YaoGeili Launches Innovative Drug Instructions with Comics and Videos to Enhance Medication Safety

What Should You Do If You Can’t Understand the Package Insert? For most users, the text in medication package inserts is obscure and difficult to comprehend. To address this issue, Yaogeli held the “Making Medication More Empowering” 2016 Product 2.0 Launch Event on the afternoon of January 13, 2016, unveiling the “Comic-Style Medication Package Insert” and the “One-Minute Video Package Insert.” The comic-style insert presents key precautions for a medication in a concise manner that is easily understood by ordinary patients. The one-minute video insert conveys certain precautions that are inconvenient to express through text or illustrations via video format.

Additionally, Yaogeili 2.0 has launched a drug interaction system containing tens of thousands of conflict records. The new version of Yaogeili’s product provides online alerts for medication risks based on built-in algorithms. Through these innovations, it truly minimizes medication safety risks for users.

To sustain the growth of China’s pharmaceutical market, three major barriers must be dismantled

At this press conference, Ren Bin, CEO of Yaogeili, discussed the financing trends and current status of mobile healthcare. He stated that China’s retail pharmacy sector is still in a growth phase, with significant opportunities for substantial increases in market capitalization. Currently, there is a stark contrast between the market valuations of Chinese and American pharmacies: the largest pharmacy chain in China has a market cap of approximately RMB 15 billion, whereas in the United States, it stands at around RMB 650 billion. Although this gap is considerable, China’s population is several times larger than that of the U.S., making its prospects highly promising. In terms of drug retail channels, 80% of pharmaceuticals in China are sold through hospitals, while only 30% are dispensed via pharmacies (note: figures may overlap due to different statistical scopes). Conversely, the U.S. market shows the opposite pattern, with 80% of sales occurring in pharmacies and just 20% in hospitals. For further development of the domestic market, three major barriers must be overcome.The first barrier is the lack of separation between medical services and pharmaceutical sales; the second barrier is that electronic prescriptions have not been fully liberalized; the third barrier is pharmacy reimbursement under medical insurance.In 2015, the Chinese government consecutively introduced a series of favorable policies to advance healthcare system reform. First, the separation of prescribing from dispensing has expanded from pilot programs to broader implementation, achieving substantive progress across 31 provinces and 100 cities. Second, the first online prescription was issued at this year’s Wuzhen World Internet Conference. Meanwhile, the regulatory framework for standalone pharmacies has shifted from an approval-based system to a registration-based system, facilitating the rapid widespread adoption of medical insurance coverage for pharmacies.

According to the 2014 survey conducted by the China Food and Drug Administration, 2.5 million people in China suffer health damage annually due to medication errors, resulting in 200,000 deaths—a figure twice that of traffic accident fatalities in the country. In light of this, Ren Bin and his team began to investigate the issue and explore innovative solutions that combine internet-based technologies with the expertise of professional pharmacists. They identified that medication errors can be categorized into two types: unary problems and binary problems. Unary problems are related to a single factor, such as incorrect dosage administration or prescribing medication that does not match the patient’s condition. Binary problems involve interactions among two or more factors, including conflicts between the medication and the patient’s demographic characteristics, contraindications with concurrently administered drugs, and historical adverse reactions to specific drug ingredients. Without awareness of these contraindications, most users risk suffering severe health consequences.

To address the aforementioned issues, Yaogeili 2.0 features the following innovations.

1、Launched China’s First Comic and Video Drug Package Inserts

During the first year of its launch, Yaogeli conducted extensive user research. In this digital age, individuals face high barriers to accepting and reading drug package inserts. According to a survey by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, only 15% of residents can correctly read drug package inserts. Incorrect interpretation has directly led to health complications in many individuals. In response, Yaogeli’s online pharmacists and product team distilled key information from domestic drug package inserts, summarizing critical points. After 98 days of development, they created 257 easy-to-read comic-style instructions. Furthermore, addressing the reluctance of 80% of Chinese residents to discuss private symptoms when purchasing medications, Yaogeli’s new product features video demonstrations for these instructions. The company produced nearly 153 “one-minute video instructions” demonstrating proper medication administration. Upon purchase, Yaogeli pushes a professional compilation of instructions tailored to the user’s purchased medications, aiming to ensure simple, professional, and correct medication use.

2、R&D Drug Conflict System

In 2014, there were 450,000 retail pharmacies in China, and by 2015, the country had only 180,000 licensed pharmacists. This means that most pharmacies are actually serving customers without staff who hold professional qualifications. The consequence of this gap is that the knowledge possessed by most pharmacy clerks is not significantly different from what users can find by searching on Baidu.

Zhao Shenghai, Product Manager at Yaogeli, believes that in the process of users purchasing medications on their own, guiding them to “choose the right medication” and “use it correctly” is what internet-based pharmaceutical products need to prioritize.

Yaogeli records the different life stages of users, such as preconception, pregnancy, and lactation. When purchasing medications, the drug interaction system checks the characteristics of the drugs against the user’s current life stage. If any risks are identified, a warning prompt will appear to alert the user. For example, Zhenghonghua Oil is not suitable for women who are trying to conceive. It is reported that in the new version of Yaogeli, the product backend has incorporated over 10,000 data entries on drug ingredient interactions, enabling real-time screening and alerts for user orders.

3- Launch of Electronic Medication History Feature

Modern medicine strives to establish Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for every individual. With an EHR, when a patient falls ill, physicians can clearly review their medical history, including prior diagnoses, medications taken, family genetic history, and allergy records. Based on this information, doctors can devise more targeted, safer, and effective treatment plans.

An Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a complete, comprehensive, and continuous record. Such data cannot be fully captured by any single company; rather, it requires collaborative efforts from multiple stakeholders, including tertiary hospitals, community health centers, physical examination institutions, and pharmacies. If the EHR is likened to an ocean of medical data from which physicians can extract valuable insights, then the “Electronic Medication History” serves as a major river flowing into that ocean.

YaoGeili will draw on advanced international practices to comprehensively record users’ medication purchase data, consultation records, allergy histories, and other relevant information, thereby establishing a personalized “electronic medication history” for each user. Every life deserves respect, and any information pertaining to life merits documentation.

4, Released in 2016“Geili Initiative”

At this press conference, Tong Jing, COO of Yaogivei, introduced: “The social status of pharmacists in the United States differs significantly from that in China. Pharmacists, physicians, and nurses should be regarded as equal roles within the healthcare system. So, where do the pain points lie in China’s pharmaceutical industry? What is the proper role definition for pharmacists? Are they merely revenue and retail centers for hospitals or pharmacies? Clearly not. Then, what is the ‘unspeakable secret’ in the pharmaceutical industry? Pharmaceutical companies focused on R&D innovation and quality improvement often face high costs and low profits, with their profit margins severely squeezed. The ‘unspeakable secret’ of bad money driving out good has become a vicious cycle. Therefore, the mission for the internet and Yaogivei is to achieve information transparency and symmetry, create value with outstanding pharmaceutical brands, and reshape users’ values regarding medication. By integrating pharmacists with internet-based products, we aim to deliver service experiences that exceed user expectations.”

Tong Jing, COO of Yaogeli, stated that the one-minute comic-style medication instructions developed by Yaogeli’s pharmaceutical care and product team are merely a beginning, bringing forward by 20 years certain aspects of overseas pharmaceutical care services to the Chinese market. With over 1,200 product categories already available on the Yaogeli platform, the company’s “Geili Initiative” will invite 50 professional pharmaceutical brands to join the “2016 Geili Initiative” creative team. Together, they will develop and launch comic and video-based medication instructions for all drug categories, aiming to drive out inferior products with high-quality medicines, thereby fulfilling their social responsibility and promoting advancements in the traditional pharmaceutical care industry.

It is reported that on January 6, 2015, Yaogiveili officially launched its one-hour medicine delivery service. Since its launch, Yaogiveili has accumulated 1 million registered users and 300,000 trial users, with one-quarter of these users having used the service an average of three times or more. Currently, Yaogiveili operates in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, and plans to expand to 10–20 additional cities this year.