ClouDr Health and Huayi Xincheng Forge Long-Term Strategic Partnership to Build a Data-Driven Chronic Disease Ecosystem

Recently, Zhiyun Health, a digital health company specializing in chronic disease management, has taken frequent strategic actions. Following its collaboration with third-party medical insurance cost-control firm Shulian Yikang to explore insurance-related businesses, it has now entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Huayi Xincheng, a professional physician group focused on cardiovascular care. Together, they aim to build a chronic disease ecosystem centered on internet hospitals and underpinned by data.

Huayixincheng was established in 2016 as a professional physician group founded by 23 leading cardiovascular experts, including Professor Huo Yong, Director of the Department of Cardiology at Peking University First Hospital, and Academician Ge Junbo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Director of the Department of Cardiology at Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University.

Huayixincheng provides a platform for cardiologists to practice at multiple locations, striving to build a high-caliber, large-scale, and widely covering physician group in the cardiovascular field in China. Meanwhile, by promoting the flow and sharing of high-quality medical resources, it supports the implementation of tiered diagnosis and treatment in cardiology and drives the development of China’s healthcare industry.

Since its inception in 2015, Zhiyun Health has been dedicated to providing clinical and information technology services in the field of chronic disease management. This long-term strategic partnership with Huayixincheng is essentially an exploration of data-driven professional prevention, treatment, and chronic disease management models, built upon Zhiyun Health’s own chronic disease ecosystem.

The persistent pain points in chronic disease management are the discontinuity and lack of professionalism in out-of-hospital care. In terms of overall medical resource allocation, China’s medical resources are inherently unbalanced. It is already challenging for patients to secure appointments for hospital treatment, making access to professional out-of-hospital management nearly impossible. However, the demands of chronic disease management necessitate that hospitals also ensure effective patient management outside the hospital setting.

Whether for patients with diabetes or other chronic diseases, the most critical needs during treatment are professional medical advice and the implementation of such advice and treatment regimens outside the hospital setting. In terms of providing professional medical advice and treatment, no institution is more authoritative than hospitals.

The Report on Cardiovascular Diseases in China 2018, compiled by the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, points out that the prevalence and mortality of cardiovascular diseases in China are still on the rise. It is estimated that there are currently 290 million patients with cardiovascular disease in China, with the highest mortality rate, accounting for more than 40% of the total deaths from resident diseases. Prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases have become a key focus in the field of chronic diseases.

In the subfield of cardiovascular diseases, data from the aforementioned "China Cardiovascular Disease Report 2018" indicate that there are 11 million patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) in China. This large patient population is growing rapidly, making CHD the most common condition within the spectrum of cardiovascular diseases. Its risk factors are largely associated with chronic conditions such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, overweight/obesity, and hyperglycemia/diabetes mellitus. Therefore, prevention and management during clinical practice are particularly important.

Therefore, the collaboration between Zhiyun Health and Huayixincheng serves to further extend Zhiyun Health’s data-driven chronic disease management model. By leveraging its existing ecosystem of data, systems, and frameworks, Zhiyun Health aims to build a comprehensive chronic disease management ecosystem through an integrated “treatment” and “therapy” approach, thereby achieving its strategic objective of establishing industrial advantages rooted in genuine market needs.

On the other hand, Zhiyun Health aims to establish a chronic disease management model that integrates in-hospital and inter-hospital care, expanding its coverage of disease types, particularly end-stage conditions such as kidney disease and heart disease. Cardiovascular disease represents a critical component of this strategy and holds profound significance for users’ life and health. Therefore, Zhiyun Health has chosen to partner with Huayixincheng, which boasts top-tier experts in the cardiovascular field, to join forces and co-build an integrated system encompassing both “treatment” and “therapy.”

During the collaboration with Huayixincheng, patients can directly access the internet hospital via the Zhiyun Health platform, establishing a closed-loop system that integrates prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and chronic disease management. In this process, Zhiyun Health does not complete the entire workflow independently; instead, it leverages its data and platform technology advantages to co-build a remote diagnosis and treatment system with Huayixincheng, empowering cardiovascular chronic disease management and further expanding Zhiyun Health’s business scope.

Professor Huo Yong, Chairman of Huayixincheng, stated that Zhiyun Health has made significant efforts in chronic disease big data, striving to overcome the challenge of information silos. Leveraging Zhiyun Health’s chronic disease big data, Huayixincheng has further strengthened its remote patient management, which utilizes remote tools as the primary means and data as the connecting link. This initiative promotes the expansion of cardiovascular disease management from in-hospital to out-of-hospital settings, from single points of care to multi-hospital networks, and from single-disease focus to comprehensive whole-course disease management.