Putian Healthcare Must Seize Five Strategic Directions or Face Obsolescence

After years of development, the Putian medical network has captured 80% of China’s private healthcare market share and possesses unique specialized medical resources, securing a critically important market position in the era of mobile health. In the face of the rapidly advancing tide of mobile health, the Putian medical network should leverage its three universal competitive advantages, recognize two strategic developmental disadvantages, and actively explore five strategic areas for growth.

“The Three Universal Competitive Advantages” of the Putian Medical System

1. Sound Layout of Physical Hospitals
Most Putian-affiliated medical groups have already secured independent hospital resources, with some enterprises achieving nationwide expansion and leading players initiating public listings. The development of mobile healthcare relies heavily on support from offline hospitals, including on-site verification, in-consultation examinations, and post-consultation guidance. A robust and extensive nationwide hospital network serves as a strong foundation for the future growth of mobile healthcare. In the face of the surging tide of mobile healthcare, the hospital resource advantages held by Putian-affiliated medical groups undoubtedly confer significant competitiveness.

2. Abundant Specialized Medical Resources
After years of building and operating physical hospitals and engaging in the private healthcare sector, most Putian-affiliated medical institutions have accumulated substantial professional medical resources. These invaluable assets include outstanding specialist physicians, nationally renowned medical experts, and partnerships with prominent national organizations such as the National Working Committee for the Care of the Next Generation. These resources form the foundation for the growth of Putian-affiliated healthcare and constitute a key advantage driving its rapid development.

3. Expertise in industry public relations and marketing
The Putian medical network emerged at the dawn of China’s private healthcare sector and rose to prominence with the liberalization of private hospitals. Its founders, mostly adept at networking and resource mobilization, have maintained extensive collaborations with medical associations and physician organizations. Their rich industry, media, and clinical expertise resources have provided a solid foundation for their subsequent development in mobile health.

Two Major Strategic Disadvantages of the Putian Medical Network

1. Lack of Internet Spirit
Most founders of the Putian medical network made their fortunes in the early days of private healthcare. They are well-versed in public relations with medical associations, the operation of physical hospitals, and mass-media advertising. However, they have limited knowledge, insufficient attention, and inadequate understanding of how to operate emerging mobile health business models, build specialized O2O (Online-to-Offline) medical communities, and promote new medical service brands integrated with WeChat groups. Most are still at the stage of designing hospital apps, investing in search engine marketing, conducting association-related PR, and advancing disease-specific public welfare projects. They lack a comprehensive and clear understanding and implementation strategy for deeper-level specialized platform planning and management, doctor-patient community building, and new media brand communication. These are precisely the critical components in the emerging mobile health O2O landscape and represent an urgent lesson that the Putian medical network needs to learn.

2. Weak organizational development
Putian-affiliated medical institutions are facing competitive pressure from public hospitals, general hospitals, and international-level hospitals, as well as patients’ distrust and fierce competition among their peers. Their current operations lean heavily toward traditional practices such as patient acquisition and public relations, with insufficient attention and emphasis placed on standardized hospital management and the efficient development of operational teams. In the emerging era of mobile health, Putian-affiliated medical institutions will need professional platform operation teams and robust, specialized human resource capabilities—a critical gap they must urgently address.

Five Major Strategic Development Directions of the Putian Medical Network

The tidal wave of mobile health is surging forward. For Putian-affiliated medical institutions, the choice is stark: advance or retreat. In the face of emerging mobile health models, they can leverage their core resources for growth and rely on their core competencies to formulate new development strategies. Different strategic directions naturally entail varying development potential and distinct requirements for the alignment between resources and capabilities.

Mobile healthcare is not to be feared. By leveraging its own core resources and capabilities and focusing on “five strategic directions,” the Putian medical network can shine with unique brilliance!

Strategic Direction 1: Focus on Specialty Medical Care to Build a “Specialty Mobile Healthcare Platform”

Development Potential: ★★★★★
Resource Capability Requirements: ★★★★★
From the perspective of the overall disease spectrum distribution within the Putian medical network, conditions are predominantly specialized ones, such as those in dentistry, ophthalmology, and orthopedics; accordingly, its resources and capabilities are primarily concentrated in these specialized areas of diagnosis and treatment. In terms of the alignment between existing resources and capabilities, focusing on specialized mobile healthcare is undoubtedly a suitable strategy. Furthermore, building platform-level, professional-grade medical service enterprises represents one of the key pathways for the Putian medical network to fully monetize its offline medical resources.

Building a “Specialty Mobile Health Platform” requires Putian-affiliated healthcare providers to place greater emphasis on enhancing platform influence, pursuing specialized operations, and cultivating branded physician-patient communities. Leveraging the strengths of their existing offline hospital resources, they should seize niche market opportunities within specialty platforms, capture traffic for specialty services, and establish dominance in specialty patient communities.

1) Build platform influence. The value of a specialized medical platform lies in connecting specialty patients with doctors and hospitals, enhancing the patient diagnosis and treatment experience through advanced mobile health technologies, providing full-cycle services spanning pre-diagnosis, during-diagnosis, and post-diagnosis stages, and delivering comprehensive health management encompassing prevention, healthcare, and rehabilitation. Platform-level services are undoubtedly of paramount importance.

2) Advance specialized operations, which requires Putian-affiliated medical institutions to place greater emphasis on recruiting internet healthcare management teams, intensify platform-based innovative promotion, and enhance the professional competence and skills of their operational teams.

3) Establish specialty-specific branded doctor-patient communities. This requires leveraging medical services provided by specialty platforms, doctor-patient interactions, and transactional data between doctors and patients. The Putian-affiliated healthcare sector must shift away from its traditional mindset of “one-off transactions” and “selling medications without follow-up,” instead treating patients as paramount, prioritizing experience as critically as life itself, strengthening quality control of medical services, promoting bidirectional service evaluations between doctors and patients, advancing the construction of a medical service credit system, and building a highly loyal and sticky community ecosystem on the platform.

Strategic Direction 2: Strengthening Efforts in the Health Services Sector to Build a “Patient Health Service Provider”
Development Potential: ★★★★
Resource Capability Requirements: ★★★★★
The essence of mobile healthcare lies in leveraging mobile technologies to enhance the convenience of medical consultation, diagnosis, and treatment for patients, enabling them to access higher-quality clinical services. However, clinical care represents only one component of patient health services; what patients truly seek is high-quality, comprehensive health guidance. This presents a significant opportunity for Putian-affiliated healthcare providers.

Patients’ health services encompass not only disease diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation, but also post-care health guidance and preventive medicine. The competitive advantage of the Putian-affiliated healthcare sector lies in its deep accumulation of specialized services: board-certified physicians can provide on-site clinical care, while professional pharmaceutical and medical device resources can be integrated and introduced. Furthermore, institutions across fitness and sports, entertainment, leisure activities, and senior living real estate can all revolve around “user-centric health services” to deliver more diversified and multi-dimensional offerings.

To become an outstanding “patient health service provider,” the Putian medical sector needs to undergo a transformation by placing greater emphasis on strategic partnerships, healthcare-related ancillary services, and the development of its own brand communities, thereby driving its growth through highly loyal and engaged fan bases. This can be achieved by focusing on the following three aspects:

1) Cultivate a mindset of “strategic cooperation,” actively engage with health service institutions, and achieve business interoperability, shared membership bases, and joint activities to collectively serve patient populations.
2) Moderately expand derivative medical services by extending from a current focus on diagnosis and treatment to areas such as disease prevention and health guidance, and by moderately engaging in health service recommendations and healthy lifestyle coaching rather than solely focusing on the sales of pharmaceuticals and medical devices, thereby driving patient consumption of health-related products and services through high-quality care.
3) Actively build an independent “brand fan community” by shifting from merely providing diagnosis and treatment plans to delivering a broader range of health-related content, fostering greater brand identification among patients, organizing necessary offline health support activities, enhancing patient engagement in various health initiatives, and establishing a diversified, professional, and self-sustaining brand fan community.

Strategic Direction 3: Focus on Core Disease Areas to Build an “Integrated Chronic Disease Service Provider”
Development Potential: ★★★★
Resource Capability Requirements: ★★★★
Offline hospitals affiliated with the Putian medical network excel in specialized diagnosis and treatment, having long demonstrated expertise in managing specialized, chronic, and complex conditions. With abundant resources in specialized medical care, and given that chronic diseases hold significant growth potential in the era of mobile health, the commercial value of core disease categories should not be underestimated. This presents a substantial business opportunity for the Putian medical network.

Putian-affiliated healthcare providers are focusing on core disease categories to build themselves into “integrated service providers for chronic diseases.” This requires a greater emphasis on simplification—concentrating on core disease areas and directing key resources toward strategic priorities.

1) Engage in self-reflection to identify strengths. Years of accumulation in the medical industry by the Putian-affiliated healthcare groups, along with long-term consolidation of medical resources, have established the momentum for innovative growth. By combining this foundation with an analysis of current industry competition and the development potential of specific disease categories, these institutions can gain deep insights into their core disease specialties and integrate various resources around them.

2) Enhance integrated services for chronic diseases. Chronic disease management serves as a strategic entry point, encompassing not only multiple stages such as disease diagnosis, pharmacological treatment, regular follow-up examinations, and ongoing monitoring, but also extending into various domains including contraindication guidance, lifestyle recommendations, and health education. Putian-affiliated healthcare providers need to strengthen their diagnosis and treatment capabilities for chronic diseases while integrating additional resources, such as medical-grade monitoring devices, health guidance courses, and expert interaction services. By centering on “chronic diseases,” they should consolidate diverse service resources and capabilities to deliver comprehensive, full-cycle integrated services covering the diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of chronic conditions.

3) Strengthening patient retention among those with chronic diseases. Patients with chronic conditions have inherent pathological characteristics and specific dietary restrictions, necessitating greater emphasis on services such as health guidance, monitoring of disease progression, and testing recommendations. This also requires more targeted delivery of health-related content and increased offline interactions, all of which are crucial for fostering patient loyalty. For Putian-affiliated healthcare providers to become leaders in the “integrated service ecosystem for chronic diseases,” it is essential to build robust physician-patient communities and peer support networks.

Strategic Direction 4: Accelerate Hospital Interconnectivity and Build a “Specialty Care O2O Enterprise”
Development Potential: ★★★
Resource Capability Requirements: ★★★★
For the Putian medical network, its greatest current asset lies in its offline hospital resources. Its hospital operations rely on patient visits and the sales of pharmaceuticals and medical devices to drive growth. The advent of mobile healthcare has made patient traffic a focal point of industry attention. To achieve long-term development, the Putian medical network requires both a stable, comprehensive online operational strategy and the advancement of specialized O2O (Online-to-Offline) healthcare services.

The O2O operations of Putian-affiliated specialized medical institutions must be rooted in their offline resource advantages, leverage the strengths of expert associations, and promote efficient online-offline synergy.

1) Formulate a comprehensive O2O strategy for specialized medical services. For Putian-affiliated healthcare providers, the issue is not an excess of planning but rather a significant shortfall; their plans lack professionalism, standardization, and executability. A professionally crafted medical O2O strategy can accelerate business development more effectively and efficiently.

2) Fully leverage the role of expert associations. The Putian-affiliated medical groups have accumulated substantial resources through years of operation, which can enhance patient trust and foster greater reliance on their services. The advancement of medical O2O operations requires the participation of expert consultations and the continuous organization of association activities, making the value of expert associations quite evident.

3) Promote efficient online-offline synergy. Online operations focus on attracting patient traffic and facilitating doctor-patient interaction, while offline hospitals prioritize strengthening diagnostic and treatment services, such as patient care and health examinations. Promotional activities are synchronized across both channels, and membership benefits are equally accessible. Patients can book specialist consultations online and receive or query test reports digitally. This efficient O2O (Online-to-Offline) collaboration enhances the convenience of medical care and fosters greater recognition of healthcare services.

Strategic Direction 5: Leverage Facility Advantages to Build a “Professional-Grade On-Site Testing Service Provider”
Growth Potential: ★★★
Resource Capability Requirements: ★★★★
The advent of the mobile health era, coupled with the proliferation of mobile health platforms and the advancement of specialty-specific medical O2O services, will inevitably spur the emergence of a range of professional point-of-care testing (POCT) service providers. Their significant value lies in promptly addressing the preliminary diagnostic needs of online patients, rapidly assessing pathological indicators, and synchronously updating patients’ medical data. This constitutes a critical link in the advancement of medical O2O and represents a key area for Putian-affiliated healthcare groups to focus their efforts.

Building a “professional-grade point-of-care testing service provider” requires Putian-affiliated medical institutions to streamline operations, strengthen technical expertise in laboratory medicine, optimize the integration of testing data, and promote interoperability and connectivity in diagnostic testing.

1) Focus on core laboratory testing advantages. Having operated private specialized hospitals for many years, the Putian medical group possesses ample resources, including diagnostic equipment and laboratory personnel tailored to specialized care. During implementation, it should first refine and concentrate on its existing strengths in laboratory testing by selecting test items that can be standardized, professionalized, and normalized. Subsequently, it should make substantial investments to strengthen these advantages. This approach will enable the Putian medical group to better leverage its value and accelerate its growth, thereby facilitating smoother integration into the era of mobile healthcare.

2) Optimize the integration of laboratory and diagnostic data. We have entered the DT (Data Technology) era of mobile healthcare, which requires substantial volumes of professional-grade, medical-grade examination, testing, and continuous monitoring data. This data constitutes a critical component of healthcare big data and is key to accelerating patient care processes. Putian-affiliated healthcare providers can leverage their capabilities in the collection, organization, analysis, and insight generation of diagnostic data to establish a presence in the “healthcare big data” sector, thereby driving leapfrog growth for their enterprises.

3) Promote the chain-based and specialized development of point-of-care testing (POCT) institutions. With the advancement of mobile healthcare and the implementation of tiered diagnosis and treatment in hospitals, the demand for POCT services from medical enterprises and mobile health platforms will continue to grow. Institutions with multi-regional distribution, specialized testing equipment, and efficient integration with medical cloud platforms will experience accelerated development. These trends present significant opportunities for Putian-affiliated medical groups and represent a strategic choice aligned with their strengths in specialized clinical care and diagnostic testing technologies.

After years of development, the Putian-affiliated medical sector has achieved initial accumulation in capital, technology, and reputation. In the face of the surging tide of mobile health, only by leveraging existing advantages and embracing mobile health can it achieve leapfrog growth. The “Five Strategic Directions” represent a sound strategic framework for the Putian-affiliated medical sector. To determine which strategic direction is most suitable, these institutions should make strategic trade-offs based on their core resources and core competencies.

The great era of mobile healthcare has arrived; the bright era of medical O2O is upon us. We hope that the Putian-affiliated medical groups will rise from the ashes, redouble their efforts, continue to lead the new development of China’s private healthcare sector, and steadily expand their rapidly growing commercial space. Let us observe the future of Putian-affiliated healthcare: who will become industry titans, and who will become acquisition targets? Success or failure—time will tell.

This article was submitted to VCBeat by the author, Shan Liang. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the position of VCBeat.

Author: Wang Pengfei, Partner, Project Director, and Chief E-commerce Planning Consultant at Shanghai Taohui Management Consulting Co., Ltd. He is a Certified Management Consultant of China, a Certified Economist of China, and a Senior Marketing Professional of China. He serves as a contributing expert and columnist for renowned domestic and international magazines and websites such as Business Review and Manager. He is also a contributing expert and author for well-known Chinese internet and e-commerce industry publications, including Tianxia Wangshang, Sellers, and Sales & Market. Additionally, he writes columns for multiple internet platforms, such as IResearch, Paidai.com, Meihua Network, and Global Brand Network. Personal email: wind53880@163.com; WeChat ID: wind53880. He posts one daily commentary on the internet industry and welcomes discussions and exchanges!