Medical Big Data Enters the Post-Structured Era: Yidu Cloud Collaborates with Hospitals to Advance Standardized Treatment

“Whether it is big data in healthcare or artificial intelligence, they must ultimately be implemented in practice. And the important application area of medical big data should be treatment.” At the first “Liangjiang Smart Healthcare Summit” and the 2018 Annual Academic Conference of the Information Professional Committee of Chongqing Medical Association, hosted by Chongqing Medical Association and organized by the Yidu Cloud Medical Data Research Institute of Chongqing Medical University, Li Kun, Deputy Director of the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, made this statement when discussing medical big data.

In recent years, supported by structured medical big data, artificial intelligence applications have been increasingly penetrating hospitals, the most challenging setting for intelligent transformation. From informatization to intelligence, and from unstructured to structured data, medical big data derived from clinical practice is ultimately applied back to clinical care. Every participant in the healthcare ecosystem has benefited from the outcomes of structured diagnostic and treatment data, which improve patient experience, enhance diagnostic and therapeutic efficiency, and support clinical research. However, hospital administrators believe that the reach of medical big data should extend to the development of standardized treatment protocols for specific diseases within specialized disciplines. In this endeavor, medical big data companies, equipped with top-tier talent and extensive experience, need to play a more leading role.

During the interview session following the annual conference, Peng Yuzhu, Party Secretary of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital (hereinafter referred to as “Drum Tower Hospital”), affiliated with the Medical School of Nanjing University; Li Kun, Vice President of the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University (hereinafter referred to as “the Affiliated Hospital of GMU”); and Qiao Kai, Deputy Party Secretary of the Xiasha Campus of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital (hereinafter referred to as “Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital”), affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine, shared with VCBeat their achievements in smart hospital development and their visions for the future application of medical big data.

At the current stage, the achievements of smart hospital construction have demonstrated application value for both patients and hospitals.

For patients, smart hospitals have optimized the healthcare experience by consolidating patient data and using mobile apps to connect in-hospital and out-of-hospital services. The benefits of hospital digitalization for patients have become widely recognized with the implementation of national policies on internet hospitals.

Gulou Hospital has deployed over 100 self-service kiosks, enabling patients to navigate the entire care journey using only barcodes and eliminating the need for queuing. By leveraging its mobile app to extend the existing follow-up system and establishing a telemedicine center, the hospital provides remote diagnostic guidance to primary care facilities. Similarly, the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University has achieved digital transformation through automated appointment scheduling and AI-assisted diagnosis, thereby reducing diagnostic time and enhancing accuracy.

Li Kun, the Vice President, told VCBeat that in the past, patients had to wait 1-2 hours for medical consultations. However, in a digitalized setting, patients only need to arrive at the hospital 10 minutes in advance for waiting. “After arriving at the hospital, the triage nurse will arrange for the patient to go to a dedicated waiting area.” In addition, patients’ prescriptions and test results are also transmitted in real time within the hospital.

From the hospital perspective, three hospital administrators emphasized that structured medical big data provides significant assistance to physicians in clinical research. Deputy Party Secretary Qiao Kai pointed out that only structured medical big data constitutes truly useful data. As Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital has a relatively short history and a comparatively weak research foundation, its physicians have gained profound insights into applying medical big data to clinical research. Recently, Gulou Hospital structured nearly 100,000 health examination records from the past decade, substantially improving the efficiency of clinical research output. Party Secretary Peng Yuzhu believed that a vast amount of data resources within hospitals still await development and utilization.

Meanwhile, the implementation of tiered diagnosis and treatment is inseparable from medical big data. The medical consortium group of Gulou Hospital comprises over one hundred hospitals, with the majority of patient management activities conducted via the internet.

Furthermore, the implementation of artificial intelligence is an inevitable topic in the application of medical big data. Gulou Hospital was among the first to apply machine deep learning to pathological images for early screening of prostate cancer in its urology department. It has now achieved higher accuracy and specificity than manual interpretation, with a sensitivity of 99.3% for early prostate cancer screening, while also improving work efficiency.

According to Party Secretary Peng Yuzhu, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital is actively advancing the expansion of clinical pharmacy services. By leveraging artificial intelligence software to assist pharmacists in prescription review, the coverage rate for prescription audits has increased from the previous 10%–20% to 100%.

Information technology serves as the foundation for smart hospitals. In China, hospital informationization has a history spanning over two decades; however, the transition from informationization to intelligentization represents a more open-ended process.

With a century-long history and profound heritage, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital has established significant brand influence among large public general hospitals across China. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the hospital proposed to reshape its hospital information system, adhering to standards such as HIMSS Stage 7, interoperability, and JCI accreditation, thereby initiating the construction of a smart hospital.

In terms of functional implementation, Gulou Hospital primarily operates on three levels.

First, interoperability at the operational level was launched in 2016 and was basically in place by early February 2018. Currently, Gulou Hospital has achieved HIMSS Stage 6 certification, realizing interoperability of data for daily diagnosis, treatment, laboratory testing, and other services.

Second, the structured database was successfully completed in June 2018.

Third, intelligent applications are being realized through the use of structured databases. Certain specialties have already developed specialized structured databases for specific diseases, such as gastric cancer and colorectal cancer in general surgery, and diabetes in endocrinology. Moving forward, Gulou Hospital will encourage various specialties and departments to conduct in-depth data mining of these structured databases.

Secretary Peng Yuzhu pointed out that it is difficult for hospitals to achieve the intelligent and effective utilization of medical big data on their own. Given the massive volume of medical big data, manual collection and processing are infeasible; instead, specialized professionals must develop algorithms using programming languages to categorize the data. “Medical big data companies possess talent advantages and are responsible for driving the implementation of specific tasks.”

The typical pathway for medical big data companies such as Yidu Cloud to engage in the smart hospital construction is to progress from large-scale projects to specialty-specific single-disease management. The data structuring at Drum Tower Hospital has already entered the stage of specialty-specific single-disease management. Secretary Peng Yuzhu told VCBeat that, generally, big data companies design detailed data segmentation plans, which are then implemented after communication and adjustments with clinical teams. The work performed by these big data companies involves using big data technologies to translate clinical needs into computer language.

During his sharing of the intelligent construction experience at the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Vice President Li Kun placed particular emphasis on practical implementation. “What does ‘practical implementation’ mean? It means enabling administrators to perceive greater convenience in management, and allowing our physician users to experience ease of use.”

Guizhou Province is a key national hub for big data. In its collaboration with Yidu Cloud, the Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital has prioritized prevention. Big data analytics have revealed distinct incidence patterns for certain common and endemic diseases in Guizhou, identifying potential risk factors associated with lifestyle habits and living environments.

Hypertension is highly prevalent in rural Guizhou. We plan to collaborate with Yidu Cloud to develop specialized software for cardiovascular diseases, aiming to standardize future treatment protocols and investigate the correlation between disease onset and risk factors such as living environment, dietary habits, and other lifestyle behaviors. On this basis, we strive to prevent the disease at its preclinical stage.

Since its establishment in 1994, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital has implemented a unique patient identification system. Leveraging computer systems, the hospital retains complete records of all historical patient visits. The continuity and integrity of data are hallmark features of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, ensuring medical quality and meeting clinical research needs, while also providing a solid foundation for the development of big data platforms.

In 2016, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital partnered with Yidu Cloud to establish a hospital-wide big data platform for scientific research, collecting patient data and achieving its standardization and structuring. The hospital independently developed a medical cloud platform that aggregates the resources of over 10,000 physicians from more than 1,000 hospitals, thereby enhancing patient services and attraction.

Furthermore, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital has established a Cognitive Medical Center to conduct research on artificial intelligence applications based on structured big medical data. It has developed an assistant for community general practitioners, which has been recognized by the National Health Commission and designated as a national-level poverty alleviation project for Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital.

Regarding the prospects of medical big data applications, all three hospital presidents emphasized that future design of medical big data models should advance toward the treatment side.

Vice President Li Kun pointed out that it is recommended for Yidu Cloud to integrate preventive design into the front end. With the assistance of top medical experts across China, this initiative is achievable for a medical big data company. “However, this endeavor cannot be accomplished by Yidu Cloud alone; it requires coordinated efforts with the broader societal advancement of information technology infrastructure.”

Currently, Yidu Cloud has assisted the Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital in organizing data from before 2007. On the basis of improving legal regulations, it will further launch practical functions, including the prevention and control of general diseases and cardiovascular specialist diseases.

Furthermore, the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University has reached a preliminary agreement with the Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yidu Cloud to implement standardized treatment protocols for liver diseases, initiating this new collaboration in January 2019. “Taking lung cancer as an example, Yidu Cloud can form a team with academicians from the Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This team would establish case data collection requirements based on specific lung cancer subtypes and transmit the data via Yidu Cloud’s platform to the academician-led guidance team. The guidance team would then develop standardized treatment protocols for clinical guidance, representing an evidence-based medicine clinical pathway,” pointed out Vice President Li Kun. “Currently, there is no unified treatment protocol across China, and some debates persist within the scientific community. However, if the academician team can formulate a comprehensive protocol, it can be disseminated through Yidu Cloud’s platform.”

Deputy Secretary Qiao Kai also pointed out that specific ideas for clinical research should originate from within hospitals. Medical big data enterprises possess leading technical talent and can provide professional services for the construction of smart hospitals by leveraging their technological expertise. “We hope that medical big data companies will transform from data service providers into data-driven leaders, achieving transformative breakthroughs in this regard.”