30 Outstanding Projects Across 12 Domains Honored at the 2019 China Grassroots Healthcare Innovation Summit

On May 14, 2019, the “2019 China Primary Healthcare Innovation Practice Summit,” co-hosted by VCBeat and Eggshell Research Institute, was held at the Hilton Guangzhou Wanfu. Experts, scholars, entrepreneurs, and investors from the healthcare industry gathered to discuss topics related to primary healthcare.

Last year, VCBeat hosted the Forum on Innovative Practices in Primary Healthcare, themed “New Structure.” At that time, the foundational industrial architecture of primary healthcare had been initially established, giving rise to innovative industry models such as medical consortia, new-type clinics, community health management, pharmaceutical distribution and retail, third-party imaging services, and third-party hemodialysis centers.

As tiered diagnosis and treatment continues to deepen, primary healthcare has become a critical and foundational component of China’s overall healthcare system. Amidst the industry’s transition and upgrading, primary healthcare faces both opportunities and challenges. Only when the tide recedes can one discern who is swimming naked and who is diving deep. Thus, “diving deep” became the overarching theme for the comprehensive upgrade of primary healthcare in 2019.

On April 15, 2019, the campaign to identify outstanding case studies of innovative practices in China’s primary healthcare sector in 2019 came to a close. Over the course of two months, a total of 281 case studies were collected, and 30 exemplary cases were selected across 12 thematic areas. The 2019 call for case studies on innovative practices in primary healthcare focused on hot topics such as internet hospitals, family doctor services, private primary care providers, primary-level diagnostic testing, and new pharmaceutical marketing models.

The selection process evaluates candidates across six key dimensions: case innovation (technological or model-based), replicability, depth of practical implementation, growth prospects, the applicant’s comprehensive strength (including financing status, executive team, and brand influence), and relevance to primary healthcare. The initiative aims to identify innovative medical enterprises that truly represent and are deeply rooted in primary care settings, with the expectation of providing more reference models for industry innovators and outlining new forms of development in China’s primary healthcare sector.

On May 14, at the 2019 Summit on Innovative Practices in Primary Healthcare, themed “Deep Dive,” the awards for 30 outstanding case studies of innovative practices in primary healthcare were officially presented.

On June 6, 2016, the “Guiding Opinions on Promoting Family Doctor Contract Services” were jointly issued by the Office of the State Council Leading Group for Healthcare Reform, the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission, and other ministries. Implementing tiered diagnosis and treatment has been a top priority of China’s new healthcare reform, and family doctor contracting is a key task within this framework. It holds significant importance for achieving initial consultations at the primary care level, establishing a tiered diagnosis and treatment system, and transforming the model of healthcare service delivery.

Amidst the scarcity of primary care resources, numerous enterprises are leveraging technological advancements to transform “family doctors” into “smart family doctors.”

MEDISHARE

Award-Winning Case: MiXi “YiJia” — Home Healthcare Connection Service Platform

Jianjian Home Doctor

Award-Winning Case: Jianjian Family Doctor · Smart Workstation Project in Shiyan City, Hubei Province

Home Health

Award-Winning Case: A Comprehensive Family Doctor Service System Based on Community Clinics

Worry-Free Health

Award-Winning Case: A Tiered Diagnosis and Treatment System Based on Family Doctor Contract Services

Miaoshou Doctor

Award-Winning Case: Construction of the Family Doctor Service Platform in Inner Mongolia

In recent years, the field of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has seen a continuous stream of favorable policies. With the formal implementation of the TCM Law and the successive release of the Outline of the Strategic Plan for the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Belt and Road Initiative Development Plan for Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the development of TCM has entered a golden era.

Accelerating the modernization, standardization, informatization, and normalization of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to propel its development onto a fast track remains the primary focus of current exploration within the TCM industry.

Digital Medicine Institute

Award-Winning Case: Innovative Practice of the Intelligent TCM Syndrome Differentiation and Treatment Platform

Health management has gradually risen to the level of national strategy, with the disease-treatment-centered orientation slowly evolving into a prevention-centered one. According to the relevant provisions of the Draft Law on Basic Medical Care and Health Promotion, the three major functions of primary healthcare institutions in the future will be: basic medical care, public health services, and health management.

Health management should prioritize the grassroots level in building its service system, with the key lying in the new positioning of primary care. In solutions for grassroots health management, we have identified the following pioneers.

Gairui Health

Award-Winning Case: Internet+ Comprehensive Solution for Primary Healthcare

Miao Health

Award-Winning Case: A New Model of Intelligent Health Management Integrating Online and Offline Services

Under the tiered diagnosis and treatment policy, highly dispersed and numerous clinics, serving as a supplement to hospitals, have assumed many primary healthcare tasks. With an emphasis on effectiveness, convenience, and quality, the emergence of general practice clinics has become the most fundamental form of grassroots medical care.

Johnson Medical & Haoyue Capital

Award-Winning Case: New Central City Community Healthcare Solution

Cixin Medical

Award-Winning Case: "Specialty + General Practice" Integrated Platform Development Solution

Traditional healthcare institutions are delineated by geographical location, whereas medical consortiums redefine the boundaries of these traditional entities through advanced information technology. Providing homogeneous services and standardized diagnostic and treatment protocols within medical consortiums is a critical step in facilitating tiered diagnosis and treatment.

Weak primary healthcare information systems necessitate a long-term commitment to leveraging “Internet Plus” concepts and technologies to integrate with other management and service frameworks, thereby empowering primary healthcare institutions and delivering mobile, online, and standardized services to residents. In response to “data silos” and disparities in service quality between upper- and lower-level entities, the following companies are striving to build data bridges.

Heart Medical International

Award-Winning Case: Building Medical Consortia Under Medical Cloud Application Services

Yunxing & Jiumingzhu

Award-Winning Case: Construction of the Handan Regional Medical Consortium

Enhancing the capacity of medical institutions to undertake services and deliver care is an indispensable component of developing primary healthcare. Primary care institutions face challenges such as management difficulties, talent shortages, physician training gaps, and non-standardized operational practices. Whether standardized, replicable models exist that can accelerate the rapid development of grassroots clinics by providing resource and service platforms is a key factor in assessing corporate competitiveness.

Qidi Medical Health

Award-Winning Case: A Comprehensive New Solution for Medical Laboratory Development at the County Level in China

Global Healthcare

Award-Winning Case: A New Service Model in Radiotherapy Drives Transformation in Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment

Med-Union Tech

Award-Winning Case: e-Ailisi Project – Primary Care Testing and Inspection Solutions

Primary care institutions suffer from resource shortages and uneven physician competency, with medical equipment that cannot compare to that of large tertiary hospitals. As technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and remote laboratory testing continue to advance, new forms of supplementation have emerged to address gaps in primary healthcare, making these innovations a novel solution for transforming the current state of primary care institutions.

Langtong Medical

Award-Winning Case: DiagBot, an AI-Powered Clinical Decision Support System Based on Big Data

iFlytek Healthcare

Award-Winning Case: Pilot Application and Demonstration of Anhui Province’s “AI Medical Assistant” in Four Counties and One District

MedServe the World & Kangshang Biotech

Award-Winning Case: Platform Construction and Operational Services Based on Intelligent POCT Empowering Primary Healthcare

Orange Family

Award-Winning Case: Experience in Building a Tiered Diagnosis and Treatment System for COPD Based on Remote Portable Testing

Shortages of personnel and the inability to equip large- and medium-sized medical devices at primary healthcare institutions have made it difficult to deliver most diagnostic and treatment services at the grassroots level. In addressing the challenges of medical testing equipment at the primary care level, two major trends have emerged:

First, innovate the business model to develop third-party clinical laboratories;

Second, promote POCT (point-of-care testing) products through technological innovation. In recent years, POCT has become one of the most capital-favored hotspots in the medical device industry, thanks to its ease of use, low cost, and short testing time.

Liangdian Tech

Award-Winning Case: Practical Application of Quantum Dot Immunofluorescence in Primary Care Diagnosis and Screening

Huamai Xingwei

Award-Winning Case: The World’s First Microfluidic Chemiluminescence POCT On-Site Testing System

Amid the current over-concentration of medical resources in tertiary Grade A hospitals, the “three long waits and one short visit” phenomenon is widespread. It has become commonplace for patients to wait hours in line only to have a consultation lasting a few minutes. This poses significant inconvenience, particularly for specialties requiring repeated hospital visits, such as chronic disease management and maternity care. The issue of accessibility to medical services remains unresolved. With the support of internet technologies, the following companies are exploring integrated service models to enhance convenience for patients.

Jinhua Central Hospital & Weimai

Award-Winning Case: “At Most One Visit” – Internet+ Integrated Maternal and Child Health Services

As the dismantling of the “drug-revenue-dependent” hospital model and the return of hospitals to their core medical mission have become the central themes of reform, the substantial opportunities arising from prescription outflow have ignited market interest, prompting numerous enterprises to actively strategize and position themselves.

Specialty pharmacies provide pharmaceutical care services, chronic disease management, and pharmacy benefit management beyond mere medication supply, thereby enhancing patient stickiness and loyalty. Addressing the three basic pharmaceutical service needs of community residents—medication consultation, medication sourcing, and medication usage—we have identified the following exemplary pioneers.

YaoAn Tech

Award-Winning Case: YunPingFang – An Integrated Platform for Prescription Big Data and Drug Knowledge Graphs

Weikang Technology

Award-Winning Case: “Smart Prescription” Community Chronic Disease Prescription Service

Linker·Smart Pharmacy

Award-Winning Case: The DTP 3.0 Model of “Dual-Drive Medical and Patient Education, Data-Empowered New Retail”

By the end of 2018, China had 249 million elderly people aged 60 and above, including 44 million who were disabled or semi-disabled. Long-term care needs among the elderly have become an essential requirement, while facing the severe reality of insufficient supply of caregivers.

Currently, “reform” has become the central theme in the development of elderly care policies, with macro-level policies repeatedly emphasizing the promotion of integrated medical and elderly care services as well as home-based care. For community- and home-based elderly care environments, platforms featuring “internet integration,” “digitalization,” and “smart technologies” are conducive to helping bridge the gap in elderly nursing care caused by personnel shortages.

Fushoukang

Award-Winning Case: Construction of Community-Based Integrated Medical and Nursing Care Stations under the “Internet Plus” Model

Health Benefits

Award-Winning Case: Innovation and Practice in the Field of Digital Health and Elderly Care

With the continuous implementation of LIS (Laboratory Information System), PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System), and EMR (Electronic Medical Record) systems, the epoch-making HIS (Hospital Information System) has ultimately integrated all information systems, ushering traditional healthcare institutions into a new era of informatization. To address hospitals’ “data silos” and workflow inefficiencies, the following enterprises are delving into the grassroots level, breaking down hospital “walls,” and leveraging information systems to help hospitals establish standardized diagnosis and treatment processes.

Kingsoft Cloud

Award-Winning Case: Xiantao City Smart Primary Healthcare Cloud HIS System

Kingdee Medical

Award-Winning Case: Construction of the Internet Hospital at the First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan University of Chinese Medicine

Haici Technology

Award-Winning Case: Hospital “Smart Services” Comprehensive Solution

The complete list of award-winning cases is as follows:

Note: The above awards are listed in no particular order.