China's First 4S Standard for General Practice Health Services Launched, Driving Service Standardization

On December 24–25, the inaugural China Family Health Forum and the Annual Conference of the Family Health Professional Committee on Health and Medical Big Data of the Chinese Health Information Association were held in Beijing. Wang Peian, Deputy Director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, leaders from eight departments including the Department of Primary Health Care and the Department of Planning and Information, as well as more than 1,000 health and family planning administrators from across China, attended the forum and witnessed the release of the 4S Standards for General Practice Health Services. Reportedly, this is the first industry standard in China concerning family health services, which will effectively enhance the service quality of the entire sector.

The 4S Standard for General Practice Health Services was developed by the Family Health Committee of the Health and Medical Big Data Branch of the Chinese Health Information Association and released by Professor He Chao from Zhejiang University School of Medicine, who serves as the Deputy Director of the committee. This standard draws on general practice concepts from Europe and the United States, combined with explorations in China’s general practice medical care. It encompasses four key aspects: Satisfaction, Standard, Support, and Sharing.

He Chao stated that “satisfaction” refers to adhering to the philosophy of whole-person, whole-process, and whole-family care, providing users with excellent health maintenance and medical healthcare services; “standards” means establishing a standardized service system in accordance with international standards such as JCI and HIMSS; “support” refers to integrating high-quality online and offline medical resources both domestically and internationally to support user health management and physicians’ clinical practice; and “sharing” denotes providing clinical, educational, and training support for community health and medical services.

On the day the 4S Standards for General Practice Health Services were released, WeDoctor launched its Membership Health Plan, offering membership services centered on responsible physician care to individual and corporate users. To establish a standardized, high-quality service assurance system, WeDoctor announced that it would be the first to adopt these standards and shared its experience in building WeDoctor General Practice Centers in accordance with them.

According to He Chao, WeDoctor’s first General Practice Center, launched on December 17, was established by a Chinese-American medical team in accordance with industry standards such as JCI and HIMSS, to provide users with proactive and satisfactory health management services. Meanwhile, leveraging the 7,200 expert teams connected through the WeDoctor platform, along with high-quality overseas resources such as Infinite MD and Yuesheng, the initiative adopts a model of “1 General Practice Academy + N General Practice Centers” to support X primary healthcare centers, thereby forming a (1+N)×X service network that delivers comprehensive support and services to institutional and family users.

Han Demin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out at the forum that obtaining health management services from professional institutions on a household basis helps achieve family health goals, and the core to achieving this goal lies in promoting general practice. The emergence of the 4S standards for general practice health services is conducive to providing continuous, accessible, and standardized health protection for Chinese families.

It is reported that WeDoctor will establish 100 general practice centers nationwide in China within the next three years, all compliant with the 4S standards. By leveraging the integration of internet technology and general practice medicine, WeDoctor aims to explore new organizational models for community medical services, enhance the quality of general practice care in China, and provide reliable family health protection accessible to residents at their doorstep.