DXY Doctor Unveils 2018 Strategy: Harnessing Medical Expertise to Build a Trusted Healthcare Service

Recently, the 2017 Annual Gala of the DXY Online Consultation Platform was held in Hangzhou. Centered on the theme of “Harnessing the Power of Physicians,” the event brought together more than one hundred outstanding physician contributors from the platform.

In his address, Li Tiantian, Founder and Chairman of DXY, reviewed the achievements of the DXY Doctor consultation platform over the past year. The platform has answered more than 1.2 million questions, attracted nearly 20,000 attending physicians and above from Grade A tertiary hospitals to participate, and obtained qualifications for an internet hospital.

Li Tiantian stated, “Dingxiang Yuan will uphold its original aspiration of promoting greater health and reducing disease, leveraging the company’s full resources to establish Dingxiang Doctor as the most trusted leading brand among the public.”

Dingxiang Doctor’s new media platform has long been a leader in the field of health science popularization. In 2016, its articles on WeChat alone garnered over 560 million views. This year, Dingxiang Doctor’s new media division has established a content distribution system, with total views projected to exceed 3 billion. Its robust traffic acquisition capability serves as a natural gateway to the Dingxiang Doctor app’s online consultation platform.

At the conference, Li Tiantian also revealed that in 2018, DXY Doctor would open up its high-quality medical service capabilities to provide trustworthy medical services to third-party partners.

In early April this year, Li Tiantian’s article “From DXY to Dingxiang Doctor” went viral in the mobile health community. Between the lines, it is evident that DXY is determined and courageous in comprehensively advancing its patient-oriented services.

Seventeen years ago, my vision for founding DXY was simple: to help fellow physicians around me. Today, my vision remains just as straightforward: together with outstanding doctors across China, we leverage “Dingxiang Doctor” to provide patients with accessible and trustworthy support.

Dingxiang Doctor’s consultation service was launched with high expectations. So, how has the Dingxiang Doctor consultation business fared after more than six months of operation?

Li Tiantian introduced that the DXY Doctor consultation platform covers 82% of China’s Grade 3A hospitals, with nearly 20,000 licensed physicians, most of whom are from renowned domestic Grade 3A hospitals such as Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Tongji Hospital, and West China Hospital, and hold attending physician titles or higher. Since its launch over six months ago, doctors on the platform have provided a total of nearly 500,000 hours of service, with pediatricians and obstetricians/gynecologists accounting for more than half of the total service time. The platform has cumulatively provided health education and medical consultation services to over 20 million users.

These high-quality medical resources have been extended and permeated through information technology, greatly facilitating local residents—particularly in the central and western regions where medical resources are relatively scarce—by eliminating the burden of arduous travel and reducing non-medical expenses incurred during diagnosis and treatment.

Preliminary statistics show that since the launch of Dingxiang Doctor's online consultation service, it has saved patients nearly RMB 200 million in medical costs.

Since its launch in April this year, the DXY Online Consultation Platform has maintained a rigorous quality control system.

First is the entry threshold. Currently, the DXY Consultation Platform only accepts applications from physicians employed at Grade 3A hospitals, who must also hold the professional title of Attending Physician. In accordance with the requirements of the Yinchuan DXY Internet Hospital, physicians on the platform are required to provide four credentials, including their national ID card, Physician Qualification Certificate, and Professional Title Certificate.

Certified physicians must also pass a professional competency assessment before officially launching their Q&A services for users. Previously, some physicians recommended drugs and treatments lacking evidence-based medical validation during simulated question-and-answer sessions; “such physicians will inevitably fail the assessment.”

In addition to stringent entry thresholds, it is even more critical that responses be effective, professional, and rigorous.

After qualified physicians from Grade 3A hospitals join the DXY Doctor consultation platform, their communications with patients undergo two rounds of professional review, in addition to an initial automated screening.

First is the review of effectiveness. For example, when a user asks on the platform, “Can I eat eggs while getting vaccinated?” doctors must not simply answer “Yes,” but also provide an explanation such as “Eating eggs has no impact on vaccination,” thereby truly addressing questions and resolving doubts.

Furthermore, regarding professionalism, DXY has assembled a review team comprising physicians from the top 30 hospitals listed in the Fudan University Hospital Management Institute’s China Hospital and Specialty Reputation Rankings. This team conducts regular, large-scale random checks on the quality of answers and provides Medical Second Opinions. Based on assessments of both effectiveness and professional expertise, the platform then scores the responding physicians and directs patient traffic accordingly.

The number of doctors on the DXY platform is in real-time flux, with unqualified physicians regularly removed through a rigorous screening process. Li Tiantian said:

While many platforms emphasize the number of physicians, DXY and Dingxiang Doctor prioritize the quality of physicians’ answers.

At the ceremony, the DXY Consultation Platform also presented major awards to 30 physicians recognized for delivering high-quality services. The physicians remarked, “Only high-quality medical care can truly earn positive reviews from patients.” So how exactly should high-quality medical services be delivered? Dr. Shi Han, named a “DXY Star of the Year” this year, shared his experiences on the consultation platform.

Dr. Shi Han serves as an attending pediatrician at the Fuzhou branch of DXY Clinic. With 12 years of professional experience, he has answered 3,500 questions on the DXY Doctor platform, maintaining a perfect five-star rating.

Patients opt for online consultations because they are unable to engage in extended communication with doctors during offline visits, hoping to obtain more comprehensive answers online.

A key distinction from in-person care, in my view, is that online consultations should place greater emphasis on service delivery—providing explanations of disease etiology, patient education on conditions, and emotional support for patients, which are often overlooked during busy offline outpatient visits.

In the cases received by Shi Han, parents often list their child’s entire clinical course in meticulous detail, accompanied by five or six photos, making the submission appear overwhelmingly dense at first glance. When a child’s condition is indeed severe, I provide recommendations from a professional medical perspective while also offering comfort as a friend, hoping to alleviate the parents’ distress.

When engaging in online consultations, doctors utilize their available downtime to provide patients with more detailed responses. During these interactions, most patients are truly delightful. I have even received feedback from patients reminding me to take meal breaks and rest, which I found deeply moving.

At the conference, Li Tiantian also revealed a key piece of information: DXY Doctor’s high-quality online consultation services will be featured as a core offering on its open platform, enabling partners to integrate online medical consultation capabilities.

Smart hardware manufacturers, apps, websites, WeChat Official Accounts, and mini-programs can all integrate with DXY’s online consultation services.

In other words, starting from 2018, users can access high-quality online medical services on the DXY platform without needing to download or log in to the DXY app, mini-program, or service account. In fact, since December of this year, DXY has launched its open platform collaboration project and has already reached cooperation agreements with several platforms. Technical integration is currently underway, and DXY’s services will soon be available across various platforms.

“Actually, an open platform is not merely about providing simple access to services; it is about truly identifying those users who are willing to pay and ready to invest in higher-quality internet healthcare services,” said Li Tiantian. The paid-service nature of Dingxiang Doctor dictates that greater patience and experimentation are required in developing its open platform.