Shenzhen People's Hospital Becomes Nation's First WeChat Medical Insurance Payment Demonstration Hospital, Pioneering Nationwide 'One-Stop' Smart Healthcare

In the year when China’s reform and opening-up policy was launched, Shenzhen had only one inpatient department, located at Shenzhen People’s Hospital. Forty years later, riding on the gentle spring breeze of progress, Shenzhen has gradually established 13 Grade A tertiary hospitals, providing patients with new options for hospitalization. Yet from beginning to end, the name “Inpatient Department” has been preserved, standing as a monument to Shenzhen People’s Hospital.

Nowadays, the research and medical capabilities of Shenzhen People's Hospital are growing day by day. Keeping pace with the times, its level of informatization has surpassed HIMSS Level 5, leading most hospitals in the construction of smart healthcare. However, while the hospital’s hardware and soft power continue to advance, its physical infrastructure is struggling to cope with the ever-increasing number of patients—limited registration and payment counters have resulted in low efficiency both before and after consultations.

To break this impasse, Tencent introduced a new solution: leveraging WeChat’s interface to cover the pre-consultation, during-consultation, and post-consultation stages, thereby replacing the hospital’s limited physical service windows with unlimited online access points. This significantly enhanced the patient experience. Through open collaboration, tens of thousands of patients have benefited, making Shenzhen People’s Hospital the first “WeChat Medical Insurance Payment Demonstration Hospital” in China.

Unveiling Ceremony of Shenzhen People's Hospital as the "WeChat Medical Insurance Payment Demonstration Hospital"

Shenzhen People’s Hospital has leveraged WeChat to streamline the entire online consultation process, thereby enhancing patient experience and improving hospital service efficiency. It has now become a national benchmark for smart healthcare. Commenting on this achievement, Dr. Qiu Chen, President of Shenzhen People’s Hospital, stated, “Internet technology enables hospitals to better provide ‘equitable, accessible, and systematically continuous’ services across all populations and throughout the entire life cycle. Online medical services are key to reducing the need for patients to make multiple in-person visits. Shenzhen People’s Hospital remains committed to refining its internet-based services as a model for improving public healthcare access.”

Qian Tianyi, Director of the Tencent Medical Health Technology Committee, stated, “The launch of the ‘WeChat Medical Insurance Payment Demonstration Hospital’ at Shenzhen People’s Hospital marks a new milestone in our joint efforts to build smart hospitals, representing a new starting point and breakthrough in our collaboration. Moving forward, Tencent will continue to deepen and refine this partnership by introducing numerous new features, including children’s medical insurance, maternity insurance, and critical illness insurance, thereby extending the convenience of medical care to a broader population.”

Sun Huanghui, Director of the Medical Insurance Division of the Shenzhen Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, stated, “In 2016, Shenzhen took the lead in launching mobile medical insurance payment, which significantly enhanced the healthcare experience and efficiency. Mobile medical insurance payment has addressed the issue of ‘three long waits and one short consultation’ in hospital outpatient services. On this platform, a wide array of extended and derivative services have emerged, with continuous expansion of functions and application scenarios. In these respects, Shenzhen People’s Hospital has pioneered exploratory efforts, setting an example for hospitals across the city.”

The Value of Mobile Payments in the Healthcare Industry Is Becoming Increasingly Prominent. Leveraging WeChat’s medical insurance payment capabilities, Shenzhen People’s Hospital has seamlessly integrated the entire online consultation process, becoming China’s first “WeChat Medical Insurance Payment Demonstration Hospital.” Currently, at Shenzhen People’s Hospital, patients can complete procedures with simple “finger-tip operations” on WeChat, reducing average queue times from over 50 minutes to just 2 minutes and improving consultation efficiency by more than 25-fold. With the support of these online processes, the hospital’s service efficiency has significantly improved, eliminating the need for 14 payment windows and reducing staffing requirements by 17 personnel.

Shenzhen People’s Hospital officially launched the nation’s first “Internet Hospital” based on a cloud platform in March 2013. Operating as an independent department, the Internet Hospital serves as a bridge connecting patients with the hospital and with medical staff, extending traditional brick-and-mortar hospital services beyond its walls and providing a valuable complement to them.

In facilitating the digital transformation of hospitals, Qian Tianyi, Director of the Tencent Medical and Health Technology Committee, likened Tencent’s innovations in the full online consultation process to “stringing pearls”: Through an AI-powered triage mini-program, patients can be precisely matched with a doctor within one second, completing online triage and registration in a single step; insured users can bind their social security cards to WeChat for queue-free, fingertip payments, enabling direct access to medical consultations, examinations, and medication pickup, thereby achieving the goal of “at most one visit” for medical care; via hospital WeChat official accounts, patients can also easily check appointment information, medical expense bills, online test reports, and social security payment details... The cross-disciplinary integration and innovation of internet technology and medicine have brought about significant changes to medical services, delivering tangible benefits to patients.

Currently, the pearls on this necklace are steadily increasing in number, gradually forming a complete strand. Luo Hua, Chief Medical Insurance Architect at Tencent Healthcare, stated that using WeChat as a key entry point for delivering medical services is the optimal platform for integrating online and offline services. Furthermore, Tencent’s capabilities in artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing will continue to provide comprehensive support to hospitals. For instance, its “Tencent Miying” AI-assisted diagnostic engine already offers multiple service capabilities, including disease prediction and intelligent triage guidance, thereby assisting hospitals and patients with functions such as auxiliary consultation and patient triage.

Li Tiyuan, Director of the Information Department at Shenzhen People’s Hospital, stated that the goal of building a smart hospital is to focus on key aspects of patient care, making future medical visits more convenient and clinical diagnosis and treatment smarter. At the meeting, he introduced the hospital’s next-phase smart hospital construction plan, which includes full coverage of online medical insurance payments, prescription circulation, chronic disease prescription refills, “interconnectivity, interoperability, and mutual recognition” of laboratory and imaging test results, and the application of artificial intelligence.

In fact, numerous new features of WeChat’s medical insurance payment system—covering the entire online healthcare journey, such as prescription renewals for chronic diseases, prescription circulation, children’s medical insurance, and appointment scheduling for examinations—are being gradually implemented across China. Taking children’s medical insurance as an example, Tencent has successively launched this feature in Shenzhen. Parents can simply add their child’s social security card for medical insurance to WeChat, enabling them to pay registration and consultation fees via medical insurance on the platform, thereby eliminating the hassle of waiting in line.

Compared with other online medical insurance payment platforms, Luo Hua, Chief Medical Insurance Architect at Tencent Healthcare, believes that Tencent’s WeChat Medical Insurance Payment Platform has the following four main advantages:

First, WeChat has over 1 billion monthly active users, making it one of the largest social platforms in the world. Users can access and fulfill various needs through WeChat, including social networking, entertainment, reading, and dining, which makes it a highly sticky product.

Second, WeChat launched its Open Platform in 2012 to build an ecosystem and empower the entire industry through this tool, enabling hospitals, pharmacies, community health centers, government agencies, and partners to collaborate on these initiatives. Through WeChat’s Open Platform, governments and hospitals can create their own digital profiles, integrating all relevant service scenarios and functionalities into Official Accounts and these profiles, thereby promoting positive branding and adding value for these institutions.

Third, WeChat Pay enables the entire online payment process to be completed, forming a closed loop. This is attributable to Tencent’s exceptional data processing capabilities, as well as its robust risk mitigation and security management controls. The WeChat platform handles hundreds of billions to over a trillion transactions daily, with data throughput reaching trillions of records per day; yet, instances of failed message delivery or payment failures remain exceedingly rare.

Fourth, Tencent has extensive experience across various industries and has established a comprehensive product ecosystem in the healthcare sector. This ecosystem includes strategic planning for smart hospitals and internet hospitals, as well as the co-creation of an ecosystem based on the WeChat platform with partners, thereby promoting the widespread accessibility of technology.

Currently, dozens of cities across China, including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Xiamen, and Changsha, have launched the WeChat Medical Insurance Payment function. Residents can access all or some of these services, such as medical insurance payments, social security inquiries, and social security contributions. More than 200 hospitals nationwide support WeChat Medical Insurance Payment. As application scenarios continue to expand, residents are enjoying increasingly smart and convenient experiences and services through WeChat Medical Insurance Payment.

Leveraging WeChat’s medical insurance payment capabilities, Tencent has a broader vision for building smart hospitals. Qian Tianyi pointed out, “In the future, Tencent will continue to leverage technology to expand its reach, delve deeper, and strengthen its impact, constantly innovating healthcare service models. By extending the reach of ‘smart’ solutions into every aspect of healthcare, we aim to optimize patient journeys, enhance patient satisfaction, improve hospital operational efficiency, and further drive the intelligent upgrade of healthcare services, thereby realizing Tencent Healthcare’s vision and goals of ‘safety, efficiency, intelligence, and health.’”