Zhang Qunhua, President of Wuzhen Internet Hospital: Doctors Should Actively Embrace the Internet
On December 23, 2016, at the Beijing Star Base, VCBeat hosted the year’s largest healthcare event—the Future Healthcare Top 100 Forum. The forum brought together more than 500 government officials, hospital presidents, industry elites, and media representatives from government agencies, Grade A tertiary hospitals, listed companies, healthcare unicorns, and prominent media outlets. As a pioneer in the field of internet hospitals and the director of Wuzhen Internet Hospital—a national model for the construction and operation of internet hospitals—Zhang Qunhua attended the event and shared insights on the development journey of Wuzhen Internet Hospital over its first year since establishment.
Wuzhen Internet Hospital has been in operation for one year. Dean Zhang Qunhua shares his insights on the development of internet hospitals, focusing on three key aspects.
First, internet hospitals must be centered on hospitals with medical qualifications. Since internet hospitals engage not only in light consultations but also, more importantly, in the delivery of medical services, they must necessarily be anchored by hospitals holding proper medical credentials.
Second, the internet serves as the platform. Internet platforms form the operational foundation of internet hospitals, with internet technology playing a crucial role in hospital operations by bridging online and offline services. Built on this technological platform, Wuzhen Internet Hospital has the capacity to support simultaneous video consultations between 12,000 doctors and patients, thereby accumulating substantial operational data and video imaging records.
Third, internet hospitals serve as a system that supports primary care. By enabling the sharing of high-quality medical resources and big data, these resources can be extended to the grassroots level, thereby enhancing the professional competence of primary care physicians, fostering public trust in them, and facilitating the deployment of expert teams to the frontline.
From President of a Grade 3A Hospital to President of an Internet Hospital: For Zhang Qunhua, the Greatest Challenge Lies in the Integration of Two Distinct Organizational DNAs. Internet enterprises possess their own inherent DNA, as do traditional hospitals; merging these two distinct cultural and operational DNAs proves to be the most difficult task.
From the perspective of hospital management, medical safety is a common priority for both tertiary hospitals and internet hospitals. The core of internet healthcare is medicine itself, and within its medical attributes, safety is paramount. Previously, when President Zhang Qunhua was engaged in management at a tertiary hospital, his first initiative upon joining Wuzhen Internet Hospital was to establish a Medical Affairs Center. The director of this center is an experienced clinician, and comprehensive medical standards and practice management protocols have been formulated. These cover online prescribing, online consultations, patient-physician interactions, and complaint handling, among other areas. The formulation of these policies is largely similar to that in traditional hospitals; without such regulatory frameworks, medical disputes would be highly likely to arise.
The key distinction lies in the "internet DNA" inherent to internet hospitals. For instance, enabling patients with specific symptoms to identify and consult the appropriate specialists through precise appointment scheduling represents a core product feature of an internet hospital. The technology department must design rational implementation strategies based on established workflows. Such comprehensive product design is unattainable in traditional hospitals due to the absence of dedicated technical support teams. Upon joining, President Zhang first communicated patient and physician needs to the product design team, translated these requirements into product specifications, and ultimately developed the product with support from the technology team. Therefore, the most critical aspect of transitioning from traditional healthcare management to internet-based healthcare management is achieving the integration of these two distinct operational paradigms, thereby creating products that are genuinely user-friendly and widely accepted by the public.
When discussing his greatest takeaway from leaving the traditional healthcare system to embrace the internet, President Zhang Qunhua stated, “The medical community now has a strong passion for the internet, with many doctors actively engaging with it. Even Professor Peng Shuyou, a towering figure in China’s hepatobiliary surgery field and aged 85, is embracing the internet. As a physician formerly within the public healthcare system, my most significant observation since moving online is that doctors’ work efficiency has increased multifold.”
Dean Zhang Qunhua believes that doctors can leverage their fragmented time online to engage with a larger number of patients. Meanwhile, the internet can play a significantly positive role in advancing physicians’ academic disciplines. A doctor at Renji Hospital has been highly active on WeDoctor; one online consultation session attracted over 100 participants, which subsequently led to a substantial increase in patient visits at his outpatient clinic the following day. In another instance, Academician Liao Wanqing conducted a live webcast on WeDoctor, which received an enthusiastic response, drawing many dermatologists and patients as online viewers. Therefore, whether they are academicians, professors, or ordinary physicians, all seek public recognition through internet platforms. The internet not only helps doctors build their personal brands but also supports the development of their academic disciplines. Thus, even though they may have stepped away from the traditional institutional framework, the internet offers them a superior platform for professional growth.
In addition to seeing more patients, physicians are more eager to treat cases that align with their specialties. Data indicate that 60–70% of patients seen by specialists at Grade A tertiary hospitals do not have conditions matching the physicians’ areas of expertise. Dr. Zhang, a hospital director, cited an example: a neurologist specializing in motor neuron diseases found that 60–70% of his patients actually suffered from neurosis, i.e., psychological disorders, which fell outside his specialty. However, by leveraging internet-based platforms, he has now achieved a situation where 60–70% of his patients present with conditions directly within his area of specialization.
Meanwhile, connectivity through internet platforms enables information symmetry between doctors and patients. Many hospitals believe that online consultations divert patient flow; in reality, for tertiary Grade A hospitals, internet hospitals perform addition while subtraction is underway. To illustrate, a patient with low-lying rectal cancer underwent radical resection locally but required a colostomy. After connecting with Professor Xiang Jianbin at Shanghai Huashan Hospital via an internet platform, the patient received laparoscopic surgery, thereby avoiding the burdens associated with a stoma. The patient’s problem was resolved, and our physicians gained access to appropriately matched cases. Therefore, the internet will undoubtedly play a highly positive role in disciplinary development for physicians.
WeDoctor currently has 17 internet hospitals online, which fall into two models. One is the Wuzhen Internet Hospital model, where WeDoctor owns its own offline medical institutions. The Guangzhou Internet Hospital, launched by WeDoctor on January 7, 2017, and the upcoming Shenzhen Internet Hospital both follow this Wuzhen Internet Hospital model. The other model involves co-establishing internet hospitals with local Grade A tertiary hospitals. For example, the Ningxia Internet Hospital was co-established with the General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, the Guangxi Internet Hospital with the People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Gansu Internet Hospital with the Second People’s Hospital of Gansu Province, and the Sichuan Internet Hospital with the Fourth People’s Hospital of Sichuan Province. A common feature of both models is that the hospital serves as the primary entity.
In WeDoctor’s upcoming strategic layout, the focus will lean more toward co-building internet hospitals with local hospitals. Judging from current policies, “Internet + Healthcare” is becoming more open, and the use of online medical insurance will be realized. With tier-3 Grade-A hospitals as our partner institutions, doctors from these hospitals will soon be able to transition to multi-site practice via the internet. The integration of online medical insurance reimbursement with offline pharmacies can truly achieve a profitable closed loop for internet hospitals. Therefore, we anticipate that in 2017, internet hospitals will rapidly emerge as a new healthcare model.
WeDoctor has largely completed its layout across various provinces and municipalities. President Ren Jiashun of Xinqiao Hospital, affiliated with the Third Military Medical University, who attended the conference alongside us, also expressed his willingness to jointly establish an internet hospital. Hospital directors across the country now demonstrate a markedly different level of acceptance toward internet hospitals compared to the past. The development of internet hospitals is currently enjoying a unique convergence of favorable national policies, technological advancements, and viable business models—a stark contrast to the situation five years ago.
By establishing more than a dozen internet hospitals, WeDoctor has collaborated with various provinces and municipalities to build numerous databases, enabling access to valuable medical data. For instance, in partnership with Heilongjiang, Sichuan, and Jiangsu provinces, it has jointly developed databases and launched the Health Cloud Card service, which records individuals’ health profiles and medical histories. Users can manage their information via mobile phones, which not only eliminates storage limitations but also ensures compatibility with social security cards.
For big data, security is paramount. In addition to traditional key encryption, YunKa employs a specialized encryption system to protect patient information, with system-defined controls determining which doctors can access specific data. The statistical analysis of this big data is highly valuable for medical practices; behind the healthcare journey, the internet and big data are playing pivotal roles. Precision appointment scheduling avoids indiscriminate medical consultations, data sharing reduces redundant examinations, lifelong personal health records enable physicians to devise more effective treatment plans, and online-offline synergy makes healthcare more accessible and human-centric.
A year ago, the Internet Hospital launched in Wuzhen. One year later, the Wuzhen Internet Hospital model has been replicated in more than ten provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across China. In the future, the Wuzhen Internet Hospital will continue to bring more surprises to China’s internet healthcare industry.