Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital and Tencent Forge Strategic Partnership to Build an Internet-Plus Smart Hospital with AI-Driven Healthcare Innovations

On December 4, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital and Tencent jointly unveiled the “Joint Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine” in Hangzhou, collaborating to leverage “Tencent Miying” for research and applications in AI-driven healthcare. Meanwhile, the two parties will also partner with Zhuojian Technology to launch innovative medical payment services, including WeChat-based medical insurance payments and WeChat-based New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) payments. These initiatives aim to enhance operational efficiency within hospitals and medical consortia, provide patients with a higher-quality healthcare experience, and establish a benchmark for “Internet + Smart Hospitals.”

Huang Dongsheng, President of Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital, stated that he believes artificial intelligence will bring about changes to healthcare delivery models, and that new models emerging from the integration of AI and healthcare will certainly become widespread and benefit the public.

Chen Guangyu, Vice President of Tencent’s Mobile Internet Group (MIG), emphasized, “In our exploration and practice of ‘Internet Plus,’ we maintain an open mindset, aiming to share artificial intelligence technologies with all our partners.” By establishing joint AI laboratories with leading Grade 3A hospitals in China, “Tencent Miying” has expanded its applications from single-disease to multi-disease scenarios, gradually building screening capabilities for conditions such as esophageal cancer, pulmonary nodules, diabetic retinopathy, cervical cancer, and breast cancer.

Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital is one of the largest comprehensive Grade-A tertiary hospitals in Zhejiang Province, integrating medical care, scientific research, and teaching, and plays a pivotal role in the province’s healthcare system. Through this collaboration with Tencent, the hospital has joined the “Joint Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine” and, together with four managed hospitals within its medical consortium and several closely affiliated community health service centers, established the “Tencent Internet+ Medical Big Data Research and Demonstration Base.” This initiative aims to advance research on artificial intelligence technologies for assisted diagnosis and treatment and to facilitate the implementation of “Tencent Miying” in Zhejiang Province.

“Tencent Miying” is Tencent’s first product to apply artificial intelligence technology to the medical field. By leveraging computer vision and deep learning technologies to train on various types of medical images, it effectively assists physicians in diagnosing and conducting early screening for diseases such as esophageal cancer, pulmonary nodules, diabetic retinopathy, cervical cancer, and breast cancer. The Ministry of Science and Technology previously announced the first batch of national AI open innovation platforms, with Tencent selected as one of the inaugural entities and explicitly tasked with establishing the National AI Open Innovation Platform for Medical Imaging.

It is reported that Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital has already implemented Tencent Miying for early esophageal cancer screening and is conducting research on diabetic retinopathy. In the future, it will leverage artificial intelligence to study and explore AI-assisted screening for various diseases.

In response, Wei Jianfeng, CEO of Zhuojian Technology, stated, “The healthcare service model in the era of sharing economy imposes higher demands than before: a shift toward patient-centered, quality-led medical concepts; the practical needs of tiered diagnosis and treatment; the cultivation of medical talent pipelines; hospital performance management and incentives; and the challenges hospitals face after the elimination of drug markups. Against this backdrop, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital has jointly launched a medical artificial intelligence research project, leveraging Tencent’s big data mining and processing technologies, along with Zhuojian Technology’s mobile remote medical consortium and contracted family doctor service platform.”

In addition to advancing research and applications of AI in healthcare, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, Tencent, and Zhuojian Technology will collaborate to promote innovative medical payment services—such as WeChat-based payments for basic medical insurance and the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme—and to explore and implement innovative care models including remote outpatient consultations and two-way referrals. Together, they aim to develop systematic and mature comprehensive solutions for smart hospitals.

It is reported that the collaborating parties will establish a convenient medical payment service based on WeChat’s medical insurance payment function, enabling social security enrollees to complete payments throughout the entire healthcare journey—from appointment scheduling and registration to consultation and hospitalization. This initiative aims to resolve the long-standing “three longs and one short” issue that has plagued both patients and hospitals. Data shows that WeChat’s medical insurance payment service saves patients an average of 43.6 minutes in queuing and waiting time during medical visits. In the future, the parties will also collaborate on cross-regional settlement for the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS), leveraging WeChat’s NRCMS payment feature to enable real-time reimbursement at hospitals. This will significantly reduce the time required for medical insurance settlements; whereas reimbursement previously involved processes spanning thousands of kilometers and taking 1–3 months or even longer, it can now be completed with just one minute of operation on WeChat.

According to reports, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital has established an internet healthcare platform that connects tertiary Grade A hospitals with district/county-level hospitals and community health service centers. Centered on Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital and leveraging modern telemedicine technologies, the platform provides collaborating hospitals with services such as remote outpatient consultations, remote case consultations, remote pathology diagnostics, and two-way patient referrals, thereby advancing Zhejiang Province’s “Double Sinking, Two Improvements” initiative. In the future, all parties involved will jointly leverage “Internet Plus” technologies to explore innovative models of healthcare service delivery.

In the future, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, Tencent, and Zhuojian Technology will jointly explore the development of a physician competency growth platform for teaching hospitals. The platform will provide extensive training resources covering theoretical foundations, operational skills, and professional practice, helping physicians systematize their specialized knowledge, share clinical cases, introduce the latest clinical techniques, and conduct real-time surgical demonstrations. This initiative aims to enable anytime, anywhere learning, enhance physicians’ professional proficiency, and pioneer a new model for mobile teaching hospitals.