Is the Internet Hospital the Ultimate Destination for Mobile Healthcare?

The recently concluded Second World Internet Conference has drawn significant attention, particularly due to the frequent “spotlight-stealing” appearances by major internet industry leaders. One lesser-known detail is that President Xi spent six full minutes at the WeDoctor Group’s booth during the “Light of the Internet” Expo. The highlight was the Wuzhen Internet Hospital, jointly established by WeDoctor Group and the Tongxiang Municipal Government.

In a previous article, the author explored the replicability of the Wuzhen Internet Hospital and engaged in discussions with readers. A common question raised is whether internet hospitals will replace physical hospitals. However, given the background behind the emergence of the Wuzhen Internet Hospital, internet hospitals may become one of the viable solutions for implementing mobile healthcare. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go, and several stages must inevitably be experienced.

First is online consultation.Mobile healthcare takes many forms, including online consultations, physician communities, and home medication delivery. However, from the patient’s perspective, online consultations remain the most practical and accessible option. Nevertheless, as user habits have yet to be fully established, many internet hospitals have failed to gain patient favor.

In fact, several well-known mobile health companies have already ventured into online consultations, such as the highly acclaimed Chunyu Doctor, Haodf Online with its strong user engagement, and WeDoctor Group, the pioneer of the Wuzhen Internet Hospital.

Chunyu Yisheng and Haodf Online employ relatively similar business models, both offering mobile app-based platforms for online patient–physician communication. They have achieved modest success in chronic disease management and the treatment of physiological disorders, ranging from user engagement to physician resources. However, their shortcomings are also evident: Chunyu Yisheng’s successive launch of offline clinics represents a concession to patients’ established healthcare-seeking habits, while Haodf Online still struggles with effective triage. In comparison, WeDoctor Group’s model appears more forward-looking.

First, WeDoctor Group (Guahao.com) has amassed a vast user base. According to officially released figures, Guahao.com has integrated with more than 1,900 key hospitals, covering over 70% of Grade A tertiary hospitals. To date, WeDoctor Group (Guahao.com) serves an average of more than 700,000 users daily, with over 200,000 appointment registrations per day. Indeed, as the first step in the medical consultation process, and given the current reality of crowded queues for offline registration, online appointment booking addresses a critical pain point for users. Not long ago, Baidu announced its entry into the online appointment registration market, underscoring the undeniable importance of appointment services for user acquisition.

Second is the emphasis on physician resources. Without physicians, online consultations would be impossible, which is why many mobile health companies are competing fiercely for physician resources. WeDoctor Group has focused its attention on expert teams; currently, nearly 5,000 expert teams have joined the platform, covering more than 1,200 disease specialties. The advantage of this approach lies in the substantial scale of these expert teams. For instance, a physician from a tertiary hospital can lead dozens of secondary-level or even primary-care physicians, thereby indirectly facilitating collaboration and communication among doctors. Furthermore, online consultations inevitably involve triage, and the quality of an online consultation platform is largely determined by its triage capabilities. WeDoctor’s self-service triage system connects to over 4,000 hospitals at the secondary level and above, giving it a clear competitive edge.

The advantage of conducting online consultations on these two foundations is that the large pool of online doctors reduces user wait times. In addition, WeDoctor Group has introduced a real-time response feature for online doctors, with over 300,000 online interactions and 200,000 phone consultations taking place on the WeDoctor platform daily.

The essence of internet hospitals remains leveraging the internet to address challenges in accessing medical care. It is foreseeable that an increasing number of players will intensify their efforts in online consultation. After all, whether for internet hospitals or current web-based hospitals, online consultation serves as the most direct entry point.

Secondly, how to integrate offline hospitals.Although multi-site practice for physicians and tiered diagnosis and treatment have been the subject of intense public debate, presidents of public hospitals have never issued any statements in support. Internet hospitals differ from online hospitals; the former involves triage and surgical treatment, whereas the latter merely leverages the concept of the internet.

Overall, some hospitals in Shanghai and Guangzhou are experimenting with internet-based transformation to facilitate tiered diagnosis and treatment as well as telemedicine. However, this path is far from easy for mobile health companies. Many such enterprises are striving to integrate with offline hospitals, but progress has been painfully slow due to regulatory restrictions. I recall a conversation with the CEO of a mobile health company, who bluntly remarked that he wished he could “reprogram” the mind of the local Health Bureau director. Some may ask: Isn’t the main entity behind Wuzhen Internet Hospital the Third People’s Hospital of Tongxiang?

It should be noted that although WeDoctor Group has established connections with many hospitals for appointment registration and gained recognition from some hospitals in tiered diagnosis and treatment, the primary reasons for the establishment of the Wuzhen Internet Hospital are as follows. First, the Tongxiang Municipal Government granted significant preferential policies. For instance, the Wuzhen Internet Hospital allows physicians to register under multi-site practice or free-practice models, with registration filed at the Tongxiang Health and Family Planning Commission. Furthermore, the implementation of features such as online prescriptions and online medical insurance payments was undoubtedly facilitated by favorable regulatory policies. Another key factor is that in July this year, WeDoctor Group signed an agreement with Tongxiang Third People’s Hospital to co-establish an internet hospital. The latter separated itself from the public hospital system and obtained autonomous pricing authority. Similarly, this initiative relied heavily on government support. From another perspective, while WeDoctor Group, having secured successive rounds of financing, may not face capital constraints, such advantages remain out of reach for many other mobile health entrepreneurs.

A positive sign is that Wuzhen Internet Hospital is applying for medical service qualifications; if successful, it would undoubtedly serve as a major boost to the mobile healthcare sector. In the short term, mobile healthcare cannot operate independently of traditional hospitals, and the lack of cooperation from hospital directors will become a bottleneck for the development of internet hospitals.

Finally, let’s discuss the technical challenges of internet hospitals.The advantage of many mobile health projects lies in their business models rather than in technology. This is attributable to a variety of factors, including funding constraints, talent shortages, and regulatory limitations. In some cases, even CEOs are skeptical about the future of mobile health, viewing it merely as an opportunity to capture a share of the market.

Regarding the specific technical implementation, this paper will not delve into it; however, the realization of internet hospitals inevitably requires addressing several fundamental technical challenges.

1. Triage. Taking the Wuzhen Internet Hospital as an example, there are currently two consultation models: immediate consultation and scheduled consultation. Both require patients to describe their symptoms before being assigned to physicians in the relevant specialties. Although WeDoctor Group has a professional triage team of 15,000 members and handles over 20,000 symptom-based appointments per day, internet hospitals bear direct medical liability. Therefore, the Wuzhen Internet Hospital primarily serves patients with prior medical histories, with initial outpatient diagnoses and examinations completed at other healthcare institutions. This demonstrates the internet hospital’s stringent requirements for triage accuracy.

2. Remote Consultation. One of the reasons the UK’s community hospital system has been successfully implemented is that these hospitals are already equipped with comprehensive physical examination capabilities. Internet hospitals enable patients to receive diagnosis and treatment without leaving home, which is another reason why current services are limited to patients with prior medical histories. For internet hospitals to operate independently, they must overcome a series of technical challenges: not only do they need to establish platforms for online communication between doctors and patients, but they also need to address the issue of conducting basic patient examinations. Therefore, collaboration with manufacturers of smart hardware and medical devices is likely inevitable.

Of course, internet hospitals face many technical challenges, which will not be elaborated on here. What the author wishes to convey is that mobile health players need to address the issues of precise triage and preliminary diagnosis in the early stages, while improving the efficiency and convenience of mobile healthcare. Relying solely on conceptual hype to attract investors is ultimately not a viable path.

Since 2013, mobile health has attracted a large number of entrepreneurs. However, this promising future is built upon healthcare reform. The government-led healthcare reform has not been optimistic, which inevitably dictates that mobile health should serve as a driver of healthcare reform rather than merely a beneficiary. Under this premise, internet hospitals represent an emerging trend.

▶This article is a contribution to VCBeat by the author Alter. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the position of VCBeat.
Alter, an internet observer, has long been dedicated to observing and researching industries such as smart hardware, O2O, and mobile phones. WeChat Official Account: spnews