New-Generation Clinics Face Challenges: How Alliance Power Helps Primary Care Reach Every Link — CCDC 2019

VCBeat has learned that from May 11 to 12, DXY, a leading internet healthcare company in China, held the Second China Clinic Development Conference in Hangzhou. The event gathered pioneers and leaders in the primary care industry to explore the opportunities and challenges facing clinic development under new circumstances, under the theme “Uniting Physicians, Creating the Future—Embracing the Next Wave of Opportunities for Clinic Development.”

The conference attracted over 400 participants, including renowned healthcare institution administrators, physician entrepreneurs, and medical investment firms from China and abroad.

In recent years, a steady stream of policies encouraging the development of primary healthcare—such as the implementation of three-tier triage, restrictions on intravenous infusions in outpatient settings, cross-provincial practice privileges, and the rollout of the registration-based system—has been introduced. As the healthcare market becomes increasingly open, it is no longer mere talk for physicians to leave the public system and establish their own novel clinics.

Statistical data show that, as of November 2018, there were 1 million medical and health institutions nationwide in China, including approximately 950,000 primary care medical and health institutions (with new-type clinics included), indicating rapid development of privately run healthcare services.

Li Tiantian, founder and chairman of DXY, delivered a keynote speech titled “What Kind of Medical Services Do We Need?” at the conference. He stated that the frequent introduction of policies encouraging private healthcare provision has provided policy dividends for clinic development, while the trend of consumption upgrading has also raised new requirements for clinic services, giving rise to various types and models of innovative clinics.

Distinguished from the individual and chain clinics that emerged in earlier years, new-type clinics are patient-centered and healthcare-service-oriented. When patients visit these clinics, they are purchasing not only the environment and services but also the physicians’ expertise, professional competence, and respect for patients.

Li Tiantian stated that healthcare services span the entire human life cycle. Beyond disease treatment, new-type clinics should address the practical needs for healthy living among people of different ages, life stages, and demographic groups. The future trend in primary healthcare services will shift from “more” to “better.”

Industry insiders generally believe that there is a significant gap in China’s current clinic sector, and that branding, scaling, standardization, and chain operation are inevitable trends for the development of clinics.

At the First China Clinic Development Conference in 2018, DXY initiated the establishment of the Clinic Development Alliance, aiming to collaborate with clinics that share common values, pursuits, and ideals, thereby jointly expanding the market.

After a year of development, the Clinic Development Alliance has empowered physicians to launch their own practices and established service standards for new-type clinics through information-based management, curriculum training, talent recruitment, brand building, and the integration of third-party resources.

It is reported that the Clinic Development Alliance’s industry-focused self-media platform, “Easy Clinic Startup,” has been in operation for one year, covering 23 provinces across China and serving over 60,000 industry users. The Alliance’s educational initiative, “Dingxiang Clinic Academy,” has produced more than 100 specialized courses in its clinic series and established an expert advisory board comprising over 30 members. In addition, the Alliance’s information management software, Dingxiang Cloud Manager, provides services to 1,000 primary healthcare institutions nationwide.

The Clinic Development Alliance provides its members with comprehensive services—including clinic establishment, renovation, consumables, medical equipment, recruitment, financing, and insurance—through one-stop resource matching.

Favorable policies continue to emerge, making the opportunities for clinic development increasingly evident. However, once the idea of establishing a clinic is put into practice, challenges inevitably arise. According to a survey by the China Non-State Medical Institutions Association, non-public medical institutions in China are characterized by rapid but uneven development, low credibility, and weak capabilities, which has prevented them from effectively and fully fulfilling their intended role in providing medical services.

How to Operate New-Type Clinics? Xu Kenan, head of the DXY Clinic Development Alliance, stated that new-type clinics mainly face challenges such as difficulties in patient acquisition, low clinical proficiency among physicians, and inefficient clinic management.

“In 2019, the Clinic Development Alliance carried out a comprehensive upgrade of the DXY Cloud Manager system, introducing value-added services such as operational management courses, assistance with talent recruitment, and promotion of the DXY Clinic Clinical Consensus. We linked DXY Doctor’s consumer-facing user base with Cloud Manager clients to facilitate online-to-offline patient referral, thereby enhancing clinic management and service quality while achieving the goals of acquiring and retaining users.”

How Can Physicians Leaving the Public Healthcare System to Join or Establish New-Type Clinics Realize Their Commercial Value? Yu Ying, Chief Medical Operations Officer at Penguin Almond, believes that physicians need to accurately define their positioning and pursue differentiated development. By choosing a suitable role on either the clinical or managerial track, building their brand and personal image, and effectively managing risks, they can break through self-imposed limits in their career development.

How Can Chain Clinics Develop? He Haiyang, Chairman and CEO of Johnson Medical, stated that the operation of chain clinics requires locking in locations, target populations, and disease specialties, thereby building a system with community clinics as the initial point of care, families as the service unit, and hospitals as the referral endpoint. Furthermore, the success of chain clinics hinges on having excellent physicians, high-quality products, and superior services, along with patience and perseverance.

Li Tiantian stated that by hosting the Clinic Development Conference, DXY aims to create a focused, authoritative, and direct communication platform for practitioners in the primary healthcare sector, enabling them to jointly explore the opportunities and challenges facing clinic development under the new circumstances. Furthermore, the establishment of the Clinic Development Alliance is intended to empower more clinics, continuously improve the quality of clinic services, and work with like-minded partners to advance the cause of primary healthcare.