Behind Baidu's Sale of Patient Forums: The Future of Accessing Basic Internet-Based Healthcare Services

Baidu’s sale of its “Patient Community” forums is not the first time the company has drawn public attention over healthcare-related issues. Previously, Baidu was involved in another controversy concerning medical institutions. In April 2015, Putian-based healthcare providers—once a significant source of Baidu’s advertising revenue—announced the termination of their paid search promotion partnerships with Baidu. This move had substantial implications for both parties and brought the so-called “Putian-style” medical practices into the public spotlight.



The most critical reason for the collaboration between the Putian-affiliated hospital network and Baidu is that Baidu’s business model is unequivocally centered on “traffic allocation.” What has drawn the harshest criticism against Baidu is its use of paid ranking to direct traffic to unscrupulous vendors, quacks, fraudsters, as well as irregular private hospitals and those affiliated with the Putian network.

The rapid development of the Internet has not only maximized the sharing of medical resources but also provided a breeding ground for unregulated medical institutions to disseminate aggressive advertising. The Baidu “Patient Bar” scandal highlights that, in this era of apparent information explosion, the proliferation of basic medical knowledge online is accompanied by growing doubts about its authenticity.

To the general public, search engines often appear to be all-powerful. When falling ill, many people’s first instinct is to search on platforms like Baidu and then question their doctors based on the results. However, due to a lack of basic health literacy, patients are easily misled online, where medical advertisements are pervasive.

Nowadays, “turning to Baidu when in need” has become a habit in everyday life. It is fair to say that search engines such as Baidu, Sogou, and 360 have made our lives more convenient. Thanks to these tools, daily tasks have become easier. However, not everything can be accomplished through online searches. While it works well for looking up information on books, products, or public figures, one should not fully rely on search results when it comes to practical life tips or medical knowledge.

The internet is convenient, but it also harbors many hidden dangers. In particular, hearsay-based life hacks, medical information, and folk remedies can be infinitely harmful. In an online world saturated with pseudoscientific medical knowledge and false advertising, where should the general public turn for basic medical assistance via the internet?

Can Mobile Health Be an Effective Channel for the Public to Access Basic Medical Services via the Internet?

The sale of the Baidu Hemophilia Bar has led the public to recognize the heavy monetization pressure borne by Baidu Tieba, while also highlighting the platform’s critical significance for a vast number of patients. Meanwhile, the controversy sparked by Tieba’s commercialization underscores the sluggish development of PC-based medical services.

During the PC internet era, health information websites, Q&A communities, online forums, and search engines were the primary tools for patients seeking medical resources and assistance. However, their business models and the inability to connect with physical medical services constituted insurmountable bottlenecks to their development.

In contrast, the mobile health sector, which has emerged in recent years, is characterized by its ability to connect multiple stakeholders in the healthcare industry and integrate with physical medical services. While PC-based internet healthcare has encountered development bottlenecks, user demand has continued to grow. Against this backdrop, mobile health, with its greater model innovation and breakthroughs, holds significantly more promise for future growth.



The rapid development of the Internet has enabled a qualitative leap in medical services. Technologies such as online consultations with hospital specialists and licensed physicians, online appointment registration, electronic health record creation, remote diagnosis, and remote monitoring have improved diagnostic and treatment efficiency, while a mobile healthcare service model is gradually taking shape. Although mobile healthcare currently does not offer a disruptive patient experience, it is moving closer to the physical healthcare industry compared to previous PC-based online healthcare, thereby opening up new possibilities for expanded services. So, can mobile healthcare serve as an effective channel for the general public to access accurate, scientific health information and even seek medical assistance online? The author addresses this question by conducting a comprehensive analysis of mobile healthcare apps in 2015, as outlined in the “Sootoo Research Institute: 2015 Mobile Healthcare Market Analysis Report.”

Currently, the primary function of mobile healthcare O2O apps on the market is to facilitate online connectivity between patients and doctors, patients and hospitals, and users and nursing staff. These platforms enable users to: conduct online consultations followed by offline medication purchases and treatment; schedule appointments online and receive care at hospitals offline; and book health services online for offline delivery. By shifting certain tasks to online channels, these apps significantly enhance service efficiency and shorten service cycles.

Chunyu Doctor: Focusing on “self-diagnosis + light consultation” to meet the public’s basic daily health needs

Chunyu Doctor adopts a “self-check + light consultation” model. Chunyu’s “symptom self-check” service leverages structured data to provide users with diagnostic and treatment recommendations. If self-diagnosis fails to meet user needs, users can opt for online consultations.

Furthermore, Chunyu Doctor, which spans the entire medical value chain by building a mobile consultation platform, positions itself as a technology and service provider. Leveraging its mobile app, it has established a mobile consultation platform where it conducts data collection, data interpretation, and data-driven intervention activities related to diagnostic and treatment information.

When users have questions about routine basic health issues, they turn to the "self-check" service to address their superficial needs. Chunyu has long been striving to leverage its extensive customer base and data accumulation to foster collaborations with pharmacies, physicians, wearable device manufacturers, insurance companies, and health management organizations.

Since its inception, Chunyu Yisheng has evolved from offering online consultations to providing private physician services. To address concerns regarding the lack of guaranteed safety and scientific rigor in medical care, as well as to resolve the issue of incomplete user experience, the company has launched enhanced private physician services and established offline clinics.

Wei Wenzhen: Ingeniously Building a Closed-Loop O2O Healthcare Management Model to Optimize Services and Processes

Compared with more than 3,000 mobile health apps currently on the market, WeiWenzhen’s most significant distinction lies in its breakthrough beyond single-function models such as appointment scheduling, lightweight consultations, and medical consortium platforms. It has established a comprehensive health management service platform that integrates multiple pre-, intra-, and post-consultation processes, including online consultations, appointment scheduling, mobile payments, electronic reports, doctor–patient interaction, and health management. By providing personalized health solutions tailored to users’ diverse needs and usage habits, the platform comprehensively enhances patient experience across all stages of medical care and improves healthcare efficiency. Meanwhile, it expands the internet-based service capabilities of existing hospitals and other healthcare institutions, offering robust, integrated support for the extension of their digital service channels.

Unlike Chunyu Yisheng’s offline private doctor services, “Wei Wenzhen” adopts a “private family doctor” model, in which professional general practitioners provide continuous, customized health services tailored to users’ specific conditions. Wei Wenzhen’s O2O health management model enables self-diagnosis through Wei Wenzhen terminal kiosks located in pharmacies, triage via pre-hospital video consultations with Wei Wenzhen physicians, and seamless hospital integration during care by leveraging cloud-based hospital systems for appointment scheduling, registration, payment, and access to examination reports. Post-discharge, the platform integrates FT-Health smart wearable devices and private doctors to connect the pre-consultation, in-consultation, and post-consultation phases, thereby establishing a closed-loop health management platform.

Meanwhile, as Wei Wenzhen offers 24-hour voice and video health consultation services, users can engage in face-to-face communication with backend physicians. This helps alleviate users’ sense of insecurity regarding online medical consultations by clarifying who is providing them with medical services and answering their questions.

Dingxiangyuan: Laying Out Offline Clinics, A Different Approach

Unlike Chunyu, which opted for an asset-light strategy by affiliating with existing physical clinics, DXY has pursued an asset-heavy approach by establishing its own brick-and-mortar clinics. This entails a time-consuming and labor-intensive process involving regulatory approvals, site leasing, procurement of medical equipment, and physician recruitment. However, it is important to recognize that DXY’s self-operated clinic model allows for end-to-end control over affiliation, equipment procurement, and physician hiring, thereby enabling more effective assurance of medical quality and safety.

The first clinic opened by DXY currently features departments including pediatrics, general practice, internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, and emergency care, primarily focusing on chronic diseases, common conditions, frequently occurring illnesses, and geriatric disorders. To ensure the quality and safety standards inherent in traditional healthcare systems, the clinic’s medical and nursing staff are predominantly senior physicians and nurses from tertiary Grade A hospitals, supported by a comprehensive lifelong training program designed specifically for them.

Meanwhile, DXY actively collaborates with wearable devices cleared as FDA Class II medical devices, enabling third-party providers such as Dian Diagnostics and Jinyu to remotely conduct physiological and biochemical testing as well as electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring. On another front, DXY has deeply developed its WeChat backend platform. In addition to providing essential health education content, the platform supports pre-consultation appointment scheduling, in-consultation payment, and post-consultation follow-ups via WeChat, while also offering practical information and tools such as health Q&A and medication lookup services.

Ask a Doctor Instantly: Full-Service Public Platform

“Quick Doctor Consultation” has established three major platforms—online medical consultation, family doctor services, and pharmaceutical e-commerce—primarily by providing online answers to user inquiries, offering family doctor-based health management, and identifying users’ medication purchase needs.

As its name suggests, with “Quick Doctor Consultation,” users select a disease category to enter the platform and sequentially input their questions and detailed descriptions. Photos of symptoms and medical test reports can be uploaded using the smartphone’s camera function, enabling physicians to make more accurate and targeted diagnoses and provide specific answers. Receiving professional guidance through “Quick Doctor Consultation” plays a significant role in alleviating patients’ fear and helplessness and guiding them to seek appropriate medical care. In addition, family doctors can provide comprehensive and effective personalized healthcare guidance to users. Currently, family doctor services are offered through two models: paid consultations and free charitable clinics, with the paid telephone consultation model—featuring one-on-one calls between patients and doctors—being the more common approach. Moving forward, “Quick Doctor Consultation” will further explore user needs related to medical visits and medication purchases, thereby promoting the development of the internet-based pharmaceutical industry chain.

Currently, mobile health platforms represented by “Chunyu Doctor,” “Wei Wenzhen,” and “Dingxiang Yuan” play a crucial role in health consultation, improving prognosis, providing prevention and health education, controlling medical costs, enhancing doctor-patient interactions, and increasing patient autonomy. Furthermore, the mobile health market is continuously deepening its penetration into vertical niche segments. Examples include private physician services offering specialized care for pregnancy and newborns, such as the private physician service provided by “Guiyi Cloud,” and health apps delivering long-term care for elderly patients with diabetes, such as “Tang Yisheng.”



As shown in the figure above, mobile health services have covered, to varying degrees, the functionalities that patients seeking online consultations desire, including access to personal health data, family physician care, remote consultations, health counseling, and health reminders.

Currently, the Internet has permeated every aspect of people’s work and daily lives. It is projected that by 2020, broadband networks in China will basically cover all administrative villages, thereby bridging the “last mile” of network infrastructure. This implies that for remote areas lacking adequate medical resources, online medical consultations will become a crucial channel for accessing external information. Consequently, the mobile healthcare industry will see further popularization and development, actively aggregating various resources and optimizing their allocation through Internet-based business models. This trend is expected to foster the formation of an “Internet+” health industry cluster, serving as a vital avenue and breakthrough point for users seeking health-related assistance.

This article was submitted to VCBeat by the author, Qiu Xue, who is currently a freelancer specializing in public opinion analysis and copyediting. Contact information: Phone: 13678189178; Email: moutingkun@sina.cn