Yiyong Pediatrics: Building a Value-Based Clinic with Six Specialty Departments and Integrated Online-Offline Services

Seeking medical care resembles a battlefield, registering for appointments is as chaotic as the Spring Festival travel rush, and IV drip lines hang down in dense clusters like banyan tree aerial roots—this is the stark reality of pediatric healthcare. "Difficulty in accessing pediatric care" and the "shortage of pediatricians" have long been significant societal concerns. The underlying causes are twofold: limited number of pediatric hospitals and a severe shortage of pediatric physicians.

Pediatric departments are characterized by low medication volumes, fewer auxiliary examinations, and fewer billable items, resulting in significantly lower medical revenue compared to other specialties. General hospitals have placed insufficient emphasis on pediatrics, leading to a continuous contraction of pediatric services within these institutions. Some primary care hospitals even operate only outpatient pediatric clinics without inpatient wards, while others have gone so far as to merge pediatrics with internal medicine. This trend has undoubtedly imposed substantial patient care pressure on specialized children’s hospitals.

The acute shortage of pediatricians has directly led to difficulties in accessing medical care for children in China. Because young children often cannot clearly articulate their symptoms and their conditions can change rapidly, pediatrics is sometimes referred to as the “silent specialty.” The diagnosis and treatment of pediatric patients are particularly challenging, demanding high diagnostic proficiency from physicians. Furthermore, issues such as relatively low reimbursement rates for pediatric services and inadequate compensation for pediatricians are significant factors contributing to the ongoing attrition of professionals in this field.

In response, the National Health and Family Planning Commission requires that children’s hospitals and general hospitals rationally allocate pediatric medical staff in accordance with the demand for pediatric medical services, ensure effective coordination between outpatient and emergency departments, and prohibit any suspension of services or refusal to treat patients.

It was against this backdrop that Yiyong Pediatrics emerged as the times required.

Yiyong Pediatrics, established in Shanghai in 2018, is an outpatient pediatric clinic serving children aged 0–18. Li Jing, Operations Director at Yiyong Pediatrics, told VCBeat that the clinic is a designated partner of the Special Needs Department at Shanghai Children’s Medical Center. Adhering to the standards of Grade A tertiary hospitals, Yiyong Pediatrics implements rigorous quality management systems, strictly controlling the quality and safety of every aspect of diagnosis and treatment, with the aim of providing standardized and safe medical services to children and their families.

When Li Jing first entered the field of pediatric outpatient care, she analyzed the pain points in this area. In addition to long waiting times, noisy environments, and the risk of cross-infection, patients at top-tier (Grade A tertiary) hospitals often suffer from miscommunication, leading to the painful experience of being “ordered” to re-queue for several hours after registering with the wrong department.

However, will a clinic that boasts an excellent clinical environment and streamlined care processes, where physicians strictly adhere to evidence-based medicine and ensure thorough communication between doctors and patients, necessarily be highly popular?

“In fact, that is not the case.” In Li Jing’s view, cultivating pediatricians who meet the needs of outpatient consultations is the key to retaining patients, improving satisfaction, and achieving sustainable operations. “Many parents accustomed to queuing for consultations at tertiary Grade A hospitals tend to be skeptical about the capabilities of outpatient physicians. In response, Yiyong Pediatrics has developed its own ‘gold standard’ for physician selection.”

“Those who follow different paths cannot make plans together.” This is the primary tenet of Yiyong Pediatrics. Li Jing introduced that Yiyong Pediatrics is a “value-based clinic” operating on a consultation-fee model, rejecting large prescriptions, excessive testing, and overtreatment, while striving to provide customers with an exceptional service experience. Accordingly, Yiyong Pediatrics only recruits physicians who endorse this model.

Secondly, customers come first. Medical services should be patient-centered, with doctors approaching care from the patient's perspective to maximize patient benefits—this is the development philosophy of Yiyong Pediatrics. "Yiyong Pediatrics will not consider physicians who deny that healthcare is a service industry."

Strong communication skills are also a key performance indicator for physicians at Yiyong Pediatrics. The ability to listen effectively and communicate clearly directly impacts patient satisfaction and loyalty. Physicians should listen with empathy to understand patients’ feelings, including their concerns, worries, and emotions, and articulate their viewpoints in an organized and appropriate manner to deliver effective health education.

Furthermore, Yiyong Pediatrics imposes varying requirements on the depth and breadth of physicians’ professional competencies. As Yiyong Pediatrics provides comprehensive general pediatric services, its disease spectrum differs significantly from that of outpatient pediatric departments in public hospitals. Physicians are expected not only to master general pediatrics but also to be proficient in managing common conditions across various subspecialties encountered in outpatient settings. Moreover, in this era of information explosion, physicians must possess the ability to rapidly acquire new knowledge and skills, and translate them into capabilities for problem-solving, addressing challenges, and responding to scrutiny.

Currently, Yi Yong’s pediatricians are recruited from top-tier (Grade A Tertiary) hospitals across China, including several chief, associate chief, and attending physicians with over ten years of clinical experience. The nursing team members also come from children’s specialized hospitals at Grade II A level or above, possessing more than five years of clinical nursing experience and proficient professional skills.

 Yiyong Pediatrics: Actual Scene (Photo provided by the interviewee)

Yiyong Pediatrics is committed to the organic integration of Western medicine and traditional medicine in the field of pediatric healthcare, with an emphasis on communication, science popularization, and parent education. According to Li Jing, Yiyong Pediatrics currently features six key departments: General Pediatrics, Child Health Care, Pediatric Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Pediatric Dentistry, Pediatric Ophthalmology, and Vaccination Clinic.

The Pediatrics Department provides diagnosis and treatment for common conditions, implementing an appointment-based consultation system to ensure adequate consultation time while preventing cross-infection. Additionally, the department has launched a chronic disease management system for respiratory asthma, offering long-term, comprehensive diagnostic, therapeutic, and healthcare services to pediatric patients with such respiratory conditions. The Child Healthcare Department designs tailored health examination protocols for different age groups and is equipped with vision screening devices, hearing screening instruments, bone density scanners, pulmonary function monitoring equipment, and growth and development assessment tools, thereby providing more precise indicators for pediatric health examinations.

The Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) shares its lineage with the TCM Department of Shanghai Children’s Medical Center. Rooted in the Haipai Xu Style of Pediatrics, it emphasizes inclusivity by integrating expertise from other renowned TCM pediatric schools, such as the Dong Style and Shengjing Style. The department provides comprehensive services for children and their families, including TCM consultations, herbal medicine, tuina (pediatric massage), herbal patching, directional drug penetration therapy, painless acupuncture, auricular acupuncture, constitution identification, and postural correction.

In light of children’s innocent nature, the pediatric dentistry area features themed consultation environments modeled after “ocean” and “forest” settings, equipped with television screens to help alleviate children’s fear during dental visits. Professional dentists integrate advanced diagnostic and treatment techniques with psychological guidance, enabling children to complete their dental care in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. Additionally, Yiyong Pediatrics is equipped with comprehensive supporting departments, including clinical laboratory, radiology, ultrasound, and pharmacy, providing valuable diagnostic evidence for evidence-based medical consultations.

Notably, the Yiyong Special Needs Outpatient Clinic is one of the designated vaccination sites authorized by the Shanghai Pudong New Area Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), offering Category II vaccines for children of all age groups. All vaccines are procured directly from the Shanghai Pudong CDC, ensuring full traceability and verifiability. The clinic implements a transparent, end-to-end management system with scan-code verification for every vaccination. Our senior nurse supervisors, each with over five years of experience in immunization services and vaccine clinic management, develop personalized vaccination plans. We provide pre-vaccination consultations and convenient scheduling, ensure safe administration and adequate post-vaccination observation, and offer timely follow-up care with patient and thorough answers to any questions.

Yiyong Pediatrics, located in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai, covers an area of over 1,300 square meters. To ensure the safety and hygiene of pediatric patients, Yiyong Pediatrics has adopted separated waiting areas and an appointment-based consultation model to minimize the risk of cross-infection among patients, with careful consideration given to the design of the children’s play area. Dedicated cleaning staff strictly wipe down and disinfect the facilities after each use of the children’s play area or several times a day on a scheduled basis, thereby safeguarding children’s health.

Appointment-Based Consultation Model: Parents can schedule preliminary consultations via the hospital’s WeChat official account or by phone. The number of daily consultations per physician is capped to ensure that each patient receives a 30-minute consultation.

Parents can directly access medical records, physical examination reports, laboratory test results, growth charts, prescription lists, and billing details through the Yi Yong Pediatrics WeChat Official Account. They may also seek consultations directly via “Online Consultation,” “E-Manager,” or telephone contact, thereby effectively delivering a suite of patient-centered services that integrate online cloud-based health data with offline support.

In addition, as a membership-based outpatient clinic, Yiyong Pediatrics has established a “VIP channel” that enables referrals to the Children’s Medical Center within 30 minutes, thereby achieving complementarity between the basic medical services provided by public hospitals and the personalized care offered by private clinics. Currently, Yiyong Pediatrics has partnered with platforms such as Dianping, Haodf, WeDoctor, Ali Health, and Yuguo Doctor, and its services are covered by select commercial insurance providers, including AIA, Anthem, JD Allianz, and Continental Reinsurance.

“Yiyong Pediatrics was established against the favorable policy backdrop of the state’s vigorous promotion of pediatric healthcare development and its encouragement of private capital participation in medical services,” said Li Jing. Moving forward, Yiyong Pediatrics will leverage the momentum of the “tiered diagnosis and treatment” model and the growth of the “Internet + Healthcare” industry. It is committed to building a service model that integrates basic medical insurance coverage with specialized medical services, connecting online services with offline clinical care, refining the family doctor model, and providing a physical platform for the development of telemedicine.