In an Era of Potential Immortality, Health Management Emerges as the Next Catalyst in Healthcare

Recently, I came across an article titled “Must Not Die Within the Next Ten Years,” which presents a rather intriguing perspective:Everyone should maintain good physical condition within the next decade, as during this period, humanity may develop technologies capable of achieving biological immortality.

It cites a technology described in the book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow as an example—within a few years, five million nanorobots will be introduced into our blood vessels, patrolling back and forth to free humanity from the threats of heart disease and stroke. Reportedly, this technology has already been achieved in the laboratory. If cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases can be addressed by intracorporeal robots, then cancer and various age-related diseases may soon transition from fatal conditions to manageable chronic diseases.

Throughout history, humanity has pursued immortality and eternal youth. Now that we are told this day may soon arrive, do you find yourself overcome with the sense that you have all the time in the world, that there is still ample opportunity for everything, and that all that remains is to thoughtfully plan a fulfilling, high-quality, and healthy life?

Setting aside the notion that everyone will eventually achieve immortality, there is indeed an industry currently capable of enhancing quality of life and extending lifespan: health management. Health management can be described as a significant yet long-overlooked component of healthcare. When people hear the term “medical care,” their immediate association is typically with seeking treatment and taking medication, rather than with regular health screenings or daily dietary and exercise habits. However, as life expectancy increases, major diseases are becoming less fatal, and the greatest expenditures will shift toward preventive care and chronic disease management.

The health management industry originated in the United States, and its emergence in China lagged behind by several decades. This delay was attributable to differences in payer landscapes, which resulted in varying degrees of urgency in demand.

In the 1970s, the United States enacted the Health Maintenance Organization Act, marking the first widespread implementation of cost-containment measures in medical payments by commercial insurance companies. To reduce costs, insurers vigorously promoted preventive healthcare for their members, thereby decreasing the frequency of medical visits and lowering healthcare expenditures. Summarizing the U.S. experience, the commercialization of medical payment systems leveraged market competition to drive cost control, giving rise to a preventive health management model that both saves money and improves population health outcomes.

China, however, follows a different development path. Since commercial medical insurance is not the primary payer, there is a lack of incentive to reduce costs through preventive care management. A significant portion of the demand for health management in China comes from enterprises, driven by their growing emphasis on employee health and medical benefits in recent years, which has created a need for optimized health services. Another key demand driver is commercial health insurers, which require support from the health management industry to control costs. Additionally, the rising trends in fitness and healthy eating are gradually increasing the number of individuals who proactively seek out health services.

Yang Huashan, Founder and Chairman of Guokang Network, once stated thatHealth Services: The Most Promising Sector in China’s Service Market. Compared with the 70% of people in the United States who have access to health management services, this proportion in China is still less than 0.1%. With the expansion of the affluent population, there is huge potential for this market in China.

Although China’s health management industry is a relatively recent development, the concept of “superior physicians treating disease before it arises” was already articulated in The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon thousands of years ago. Compared with Western medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) places greater emphasis on preventive medical concepts such as “regulation” and “health preservation.” Today, this “preventive treatment” culture is experiencing a resurgence, having been re-commercialized and intelligentized within the domestic context by drawing on overseas practices, and is gradually flourishing. Currently, China’s health management industry connects upstream and downstream segments across the ecosystem, including physical examination institutions, insurance companies, smart health hardware manufacturers, and primary healthcare providers. Its core business areas encompass lifestyle management, disease-specific information management, optimization of health check-ups, and health data analytics.

According to data from Baidu Baike, there are currently over 3,000 professional health management companies in China, many of which have secured investments in the tens of millions of dollars. It is estimated that more than $1 billion in foreign capital has been invested in China’s health management industry.

The shift in healthcare from “treatment” to “prevention” has accelerated particularly rapidly in recent years. The traditional healthcare system is being disrupted by health management services, while also gradually turning its attention to and keeping pace with this emerging industry.

The entire health management industry is logically divided into three steps:

First, the collection and monitoring of health information, with specific data derived from physical examinations, point-of-care testing, and wearable device records, involving entities such as medical examination institutions, medical equipment manufacturers, and smart hardware producers;

Second, health status assessment: utilizing collected physical data to assess disease risk and predict the progression of health conditions, thereby providing alerts to users;

Third, health intervention management: Develop an "Action Guide" for health management based on the aforementioned analytical results, and urge and guide users in their subsequent lifestyle modifications.

However, the current situation in China is that there are still many deficiencies in the implementation of health status assessment and health intervention management. In this regard, health management companies play a complementary role in these latter two steps.

Kong Fei, CEO of the mobile health management company Miao Jiankang, believes that a major issue in the current state of health management in China is “education without management.” People are often exposed only to popularized health knowledge or have access merely to physical examination data, lacking detailed analysis and long-term encouragement for healthy behaviors.

At this point, a systematic approach to health management becomes critically important. Analyzing disease risk based on data requires robust data analytics capabilities and precise knowledge of diseases; however, the ultimate focus remains on implementation, as motivating users to overcome inertia and adopt lifestyle changes is no easy task.

To address these challenges, Miao Health’s solution involves fully integrating diverse health data, adopting a more quantitative and visual design approach, and implementing sophisticated incentive mechanisms. First, it collects multi-dimensional personal health data from over 300 smart hardware devices across 16 categories. Next, it employs proprietary algorithms to assess users’ lifestyles and health status, quantifying them into an intuitive “M-Score.” Finally, leveraging behavioral insights, it boosts user engagement through gamification, prevents inertia with phased micro-tasks, and provides monetary rewards to high-performing users.

However, in terms of health data integration and the assessment of individual health status, the industry still has a long way to go, as there is an enduring demand for richer, more precise, and more effective solutions. Reportedly, a significant portion of Miao Health’s recently completed RMB 250 million financing round will be invested in data collection and processing, including expanding access to smart hardware data and refining the M-Value algorithm.

The highly popular “P4 Medicine” concept—predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory—is becoming increasingly feasible with the involvement of big data.

The health management industry is becoming mainstream in preventive medicine due to its focus on prevention and wellness, as well as its characteristic of personalized management. With the development of the internet, big data is emerging in large volumes from personal medical records, POCT devices, various smart health devices, and mobile apps. Given the massive volume of healthcare data in China, if properly analyzed, the insights derived could significantly control the occurrence of diseases.

According to reports, Israel’s promotion of point-of-care testing-enabled smart communities and medical centers for disease prevention and control services has led to approximately 50% reductions in hospitalization rates, total healthcare expenditures, and length of hospital stays.

Often, what people lack is a certain “awareness”—the realization that certain behaviors are detrimental to health and the recognition that they are on the verge of developing specific diseases. Beyond individual lifestyle choices and disease management, there is another form of “awareness” that can significantly impact the industry.

In an exclusive interview with VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat), Kong Fei stated, “Technology can unearth deeper value within health data; this is the direction of future development, and Miao Jiankang will focus its efforts on big data algorithms and artificial intelligence.” New data processing technologies represent a new form of “awareness,” capable of revealing more hidden realities, and are therefore being increasingly widely adopted in the health management industry.

This “awareness” is also essential across all segments of the health management industry: The profitability of medical and health insurance relies on sound product design and effective cost containment, necessitating that health management companies provide big data on population health; findings from physical examination institutions undergo detailed data analysis and longitudinal historical comparisons through health management firms; and disease management, in particular, requires data-driven analytics to design scientifically rigorous care pathways.

In 1994, the monograph Health Medicine, published by China Science and Technology Press, dedicated a full chapter to “health management.”This is the earliest literature in China on the concept of health management.。

The 2003 SARS outbreak significantly raised public health awareness.A Significant Increase in Service Institutions Related to Health Management and Physical Examinations。

Since 2005, relevant societies and associations have successively applied to establish academic institutions related to health management, such as the Health Management Branch of the Chinese Medical Association and the Professional Committee on Health Risk Assessment and Control of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association.

October 2005,Health Manager Becomes One of the Fourth Batch of New Professions Announced by the Ministry of Labor。

In 2009, the Health Management Branch of the Chinese Medical Association and the *Chinese Journal of Health Management* formulated“Preliminary Chinese Expert Consensus on the Concept and Disciplinary System of Health Management”。

2013, “Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of the Health Service Industry”List health management and health promotion as one of the four core components of the health service industry, it was proposed that by 2020, a health service industry system covering the entire life cycle, with rich connotations and a rational structure, would be basically established, and a number of well-known brands and healthy service industry clusters with virtuous cycles would be created.

In 2014, the “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Commercial Health Insurance” proposedEncourage commercial insurance institutions to actively develop health insurance products related to health management services, providing services such as disease prevention, health examinations, health consultations, health maintenance, chronic disease management, and wellness care, to reduce health risks and minimize disease-related losses.

In 2016, the "Outline of the 'Healthy China 2030' Plan" proposed developing internet-based health services, encouraging the growth of health services such as medical examinations and consultations, and promoting the development of personalized health management services.Cultivate a Batch of Distinctive Health Management Service Industries, explore and promote the development of wearable devices, smart health electronic products, and mobile health application services.

In 2017, the "Medium- and Long-Term Plan for the Prevention and Control of Chronic Diseases in China (2017–2025)" proposed to use health promotion and health management as means to reduce the incidence, mortality, and disability from preventable chronic diseases, achievingShifting from a Disease-Centered Approach to a Health-Centered Approach。