Guanxin Software: Building a Healthcare Ecosystem through a Grassroots SaaS Platform

As a leading operator of medical and health cloud services in China, Greatsoft Co., Ltd. was selected for the “2021 Future Healthcare 100 · China Digital Healthcare List” at the 2021 Future Healthcare 100 Conference.

Greatsoft Co., Ltd.Founded in 2005, Greatsoft Co., Ltd. is a leading enterprise in health informatics for primary healthcare institutions and in information systems for the performance evaluation of national public medical institutions. It operates China’s largest SaaS service platform for grassroots medical institutions and has undertaken relevant construction work for the National Population Health Security Information Platform. Over the past decade, Greatsoft has not been swayed by the impetuous market environment; instead, it has devoted itself to building the infrastructure and foundational network of medical informatics, maintaining a low public profile. However, as the “National Public Hospital Performance Evaluation Platform” and the “Comprehensive Management Platform for Primary Medical Institutions,” both developed by Greatsoft, have gained increasing media exposure, the company has attracted growing attention from investment firms and media outlets active in the broader health sector.

At the conference, Greatsoft Co., Ltd. achieved remarkable results in its debut appearance on the Future Healthcare 100 list, demonstrating its profound strength derived from years of deep cultivation in the field of primary healthcare informatization. Seizing this opportunity, VCBeat conducted an exclusive interview with Hong Jiqun, Chairman of Greatsoft Co., Ltd., to analyze and interpret the company’s achievements over the years, as well as its future business layout and development strategy.

Hong Jiqun, Chairman of Greatsoft Co., Ltd.

“The overcrowding of tertiary hospitals versus the underutilization of primary care facilities” reflects the current state of China’s healthcare services. Fundamentally, this stems from an uneven distribution of medical resources. To address this, the country is vigorously promoting a tiered diagnosis and treatment system, aiming to establish an orderly pattern where “tertiary hospitals handle complex and rare diseases, while primary care institutions manage common and chronic conditions.” Within the 16-character guideline for tiered diagnosis and treatment, “strengthening primary care” is the top priority, meaning enhancing the diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities at the grassroots level to better serve patients.

Hong Jiqun, Chairman of Greatsoft Co., Ltd., has been engaged in research on related topics since the first national healthcare reform in China, thereby demonstrating precise judgment in identifying the informatization needs of primary healthcare institutions. Initially established with a focus on hospital financial management, Greatsoft has evolved over many years and now specializes in the development and promotion of standardized informatization software for primary healthcare, as well as Internet-plus health and medical products.

“Based on our years of observation of primary healthcare institutions, numerous challenges exist in their informatization development,” analyzed Hong Jiqun. As is well known, medical institutions often have relatively outdated facilities and technical conditions, with a low level of informatization. Furthermore, the compensation packages offered are rarely competitive enough to retain IT professionals, making it unsustainable for these institutions to maintain self-built server rooms and handle subsequent operations and maintenance. Therefore, establishing SaaS service platforms for primary healthcare institutions at the provincial and municipal levels can effectively address the critical issues of shortage of specialized talent, insufficient funding for informatization, and lack of data interoperability.

However, the construction of SaaS service platforms has a wide-reaching impact, where changes in one institution can affect the entire system, imposing extremely high requirements on the technical sophistication and maturity of information technology products. Therefore, Greatsoft Co.,Ltd. has established a comprehensive R&D and delivery service system for its products, offering more than 100 products across four major categories: integrated supervision, medical and health services, resident health management, and foundational technology platforms. By providing SaaS services to a vast number of primary healthcare institutions, Greatsoft helps effectively implement the tiered diagnosis and treatment policy.

Hong Jiqun introduced that the advantages of grassroots SaaS service platforms lie in their high availability and strong scalability. By adopting an “app store”-like model, these platforms decompose complex medical workflows into granular functional modules, ensure data isolation and security for healthcare institutions, and enable on-demand invocation and flexible combination of different applications. This approach reduces the workload associated with user service coordination, maximizes the value of medical resources, and enhances the precision of primary healthcare services.

To minimize the operational and maintenance burden on primary healthcare institutions, this platform provides unified development tools and service governance, enabling rapid deployment and go-live. Primary institutions need only purchase an annual service subscription. Furthermore, cloud service requirements vary across different application types (specialized vs. comprehensive) and institutional levels (primary care vs. tertiary Grade A hospitals). By prioritizing personalized application needs and introducing more flexible cloud-based solutions, Greatsoft Co., Ltd. has upheld its service philosophy of “customer first, addressing urgent customer needs, and anticipating customer expectations,” thereby earning a strong reputation and market share.

Hong Jiqun stated frankly that the decision to centrally build a cloud platform on a provincial basis was a difficult one for policymakers. However, the more challenging an undertaking is, the greater the benefits it often brings to all parties upon completion. Since 2010, Greatsoft Co., Ltd. has collaborated with Hebei and Xinjiang respectively to jointly create province-wide big data SaaS service platforms for primary healthcare. Currently, Greatsoft’s primary healthcare SaaS service platform covers multiple regions across China, with nearly 60,000 medical institutions registered online, successfully establishing the largest primary healthcare SaaS service platform in China in terms of the number of online medical institutions.

Greatsoft Co., Ltd. leverages its grassroots SaaS service platform to connect tertiary hospitals and leading specialists with county, township, and village-level primary healthcare institutions. This integration fosters closer collaboration between both parties, facilitating the transformation of medical services from a "disordered state" to one that is efficient and convenient. It provides residents with comprehensive, end-to-end healthcare and public health services, while also generating more complete and diverse resident health data, thereby offering evidence-based support for decision-making by health authorities.

In terms of application, Greatsoft’s Grassroots SaaS Service Platform provides functionalities such as basic medical care, basic public health services, drug management, and medical security. In terms of management, the platform connects upward to the National Comprehensive Health Information Platform, achieving the integration of basic public health data and health records; it also connects downward to municipal and county-level population health information platforms, thereby enriching and improving grassroots health data. Notably, Hebei Province is currently the only province that has connected over 3,000 township community service centers and medical institutions through a unified deployment.

While vigorously advancing the development of grassroots-level infrastructure, Greatsoft Co.,Ltd. undertook the National Grassroots Comprehensive Management Platform project in 2019. This platform provides regulatory oversight and foundational services for family doctor contract services, public health services, village doctors, and national electronic health records across all primary healthcare institutions in China. Following the successful bid, Greatsoft immediately established a dedicated project team and collaborated with experts from the Statistical Information Center of the National Health Commission to conduct specialized research and develop an indicator system. Through on-site visits and questionnaire surveys, the team assessed the construction status of provincial information platforms and grassroots application systems in 20 provinces and municipalities, producing a detailed research report. To date, this national comprehensive management platform has been connected with 15 provinces across China.

From an industry perspective, Hong Jiqun believes that Greatsoft Co., Ltd. has established differentiated competitive barriers through its first-mover advantage, cost advantage, and brand advantage, which will be difficult to surpass in the short term.

First-Mover Advantage:Greatsoft Co., Ltd. has frequently participated in policy research and the formulation of industry standards. As a corporate member of the China Software Industry Association, it is adept at keenly perceiving policy trends and responding accordingly. In 2017, commissioned by the former National Health and Family Planning Commission, the company undertook the research project on “Information Support Systems for the Integrated Delivery of Medical Services at County, Township, and Village Levels.” Over the course of nearly one year, it compiled and completed the “Guidelines for Building Information Support Systems for Collaborative and Integrated Medical Services at County, Township, and Village Levels,” providing feasible solutions and technical guidance for the planning and construction of county-level information systems. This work holds significant importance for advancing tiered diagnosis and treatment as well as the development of medical consortia in China. Leveraging this expertise, Greatsoft Co., Ltd. has adopted a product-driven operational model internally, launching its products to market six months ahead of schedule to secure a first-mover advantage.

Cost Advantage:Greatsoft Co.,Ltd. adopts a mature and stable SaaS platform for primary healthcare institutions. By utilizing standardized products, undergoing unified training, and completing data initialization, the system can be deployed directly without prolonged debugging or adjustment periods. Implementation personnel are not required to possess coding skills, thereby relatively reducing product implementation costs.

Brand Advantages:“Word-of-mouth” is the key driver behind Greatsoft Co.,Ltd.’s rapid growth. Leveraging its strong reputation, Greatsoft has expanded from Xinjiang to a national presence, establishing nine branch offices across China. The company maintains extensive and in-depth collaborations with the National Health Commission and various provincial authorities, boasting a vast user base among healthcare institutions, stable client relationships, and an exceptionally high customer repurchase rate.

Currently, Greatsoft’s SaaS-based business segments include family doctor contract services, health monitoring, basic medical care, and basic public health services. These businesses are developing in parallel, creating an innovative B-B-C closed-loop business model. Although informatization at the primary care level is not a new concept, its post-implementation operation and management require a high degree of integration across the healthcare service chain. “Greatsoft delivers patient services by providing in-depth support to medical institutions,” stated Hong Jiqun regarding Greatsoft’s business model.

Hong Jiqun stated that since Greatsoft established the largest-scale SaaS service platform for medical institutions in China, it has seen a steady stream of interest from healthcare IT vendors, pharmaceutical companies, insurance institutions, chronic disease management organizations, and artificial intelligence research firms seeking collaboration. To better achieve the goal of “strengthening primary care,” Greatsoft is currently streamlining its dozens of existing ecosystem partners and launching a Win-Win Initiative. This initiative aims to support specialized third-party enterprises in joining the development of the primary care SaaS service platform, jointly building a health industry ecosystem, expanding service offerings for primary medical institutions and physicians, and making healthy living more accessible for residents.

According to Hong Jiqun, Greatsoft Co., Ltd. plans to continue focusing on the healthcare sector over the next three to five years, promote its primary care SaaS service platform nationwide, foster the establishment of a value network and ecosystem for primary healthcare informatization, and achieve comprehensive integration of digital operations across primary healthcare institutions.