China's First Registered Internet Children's Hospital Launches, Leveraging Pediatric Medical Consortium to Build a Shared Healthcare Platform
On October 26, Sichuan’s first Internet children’s hospital was launched at the plaza of Building No. 3, Tianfu New Area People’s Hospital in Chengdu, marking it as the first filed Internet children’s hospital in China.
Attendees included provincial, municipal, and district leaders such as Deng Shaoping, President of Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital; Su Jianming, Director of the Information and Statistics Division of the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission; and Mu Yongtao, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Grassroots Governance and Social Development under the Chengdu Tianfu New Area Administrative Committee. Also present were renowned pediatric specialists who participated in the signing ceremony and representatives from major mainstream media outlets across China, totaling approximately 150 individuals, who jointly witnessed the unveiling and launch ceremony of the “Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baby Internet Children’s Hospital.”
It is the “Kangyou Baby” Internet Children’s Hospital of Tianfu New Area, established and operated with Tianfu New Area People’s Hospital as its host institution, approved by Tianfu New Area, and filed and approved by the Chengdu Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission and the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission.
Although this internet-based children's hospital is based in the Tianfu New Area, a national-level new area, it serves pediatric users across China as an "Internet+" pediatric health management platform that proactively provides shared medical services through a fully integrated mix of diverse, multi-tiered online and offline diagnosis and treatment offerings.
“Healthy China” Begins with Healthy Children. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s exposition on “Healthy China” in the report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China remains vivid in our minds. The report clearly articulated the core essence of the holistic health concept, namely, “providing comprehensive, full-lifecycle health services to the people,” and elevated this central idea to the level of national strategy.
At the fifth press conference of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Li Bin, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, also emphasized that the “Healthy China” initiative would continue to strengthen safeguards for people’s livelihoods, expand the coverage of family doctor contract services, enhance maternal and child health services, and address the shortage of pediatric and obstetric/gynecological professionals.
It is evident that children’s health occupies a significant place in the grand blueprint of “Healthy China,” as the health of children is the prerequisite and foundation for the happiness of every family with children.
As is well known, pediatric healthcare currently faces numerous challenges. With the implementation of the universal two-child policy and the accelerated pace of urbanization, there has been a sharp increase in the number of newborns and heightened population agglomeration, leading to severe inequities in the distribution of pediatric medical resources.
Amid the increasingly prominent contradictions stemming from a shortage of pediatricians and the inability to rapidly increase the supply of pediatric professionals or expand children’s hospital infrastructure in the short term, building an internet-based children’s hospital—centered on child health services and supported by specialized pediatric teams and pediatric medical consortia—is the optimal solution to address the current difficulties in accessing pediatric care and the insufficiency of medical services.
The emergence of new entities is invariably accompanied by contradictions between market supply and demand. In the pediatric healthcare market, existing medical institutions are no longer able to meet the growing demand for care driven by consumption upgrades. According to Hu Anyu, CEO of Kangyou Baby, this internet-based children’s hospital fully responds to the “Healthy China” initiative. By focusing on the needs of patients’ families, it provides specialized services such as remote consultations, contracted pediatric family physician services, integrated pediatric care networks, and payment solutions covering both basic medical insurance and commercial health insurance. The platform aims to deliver integrated, convenient, and personalized continuous healthcare services to families with children, thereby contributing to the advancement of the “Healthy China” strategy.
According to official statistics from the National Health and Family Planning Commission, “Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baobei Internet Children’s Hospital” is the first internet children’s hospital in China, providing online outpatient services, offline outpatient services, and remote telemedicine consultations across multiple disciplines—including pediatric internal medicine, pediatric surgery, traditional Chinese medicine pediatrics, child healthcare, and pediatric rehabilitation—for children in Tianfu New Area and throughout China.
Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baobei Internet Children’s Hospital operates differently from other internet hospitals. It leverages the strengths of offline medical service providers through an “Internet + Pediatric Medical Consortium” model and taps into the premium physician resources of pediatric doctor groups. By adopting a shared medical services model, it optimizes pediatric healthcare resources and provides comprehensive online consultations, offline outpatient visits, and remote telemedicine services across multiple specialties, including pediatric internal medicine, pediatric surgery, traditional Chinese medicine pediatrics, child health care, and pediatric rehabilitation. The hospital offers distinctive services such as electronic prescriptions, locally accessible laboratory and diagnostic tests, home delivery of medications by medical staff, enrollment in pediatric family doctor programs, payment via both basic medical insurance and commercial insurance, remote expert consultations, and expedited hospital admission, thereby delivering convenient, personalized, and proactive end-to-end healthcare services for children.
Why Are Pediatricians Joining This Emerging Internet Children’s Hospital Platform? According to Dr. Yang, “Since joining the Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baobei Internet Children’s Hospital platform, what has struck me most is that many parents have begun consulting us online for less urgent conditions. This is a positive trend, as it can help alleviate the pressure on pediatric departments in large hospitals and reserve limited medical resources for those who truly need them. Meanwhile, on this online platform of the Internet Children’s Hospital, patients’ visit data are recorded in detail, allowing us to access children’s past medical records at any time and make precise clinical judgments. The platform also enables us to remind parents to attend follow-up appointments on schedule and to conduct post-consultation and post-hospitalization follow-ups. This makes it much more convenient for us physicians to manage patient care. Parents also feel reassured by the platform, as they can reach their child’s treating physician anytime, anywhere via their mobile phones.”
“On the other hand, pediatricians who join the platform can also practice at multiple sites within the Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baby Internet Children’s Hospital. The credentials of these physicians are verified through on-site collection of their qualification certificates, professional title certificates, and ID cards by specialized personnel. They are then included in the filing and review process of the internet hospital and registered and audited via the Internet Medical Supervision Platform established by the Sichuan Provincial Health Commission, ensuring the authenticity of every pediatrician. Furthermore, the physical hospitals serving as offline outpatient bases for the Internet Children’s Hospital, as well as suppliers of laboratory tests, diagnostic examinations, and pharmaceuticals, are subject to strict quality access controls. Through our professional operational capabilities, we fully optimize existing pediatric medical resources and innovate healthcare service models, making it more convenient for children to seek medical care,” Hu Anyu told the reporter.
To date, more than 100 pediatric specialists have been certified and onboarded as the first batch at Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baobei Internet Children’s Hospital. Subsequently, thousands of professional pediatricians from our pediatric medical team will be gradually onboarded and certified in full.
Hu Anyu told reporters that the Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baobei Internet Children's Hospital mainly provides services to four categories of people:
First, pediatric users: providing convenient and personalized proactive healthcare services throughout the entire process—including health promotion, sub-health intervention, disease diagnosis and treatment, and rehabilitation—for children aged 0–14 across China.
Second, pediatricians: Provide convenient, market-oriented, and value-driven online and offline multi-site practice services for the national community of pediatricians, fully mobilize their existing diagnostic and treatment capabilities, safeguard their income from clinical services, build their personal brands, and expand their career development opportunities.
Third, healthcare institutions: Centered on providing convenient services for children’s health, they leverage existing market-based medical technical resources to ensure professional diagnostic and treatment services by pediatricians. Through specialized operational services, they drive the development of a shared medical service economy that benefits primary care institutions, third-party medical technical providers, pharmaceutical companies, and other related entities.
Fourth, governments at all levels: To support health and family planning commissions at all levels in implementing tiered diagnosis and treatment policies for pediatrics, addressing shortcomings in children’s medical and healthcare services, and optimizing pediatric medical resources, we have provided comprehensive solutions, professional operational services, and a robust IT technology platform to facilitate the establishment of pediatric medical consortia and contracted family doctor services for children.
Under the guidance of the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission and the Tianfu New Area Social Affairs Bureau, Kangyou Baby partnered with Tianfu New Area People’s Hospital, leveraging the latter as its physical hospital base, to jointly establish China’s first Internet children’s hospital.
Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baby Internet Children's Hospital provides proactive medical and health services to pediatric users through a market-oriented, independently operated model. Kangyou Baby is responsible for the construction and end-to-end operational management of Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baby Internet Children's Hospital, while Tianfu New Area People's Hospital is responsible for medical administration and in-house technical support for medical technologies.
Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baby Internet Children's Hospital is built upon five major business segments: pediatric specialty development, a pediatrician group, a pediatric medical consortium, laboratory testing and diagnostic imaging services, pharmaceutical supply, and payment integration with both public medical insurance and commercial health insurance.
For example, in a pediatric medical consortium, all healthcare institutions within the consortium adopt unified standards for medical technology and operations. Through online-offline integration, they achieve a closed-loop service model covering appointment scheduling, outpatient laboratory tests, diagnostic examinations, treatment, and hospitalization, while proactively accepting government oversight.
It must be acknowledged that Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baby Internet Children's Hospital leverages the sharing economy model, utilizing new internet-based methods and technologies. By integrating existing pediatricians, medical technical resources, and healthcare institutions through professionally operated shared medical services, it drives the development of the children's healthcare industry.
Its operational model features four key innovations: first, the deep integration of online and offline pediatric diagnosis and treatment, offering multi-scenario, multi-level, and personalized services; second, the pediatric medical consortium and pediatric physician group serve as the core support for operational development; third, a payment model that fully integrates basic medical insurance, commercial health insurance, and personal medical consumer finance; and fourth, a rigorous closed-loop risk management system for online diagnosis and treatment operations, coupled with stringent Level 3 Classified Protection for cybersecurity.
In terms of value, it primarily reflects a dedicated focus on pediatric health services. This is underpinned by a large group of pediatricians ensuring medical coverage, a professional operations team delivering high-quality service, a diverse portfolio of healthcare offerings, a standardized service management system, compliant outpatient clinic development, and robust support from an internet-based IT software platform.
Secondly, optimize pediatric health resources. Integrate high-quality pediatric medical resources, establish an "Internet + Pediatric Medical Consortium," and create a 15-minute pediatric care access circle. This will facilitate the decentralization of premium resources, enhance the skills of primary care physicians, strengthen their capacity for initial diagnosis and treatment, and improve the utilization rate and rational allocation of medical resources.
Finally, improving children's health. Develop competitive pediatric disciplines, support training to enhance the pediatric capabilities of primary care general practitioners, provide standardized training support for child healthcare physicians at the primary level, and conduct professional knowledge training for grassroots medical staff, thereby improving the diagnostic and treatment standards of primary healthcare institutions.
Meanwhile, it also drives the development of the children’s health industry. By centering on the pediatric medical and healthcare services provided by Tianfu New Area Kangyou Baobei Internet Children’s Hospital, it attracts supporting services such as laboratory testing, diagnostic examinations, assessments, rehabilitation, and maternal and infant products, thereby promoting the coordinated development of the pediatric healthcare industry.