Ningfan Information Files IPO Prospectus: Pioneering Digital Solutions for Public Health and Hospital Informatics
The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 served as a major test of China’s social governance. During this epidemic, digital tools helped frontline workers establish a virtual protective network for epidemic screening. For instance, the health code, which facilitates travel, is based on real-world data and enables data interoperability and sharing across various departments, greatly facilitating epidemic prevention and control management.
In the battle against the epidemic, nearly 4 million urban and rural community workers are currently on the front lines of epidemic prevention and control in 650,000 communities across China. On average, six workers are responsible for safeguarding each community, with each community worker serving a population of 350 residents. Frontline personnel in grassroots communities are working under extremely demanding conditions.
Faced with high-intensity workloads and meticulous, detailed tasks, frontline healthcare workers and community-level personnel are in urgent need of intelligent, digital management tools. VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that to help frontline grassroots staff achieve digital epidemic prevention and control, and to ensure seamless data flow across all levels and departments, Ningbo Ningfan Information Technology Co., Ltd. has developed the Intelligent Control and Management Platform for COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention, building upon its solid experience in medical informatics.
The COVID-19 Control and Management System was officially launched in Zhenhai District, Ningbo City, on February 8, 2020. To date, it has effectively managed the isolation of 5,000 to 6,000 residents, assisting the Zhenhai District Health Bureau and relevant community health service centers in carrying out epidemic prevention and control efforts. The system addresses immediate practical needs by enabling the efficient management of isolated residents with minimal human resources. Through digital solutions, it helps prevent potential errors during the isolation process and ensures that every individual requiring isolation is properly documented.
During the peak of the epidemic outbreak in February, a director-general from the Ministry of Civil Affairs urged Tencent and Alibaba to develop community-based epidemic prevention and control applications, stating that “a useful public-welfare software application is more effective than a donation of RMB 1 billion.”
As an IT company dedicated to the healthcare sector, Ningfan Software closely monitors the progression of the epidemic. Through its partner medical institutions, Ningfan Software has learned that prevention, control, and management efforts are extremely challenging.
“During this pandemic, no one can remain unaffected. To better control the outbreak, minimize the risk of further disease spread and transmission, and facilitate the work of health commissions at all levels of government, Ningfan Software has launched the COVID-19 Control and Management Platform.”
At that time, it was the Spring Festival holiday, and all company employees were on leave, which posed significant challenges for research and development.
The head of the product department, who is responsible for product development, contacted the R&D department and key staff members from the product department to hold a meeting for discussion. Ultimately, it was decided to implement a remote work model that had never been adopted before.
This model, led by the product manager, investigated the needs of various medical institutions for epidemic control. Through online meetings, it facilitated close collaboration between product personnel and the R&D department. Leveraging the company’s rapid development platform for medical industry software, which has been refined over more than a decade, the Intelligent Control Platform for COVID-19 Prevention and Control was developed and launched within just one week.
From an application perspective, the Intelligent Control Platform for COVID-19 Prevention and Control is suitable for multiple epidemic prevention scenarios. It enables digital management of community personnel, one-click inventory entry for hospital supplies, and AI-powered intelligent voice calls. By leveraging information technology tools to rapidly generate data analysis and reports, it helps communities, sub-districts, and governments gain a comprehensive overview of epidemic prevention and governance. This platform uses digital technology to build a “virtual wall” against viruses in communities.
The Intelligent Management and Control Platform for COVID-19 Prevention and Control comprises four major systems: the COVID-19 Management and Control System, the AI-Powered SMS and Voice Call Follow-up System, the Emergency Supplies Reporting System, and the Hospital Operations Big Data Analytics System.
The COVID-19 Control and Management System collects residential information from various communities, inputs it into the system for aggregation, and generates data reports to provide an intuitive overview of epidemic trends, thereby enabling timely patient isolation and treatment by healthcare professionals. Additionally, its functional modules include viewing the list of managed residents, registering isolated individuals, updating control statuses, querying modification records, sending reminders for the expiration of isolation observation periods, and compiling statistics on the number of isolated individuals and reasons for isolation.
During the response to this epidemic, frontline staff at community health service centers required dynamic management to update in real-time the home isolation status of individuals. To reduce workload and minimize infection risks, Ningfan Software developed an AI-powered SMS and voice call follow-up system. Leveraging technologies such as intelligent speech recognition, natural language understanding, and multi-turn dialogue interaction, the system integrates an SMS mass-control platform and an intelligent outbound call service platform. Doctors or staff can customize follow-up protocols for different population groups based on characteristics such as travel history to Hubei, outing status, age group, gender, and occupation. This facilitates targeted fever screening and follow-up for high-risk populations, while also disseminating professional epidemic prevention knowledge to the public. Key functional modules include script management, an intelligent contact center, data monitoring, SMS mass control, and bulk import of contact information.
In addition to frontline community workers, medical staff in hospitals also bear a substantial burden of tedious and complex tasks, which can be streamlined for accuracy and precision through digitalization. Ningfan Software has also rapidly developed an Emergency Supplies Reporting System for hospitals. This system is an application built on secondary development within DingTalk, utilizing a B/S architecture that allows hospital users to report and manage emergency supplies in a timely manner without installing any additional apps. The main functional modules include supply reporting, viewing pending reports, viewing submitted reports, identifying departments with unsubmitted reports, and generating and exporting daily statistical reports on emergency supplies.
The Hospital Operations Big Data Analytics System provides real-time visualization and analysis of key data during the pandemic through graphical charts. Its primary data modules include outpatient visit trends, hospital admission and discharge statistics, emergency supply demand, registration volume statistics, and inpatient census by ward. The system is integrated with DingTalk, enabling hospitals to rapidly access relevant data information via mobile devices.
The application scenarios of these four systems are all derived from Ningfan Software’s research into real-world settings, leveraging informatization to facilitate the digitalization of grassroots public health services or digital social governance.
The ability to rapidly develop products tailored to diverse scenarios is underpinned by Ningfan Software’s years of accumulation in the field of healthcare informatization. Ningfan Information Technology Co., Ltd. is a technology-driven company focused on the healthcare sector and is recognized as a key high-tech information enterprise supported by the Ningbo Municipal Government.
The company’s core team members possess over 15 years of experience in the informatization of healthcare and hygiene, demonstrating a profound understanding and forward-looking perspective on the development of the medical industry and its digital transformation. The company’s products have been adopted by more than 200 clients both within and outside Zhejiang Province, including local Health and Family Planning Bureaus, comprehensive Grade A tertiary hospitals, and national-level community health service centers.
For Ningfan Software, the goal is to make information technology tools accessible to both doctors and patients, facilitating convenient medical access for the general public, enhancing physicians’ diagnostic efficiency and capabilities, and improving hospitals’ comprehensive management capabilities through informatization.
Ningfan Software’s products leverage multi-type terminal applications and integrate multiple systems to bridge online and offline services, enabling residents to complete medical visits with “at most one trip.” This delivers a more convenient and efficient healthcare experience. Additionally, it establishes a hospital collaborative work platform that promotes coordination among hospitals, medical consortia, and regional medical institutions through refined management. By building hospital big data and artificial intelligence platforms, Ningfan provides decision-support insights and recommendations for hospital operations, comprehensively advancing the development of smart hospitals.
In the view of Li Jun, General Manager of Ningfan Technology: “China’s healthcare informatization has developed for over two decades, and there are numerous vendors in this space; nevertheless, significant opportunities remain. Particularly in niche business areas, as a latecomer to the industry, it is unnecessary to compete with large corporations in domains such as Hospital Information Systems (HIS), Laboratory Information Systems (LIS), Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), electronic medical records (EMR), integration platforms, and interoperability. Instead, companies should identify specific niche segments—such as big data analytics and artificial intelligence—deepen their product development, establish comprehensive product portfolios, and build competitive barriers.”
In the coming years, Ningfan will continue to optimize its products in terms of convenience for patients, benefits for healthcare providers, and operational efficiency. By deeply addressing customer needs in its Hospital Patient-Centric Service Platform, Hospital Collaborative Workflow Platform, and Artificial Intelligence Platform, the company aims to develop platform-based products with strong competitive moats.