Tencent and WeDoctor Partner with Anhui to Build Province's First AI-Powered Smart Medical Consortium Platform

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that Tencent entered into a two-tiered strategic cooperation with Anhui Province and Hefei City on September 13, and signed an agreement on “Internet + Smart Hospital” collaboration with the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University. The parties will engage in in-depth cooperation in areas such as smart healthcare and artificial intelligence R&D. Ma Huateng, Chairman of Tencent’s Board of Directors, attended the signing ceremony.

On that day, WeDoctor, invested by Tencent, signed an agreement to launch an internet-based medical consortium platform jointly established with the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University. After the project becomes operational, 44 member institutions of the hospital’s medical consortium will join the platform. Leveraging the high-performance algorithms, high-quality data, and product development and operational capabilities of the Ruiyi Cloud AI platform, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University will build Anhui’s first provincial-level intelligent medical consortium platform.

The agreement indicates that the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University will leverage WeDoctor’s comprehensive, mature product and technology platform, data connectivity capabilities and resources, as well as operational advantages to establish a remote consultation center and a chronic disease management center within the hospital. In the future, the platform will also utilize artificial intelligence technologies to standardize medical technologies into marketable products, optimize resource allocation, and enhance both the quality and efficiency of diagnosis and treatment.

The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University ranks first in comprehensive strength in Anhui Province and is actively exploring the deepened application of “Internet + Smart Hospitals” and artificial intelligence, with the intelligent construction of medical consortia being one of its key initiatives.

With 44 member institutions distributed across the province, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University leverages Weiyi’s Ruiyi Cloud and its strategic advantages in medical artificial intelligence and big data to address key pain points of traditional medical consortia, such as communication challenges due to vast geographical distances, fragmented resources, and strong demand at the grassroots level.

The ZJU Ruiyi AI Research Center, established with a RMB 100 million donation from WeDoctor and led by Professor Wu Zhaohui, President of Zhejiang University and a pioneer in China’s artificial intelligence science, has achieved dozens of breakthroughs in medical AI, particularly in computer-aided diagnosis, which will be released sequentially this year.

Leveraging the vast medical resources connected through the WeDoctor platform, including over 2,400 hospitals, more than 290,000 physicians, and over 7,300 expert teams, the Ruiyi Cloud Platform boasts high-performance algorithms and extensive application scenarios. As an “intelligent physician,” it can “feed back” into medical consortium hospitals, including the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, freeing up physician resources occupied by repetitive tasks and assisting doctors in making efficient and precise clinical decisions. Meanwhile, the platform helps collaborative units within the medical consortium, particularly primary care hospitals and physicians, rapidly connect with major hospitals and leading experts, thereby supporting clinical diagnosis, treatment, and rapid referrals, and enhancing the capacity of primary healthcare services.

“By leveraging the intelligent medical consortium, we enable data to do the running, thereby reducing the need for grassroots physicians and patients to travel extensively,” said Zhou Dian, Vice President of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University and Chair of the Medical Information Branch of the Anhui Medical Association. It is anticipated that the establishment of the intelligent medical consortium at the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University will effectively accelerate the smart transformation of healthcare across the province, bringing the benefits of intelligent technology to the health and well-being of all residents in Anhui.