Alibaba Health Integrates Public Welfare into Business Growth: Enhancing Accessibility to Quality Healthcare through Internet Innovation

Helping patients overcome difficulties in accessing medications, establishing a neutral and objective platform for medical knowledge queries, and leveraging artificial intelligence to support primary care hospitals...

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that Alibaba Health released its “Alibaba Health 2018 Environmental, Social and Governance Report” (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”) on July 19, outlining an alternative pathway for internet health companies to fulfill their corporate social responsibility: embedding philanthropy into core business operations and integrating corporate social responsibility into business development.

Two months ago, Alibaba Health’s fiscal year 2018 performance announcement disclosed that the company had established a business layout comprising pharmaceutical e-commerce, smart healthcare, internet-based medical services, health management, and product traceability. In light of this performance announcement, the Report undoubtedly offers an alternative perspective on the strategic rationale behind Alibaba Health’s aforementioned layout: anchoring its approach in addressing societal pain points through innovative business models, providing consumers with convenient and trustworthy products and services, while simultaneously fostering industry development. This represents the optimal pathway for an internet health enterprise to achieve long-term, sustainable growth.

In fiscal year 2018, Alibaba Health’s pharmaceutical e-commerce business achieved rapid growth. The gross merchandise volume (GMV) of its e-commerce platform services—comprising operation agency and value-added services provided by Alibaba Health—exceeded RMB 30 billion. Revenue from health product sales and e-commerce platform services reached RMB 2.149 billion and RMB 171 million, respectively.

Amid the rapid expansion of its business scale and revenue, Alibaba Health employees identified a pressing real-world issue: the difficulty some patients face in locating necessary medications. To address this challenge, in July 2017, Alibaba Health joined forces with public welfare organizations, medical institutions, pharmaceutical manufacturers, internet applications, and media outlets to establish the “Global Medication Search Alliance,” aiming to streamline the flow of information across the pharmaceutical distribution chain.

By searching for the generic name of a medication on the drug lookup pages of platforms such as the Ali Health app, Mobile Taobao, and Alipay, patients can access information about the availability of that medication at hospitals and pharmacies across various regions. In July 2018, Ali Health upgraded its “Drug Search Captain” service and partnered with YaoYanShe to integrate the “China Clinical Trial Registry Query Platform,” creating a new pathway for patients to locate medications. As of July 2018, the Global Drug Search Alliance had provided information services to over 2.2 million users seeking medications. For certain scarce drugs, Ali Health has also facilitated communication between manufacturers and patient demand, enabling rapid scale-up of production and ensuring a more stable supply of these medications in the subsequent period.

Online health consultation is another consumer-oriented convenience service launched by Alibaba Health. As of March 31, 2018, nearly 23,000 licensed physicians, licensed pharmacists, and nutritionists had signed contracts with Alibaba Health to provide online medical consultation services. These professionals offer health consultation services to users on a rotating shift basis, with the average daily number of consultations exceeding 50,000. The growing demand for online health consultations has also enabled Alibaba Health employees to identify another societal pain point: amidst the plethora of disordered health and wellness information on various platforms, it is difficult for the general public to distinguish truth from falsehood and to conveniently access professional and trustworthy medical knowledge.

The “Yi Zhi Lu” medical knowledge query platform was thus launched as mentioned in the Report. In May 2018, Ali Health, in collaboration with government agencies, healthcare institutions, and authoritative media, jointly released the “Yi Zhi Lu” Medical Think Tank. Within the mobile application embedded with “Yi Zhi Lu,” patients can search for disease names to access the “Yi Zhi Lu” page, where they can view disease-related health information authored and reviewed by expert teams.

“Yi Zhi Lu” covers a broad spectrum of health-related topics, including disease prevention, symptom assessment, treatment plans, guides to seeking care at authoritative hospitals across China, daily rehabilitation and nursing care, and nutritional dietary management. It provides patients with comprehensive reference guidance throughout the entire process of disease prevention and treatment. Alibaba Health has committed to opening “Yi Zhi Lu” for integration into third-party applications, enabling patients to easily access professional and objective medical knowledge on a wider range of platforms.

Alibaba Health’s smart healthcare segment addresses the current shortage of high-quality medical resources. “We aim to use medical AI to reduce doctors’ workload by half within ten years,” states the report. In July 2017, Alibaba Health’s medical AI system, “Doctor You,” was deployed at the Wanliyun Medical Imaging Center. The CT pulmonary nodule intelligent detection engine launched in Phase I achieved world-class performance and cloud service capabilities.

In May 2018, the Alibaba Health Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in collaboration with the team led by Ning Guang—Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Vice President of Ruijin Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and Director of the National Clinical Research Center for Metabolic Diseases—launched “RuiNing ZhuTang,” an AI-powered physician. Shortly thereafter, this AI physician was deployed for pilot use at the National Standardized Management Centers for Metabolic Diseases, providing standardized diabetes medication recommendations to more than 100 metabolic disease centers across China. In the future, it is expected to benefit over 10 million patients with diabetes, enabling them to receive standardized, expert-level diagnosis and treatment services at primary healthcare facilities near their homes.

“As an internet-based healthcare company, Alibaba Health’s greatest social responsibility lies in helping more people reduce various costs and barriers in their pursuit of health, enabling broader access to this valuable asset of well-being. This is precisely the mission we relentlessly strive to fulfill: making health readily accessible,” said Shen Difan, CEO of Alibaba Health, in the Report.

Establishing an alliance for the recycling of expired medications to alleviate environmental pressure, and building a robust mechanism for product quality assurance... The Report reflects Alibaba Health’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) philosophy. As a member of Alibaba Group, Alibaba Health leverages its core competencies to provide the public with products and services that embody social responsibility. This approach has pioneered a new CSR model in the internet healthcare industry, integrating public welfare into commercial operations.