing substantial resources to building its information systems since its inception.” At the Future Medical Strategy Summit, Ms. Zhu Liya, Founding Partner and CEO of MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP, stated that MEI WEI’s informatization solution represents the accumulation of operational management expertise in the dental chain industry, integrated with an information management model tailored to the characteristics of the internet.

Specifically, the Wei Xiaomei Medical Cloud HIS system, independently developed by MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP, leverages accumulated operational management expertise in the dental chain industry. By enabling data sharing within the system, it breaks through the inefficient management radius typical of the traditional sector, provides a learning platform for new team members, and facilitates rapid and precise collection of operational data. Through analysis of large-scale data, it identifies enterprise development challenges and seeks optimal growth models, thereby serving as the cornerstone for strategic corporate decision-making.

After several years of upgrades and iterations, the Weixiaomei Medical Cloud Intelligent Management Platform now includes the Weixiaomei HIS system, call center system, supply chain management, fund management, and financial systems. Additionally, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP has created a closed-loop ecosystem by integrating all business operations, minimizing manual intervention in intermediate processes. This approach not only enhances operational efficiency but also significantly reduces operating costs and management risks. Currently, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP’s information systems cover most of the needs of the dental industry, offering comprehensive functionality.

To date, the Weixiaomei Medical Cloud Intelligent Management Platform has covered 95% of the clinics and hospitals under MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP. The highly developed information system has enabled data integration of personnel, finances, and materials, resulting in a manifold increase in work efficiency. It has also streamlined various operational management processes, effectively addressing a series of issues faced by clinics and hospitals in their early stages, such as fragmented informatization, cumbersome procedures, and singular treatment models. This has simplified, intelligentized, and standardized departmental workflows, reduced unnecessary time expenditure for medical staff, and provided greater convenience for dental patients.

As can be seen from the above, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP has achieved notable progress in informationization and digitalization.

Of course, behind the technology, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP places special emphasis on human warmth. This is reflected in its philosophy of informatization construction, which is patient-centered and healthcare-centered.

Among these, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP’s “patient-centered” philosophy is rooted in prioritizing patients’ needs and experiences, managing their lifelong oral health from the user’s perspective. Guided by this logic, the core focus of its product development lies in leveraging information technology to identify patients, establish strong and long-term doctor-patient relationships, and ensure sustained oral health outcomes.

Furthermore, the core of being “healthcare-centric” lies in prioritizing the quality and efficiency of medical care. In this process, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP leverages technology as a means to explore how to better mitigate risks and enhance risk control, improve diagnostic and therapeutic techniques, optimize physician training, and conduct research more effectively.

It is worth noting that in March last year, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China proposed accelerating the development of new infrastructure, such as 5G networks and data centers. Since then, “new infrastructure” has become a buzzword in China’s economy. In the dental industry, this trend is reflected in the construction of information systems and the promotion of cost reduction and efficiency improvement driven by digitalization. From this perspective, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP’s continuous investment and deep engagement in informatization are undoubtedly strategically forward-looking, which will help the company build a wide and durable competitive moat.

Looking toward future development, MEI WEI DENTAL GROUP is actively embracing cutting-edge technologies such as big data, AI-powered imaging, and the Internet of Things (IoT) with an open and pragmatic mindset. By deeply integrating technology with healthcare and maintaining “technology + healthcare” as its core focus, the group is driving the dental industry into a new era of digital and intelligent diagnosis and treatment. This initiative aims to liberate medical professionals from cumbersome administrative workflows while providing patients with high-quality health management experiences, ensuring that technology is both powerful and compassionate.