WeDoctor Founder Liao Jieyuan Redefines China's Internet Hospitals Amid New HKEX Filing

Liao Jieyuan, Founder of WeDoctor

Anyone familiar with Liao Jieyuan, the founder of WeDoctor, knows that he changes cities almost every day. As he rapidly switches between different cities, WeDoctor’s business is being quickly rolled out across China.

On October 16, the Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital, approved and guided by the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, was officially launched. Ten days after its launch, the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission signed a strategic cooperation agreement with WeDoctor. The two parties agreed to carry out comprehensive cooperation in areas such as internet hospital services, promotion of resident health cards, general practitioner training, and family doctor contracting, so as to accelerate the development of “Healthy Sichuan.”

Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital serves as both an accelerator for the "Healthy Sichuan" initiative and a key step in WeDoctor’s nationwide deployment of internet hospitals. To date, WeDoctor has launched internet hospitals in 17 provinces and municipalities across China, including Wuzhen, Gansu, Sichuan, Henan, and Heilongjiang.

What Is an Internet Hospital? How Should It Be Established? In response to these questions, Liao Jieyuan unveiled for the first time at a press conference on October 27 the “Three Conditions, Three Elements” framework underpinning the value proposition of internet hospitals, and disclosed that WeDoctor is rapidly advancing its “1+32” strategic initiative for internet hospital development.

Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital

Guided and approved by the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, the Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital, jointly established by WeDoctor and the Fourth People’s Hospital of Sichuan Province, is located in the East Campus of the Fourth People’s Hospital of Sichuan Province. It occupies an independent campus with a building area of nearly 20,000 square meters. Its blue-and-green logo and the domain name sc.h.gov.cn are highly conspicuous and visible from afar.

On the morning of October 27, Jin Xiaotao, Deputy Director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, proactively adjusted his schedule to visit Sichuan Weiyi Internet Hospital ahead of plan, following his opening address at the Second National “Internet + Healthcare” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference.

Opening a cloud-based health card takes just 15 seconds. By scanning a QR code, patients can sign up with a family doctor, and handle appointment registration, payment, and inquiry of test and examination results with a single click. They can also initiate real-time online consultations with experts across China, while electronic medical records are shared via the cloud and vital health signs are monitored in real time on the cloud. These innovative healthcare experiences greatly impressed Jin Xiaotao during his inspection of Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital.

“Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital is an integrated online and offline healthcare institution. By leveraging internet technologies, traditional hospitals can transcend temporal and spatial constraints, adopt a patient-centered approach, and connect more hospitals, physicians, and users,” said Liao Jieyuan. Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital not only provides offline services to local residents but also offers online support for family physician contracting, primary care physician training, and multidisciplinary consultations for complex and critical cases. It serves as a collaboration platform for physicians in Sichuan, an online diagnosis and treatment platform covering the entire province, and an online-offline interdisciplinary care platform. Furthermore, it functions as Sichuan Province’s health and medical data center, representing the latest model of WeDoctor’s integrated online-offline internet hospitals.

“Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital is an internet hospital, yet it features the functional layout and operational standards of a physical hospital, representing an innovative integration of internet-based and traditional healthcare services,” stated Jin Xiaotao. He explained that the decision to establish the Southwest Center of the National Family Health Service Platform at Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital was driven by its capability to organize medical resources via the internet, extend high-quality medical services to grassroots levels, and provide patients with integrated online and offline healthcare services.

At the signing ceremony, Shen Ji, Director of the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, fully affirmed the innovations introduced by Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital. He stated that, by leveraging internet technology, Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital has facilitated the decentralization of high-quality medical resources from across China to Sichuan Province, enabling residents to consult with renowned national specialists without leaving their homes, thereby significantly improving the accessibility of healthcare services. Looking ahead, the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission will collaborate with WeDoctor to integrate premium physician resources both within and outside the province, aiming to establish a new demonstration center for internet hospitals in Western China.

On October 27, at a media briefing held by Sichuan WeDoctor Internet Hospital, Liao Jieyuan unveiled to the press for the first time the “Three Elements and Three Keys” framework for building internet hospitals, and revealed that WeDoctor is rapidly implementing its “1+32” strategic plan for internet hospital development.

Currently, there are various terms for internet hospitals, such as online hospitals and cloud hospitals, with differing entities responsible for their establishment and varying scopes of service. Liao Jieyuan categorizes current internet hospitals into two types: one is hospital official websites enhanced with remote diagnosis and treatment capabilities; the other is internet hospitals that connect hospitals, doctors, and patients across China.

Liao Jieyuan summarized the three essential conditions for building an internet hospital.

First, it is essential to possess closed-loop service capabilities that integrate online and offline operations. This requirement stems from three key needs. The first is the legal and regulatory need. To provide online diagnosis and treatment services, internet healthcare providers must hold appropriate medical qualifications and be equipped with necessary facilities, hospital beds, equipment, and medical personnel in accordance with relevant regulations. The second is the clinical care need. Medical services encompass a wide range of activities, including diagnosis, examinations, treatment, and surgery. Certain services, such as initial consultations, diagnostic tests, and surgical procedures, must be conducted in person at physical healthcare facilities. The third is the patient need. Fragmented medical services that separate online and offline components fail to meet patients’ demands for convenience, efficiency, and affordability, making them unlikely to gain user acceptance.

Secondly, it is essential to have the capability for large-scale data connectivity. Internet hospitals must be open and shared platforms to achieve extensive, efficient, and precise connections and matching. The follow-up consultations, remote consultations, and referral services provided by internet hospitals rely on healthcare information, particularly the interoperability of clinical big data based on electronic medical records.

Furthermore, the system must be capable of supporting large-scale concurrent access by both physicians and patients. As an internet hospital platform connecting medical providers and patients across China, it must accommodate hundreds of millions of simultaneous online users and handle high-concurrency interactions, while also delivering multi-terminal application formats. The development of the IT infrastructure for internet hospitals requires substantial capital investment. For instance, Wuzhen Internet Hospital employs over 500 WeDoctor technical engineers, with cumulative investments in its entire IT platform exceeding RMB 270 million.

However, in addition to these prerequisites, for an internet hospital to operate effectively, it must also possess three other key elements: first, professional pharmaceutical management talent; second, the capability to sustain follow-up consultation relationships; and third, collaborative capacity between primary care physicians and specialist teams.

It is reported that WeDoctor has currently launched internet hospitals in 17 provinces and municipalities, including Wuzhen, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Jiangsu, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangxi, Gansu, Yunnan, Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Tianjin, Sichuan, Heilongjiang, Guizhou, and Shaanxi. Among the more than 30 internet hospitals covered in public media reports, WeDoctor accounts for half of the market.

“Are you worried that revealing the secrets might lead to imitation?” During the media briefing on the 27th, Liao Jieyuan, who was speaking with great enthusiasm, paused briefly upon hearing this question from a reporter and finally responded, “The path is bright and promising; I actually hope more people will join this significant endeavor that benefits both the nation and its citizens.”

For a long time, China’s internet healthcare practice has actually been characterized by the coexistence of two main approaches: one is the “Internet +” healthcare model led by internet companies, and the other is the “Healthcare +” internet model led by medical institutions.2These exploratory paths ran in parallel, continuously refined through mutual learning.

The “Internet +” healthcare model, led by internet companies, leverages technological advantages but lacks medical institution qualifications and resources. As a result, it has long remained confined to non-core areas of healthcare, unable to achieve a closed-loop healthcare service ecosystem. In contrast, the “Healthcare + Internet” model, led by medical institutions, benefits from hospital brands and medical resources but faces significant challenges in horizontal resource expansion and vertical industry integration, making it difficult to establish a closed-loop industry chain in the short term.

In 2016, as the capital market cooled, numerous internet healthcare companies either scaled back their operations or pivoted their business models. Internet hospitals were widely regarded as the optimal intersection of the internet and healthcare.

In Liao Jieyuan’s view, market-driven supply and demand can be matched online to complete transactions. However, healthcare is a typical supplier-dominated market; even if doctors and patients are matched online, patient needs remain unmet without available appointment slots, hospital beds, or physicians. Therefore, internet healthcare must return to, integrate with, and serve the core of medical practice to identify genuine breakthroughs. The ultimate form of internet healthcare is the internet hospital.

“From an IT platform to a healthcare platform”—this is how Liao Jieyuan succinctly summarizes WeDoctor’s six-year development journey. Currently, WeDoctor has launched internet hospitals in 10 provinces and municipalities, including Zhejiang, Sichuan, Henan, Gansu, and Heilongjiang. In the future, it plans to establish 100 offline general practice medical centers over the next three years, serving as carriers that integrate online healthcare with offline services.

WeDoctor’s network of one million primary care access points has already integrated over 10,000 pharmacies and community health service centers. WeDoctor will also invest RMB 5 billion to jointly establish specialty operation centers with 1,000 county- and city-level hospitals. Coupled with the nearly 2,000 hospitals and 220,000 physicians connected through WeDoctor’s appointment registration platform, WeDoctor’s comprehensive integration into the healthcare ecosystem is becoming increasingly clear.

Some scholars have pointed out that the next phase of competition in internet healthcare will be a battle of elevated dimensions—a contest of capital, talent, and, above all, resource orchestration. Judging by the current state of the industry, only those with substantial financial reserves, strong capabilities in organizing medical resources, and the ability to integrate online and offline services are likely to secure entry into the market. For internet healthcare companies still struggling through the capital winter, opportunities to enter are increasingly scarce.

However, after the capital winter passes, the internet healthcare industry may see the emergence of true giants, much like the rise of BAT following the internet wars at the turn of the century. These leaders will leverage internet technologies to restructure resources, achieve disruptive innovation, and address the public’s challenges in accessing medical care.