Yitikang: Tapping into Grassroots Healthcare Demand through Telemedicine, Serving Over 5,000 Clinics in Short Time

“Primary care physicians are most concerned about three issues:First is revenue, second is risk, and third is brand. As the saying goes, where there is demand, there is a market. By leveraging expert resources from large tertiary hospitals, we can effectively help primary care clinics enhance their diagnostic and treatment capabilities, reduce medical risks, and boost their reputation. Meanwhile, building deep trust with primary care clinics through transactions can pave the way for more future business opportunities.“In an interview with VCBeat, Zhou Shuo, founder of Yitikang, shared his insights drawn from years of engagement with primary care physicians. According to the reporter, Yitikang has successfully connected with over 5,000 clinics in a short period and will further tap into the vast potential of the grassroots blue-ocean market comprising clinics and community healthcare.”

Amid favorable policies, upgrades in the medical and health industry, and shifting consumer demands, the primary healthcare market has been gradually expanding. As various players rush to stake their claims in this sector, Yitakang’s core team is also actively seeking business growth opportunities and has identified the company’s competitive advantages in this field.

When it comes to advantages, Zhou Po believes that Yitijkang'sPositioned at clinics and community medical institutions, primary care clinics (including private clinics, community health centers, and township health centers) are closer to patients and better aligned with their healthcare-seeking habits compared to most projects that focus on county-level medical institutions.Compared with other offerings such as online education and cloud-based HIS projects, Yitikang’s service products more closely address primary-care physicians’ essential need for risk mitigation and their fundamental desire to increase income, while also featuring continuity and transactional attributes.

After countless visits to grassroots medical institutions, Yitijiankang discovered thatThe most critical need for primary care clinics is their insufficient capacity to meet the rapid growth of the primary healthcare market.，They have rigid demands and tangible interests in enhancing their service capabilities and brand marketing.Meanwhile, this spontaneous downward shift in demand, driven by profit motives, possesses strong vitality—something that administrative policies struggle to achieve.

Taking common heart diseases as an example, primary care clinics, as the demand side, need to rapidly identify the type of disease and further develop prompt and accurate treatment or referral plans, rather than simply acquiring an electrocardiogram (ECG) machine with complex operations.. Some primary-care clinic physicians have even stated that, rather than risk treating conditions they are uncertain about, it is better not to treat them at all.。

This has motivated Yitikang to pursue its own transformation with the aim of enhancing the clinical service capabilities of primary-care physicians and helping them mitigate risks. Only by ensuring accurate diagnoses and effective treatments can physicians increase their income and build their professional reputation, while the reduction—and ultimately elimination—of misdiagnosis rates serves as a safeguard for the health of the vast population of patients in primary care settings.

Yitikang Remote Diagnosis and Treatment Service Platform initially entered the market by addressing the high-demand service of ECG consultations. It targeted the hidden pain points of grassroots "barefoot doctors" by connecting primary care clinics with cardiologists at major hospitals, thereby establishing an efficient, authoritative, and cost-effective professional service platform. This model extends specialists’ ECG interpretation capabilities and clinical expertise to the grassroots level, effectively enhancing primary care physicians’ diagnostic and treatment capacities. It significantly mitigates the medical risks faced by individual grassroots practitioners while simultaneously increasing their income, resulting in exceptionally high user stickiness.

Zhou Shuo, Founder of Yitikang

Currently,As a telemedicine service provider, Yitijiankang’s primary external offering is services, with the aim of building trust and channels through these services.Focusing on service, Yitikang has carved out a unique path by targeting highly marketized primary healthcare institutions such as grassroots clinics. It has established a complete closed-loop system encompassing software, hardware, expert consultation workflows, and customer service processes. Taking 12-lead remote electrocardiogram (ECG) as an example, Yitikang’s remote consultation services have served over 5,000 primary healthcare institutions, facilitating more than 140,000 effective consultations. This approach has not only achieved a closed-loop business model but also generated nearly RMB 10 million in revenue.

Yitijiankang's business model leverages the Internet to deliver essential medical service capabilities urgently needed by primary healthcare institutions.Aggregate highly market-oriented non-public medical institutions to establish a transaction-based grassroots healthcare market channel platform. While securing the entry point, systematically introduce more innovative products and diagnostic and treatment services. After building deep trust based on sustained transactions through refined operations, expand into additional value-added offerings, such as IVD products and consumables, insurance, and other products and services. Meanwhile, seek collaboration with more upstream and downstream enterprises to engage in more segments of patient-physician flow.

Yitikang has been deeply engaged in the healthcare industry for nine years, undergoing two business transformations: from innovative medical and health products to mobile healthcare solutions, and then to telemedicine services.。

The transition from developing innovative medical and health products to providing mobile healthcare solutions can be described as a passive transformation. Lacking true control over production resources and without cost advantages in its products, Yitijkang faced intense competition from numerous manufacturing enterprises. Consequently, the company had no choice but to upgrade its core competencies toward solution-based and scenario-specific offerings, seeking survival through differentiated competition.

The transition from providing output solutions to offering telemedicine services represents a proactive embrace of change! As a solution provider, Yitikang has served over 400 system integrators and medical institutions of varying sizes. After visiting a large number of clients, Yitikang seemed unable to identify a clear direction for further breakthroughs. At this juncture, during a visit to primary care physicians in Xingtai, Hebei Province, Yitikang identified telemedicine services as an excellent entry point. The feasibility of this approach was continuously validated through subsequent follow-up visits to numerous grassroots and town-level clinics.

Every transformation of a startup is no less than a new venture., they not only need to selectively divest legacy businesses but also expand into new ones. This is undoubtedly a rebirth, which demonstrates that Yitijkang boasts an exceptional team. Speaking of the team, Zhou Mo summarized the core of his team in one sentence: rational self-negation and persistent perseverance。

Zhou Po explained, “The former is because we frequently engage in intense discussions within the team regarding our business model and strategic direction; the latter reflects our exceptional perseverance and unity in pursuing the chosen path. Over the past nine years, the founding teammates who started this journey together have remained united in realizing their original vision—this stands as the best testament.”

Yitikang is currently undergoing a new round of financing. Investment institutions interested in primary healthcare projects may contact Yan Jingjing from the VCBeat Investment Department (WeChat ID: 13717606110).