SunnyMum: Pioneering an O+O Model for Pediatric and Maternal Healthcare

Xu Pengfei holds three roles: he is the Chief Physician of the Department of Pediatrics at China-Japan Friendship Hospital, one of the founders of the Huizhong Medical Alliance Pediatricians Association, and a partner at Beijing Sunshine Tianyu Technology Co., Ltd.

In his capacity as a physician, he attended to nearly 20 patients in a single afternoon at the Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic of the Beijing Changping Maternal and Child Health Hospital.

Throughout his interactions with every patient, Xu Pengfei always wears a smile. In his own words, “I am now treating conditions that fall squarely within my area of expertise, allowing me to avoid spending time on areas where I am less proficient, which brings me great satisfaction.” Dr. Xu specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric respiratory diseases and allergic disorders. At the Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic, all of his patients are those whose conditions align with his specialized expertise.

For a medical specialist, treating the conditions they are most adept at managing and saving the patients they are best equipped to help is a source of genuine fulfillment. At Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic, there are many physicians like Dr. Xu Pengfei who find such joy in their work.

The Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic is the offline clinical facility of the “Sunshine Women and Children’s APP,” a product under Beijing Sunshine Tianyu Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Sunshine Tianyu”), and also serves as the designated site for the Huizhong Medical Alliance Pediatric Physicians’ Alliance.

Sunshine Tianyu has partnered with the Huizhong Medical Alliance Pediatric Physicians Alliance to create an “O+O” model that integrates online and offline services, delivering higher-quality care to women and pediatric patients.

Pediatrics Cannot Bypass Offline Clinics

In recent years, the age distribution of China’s population has undergone structural changes, with the majority concentrated in the 20–34 age group, which represents the optimal age for marriage and childbearing. Furthermore, based on the distribution of newborns in China, the country is poised to experience its fourth baby boom over the next five years. The annual number of newborns is projected to rise to 20 million, and the child population is expected to reach 267 million.

The number of newborns is gradually increasing, leading to a corresponding rise in the number of pediatric patients. This trend underscores the vast potential market for products in the women’s and children’s health sector. Consequently, a large number of such products have emerged, with a significant proportion relying on light consultation models or being entirely online-based.

Unlike most products, Jin Liang, CEO of Sunshine Tianyu, believes that pediatrics is a field where offline services cannot be bypassed. “In the maternal and child health sector, there is a strong demand for offline diagnosis and treatment.”

According to the survey results from the Ministry of Health, the two-week prevalence rate among children aged 0–4 years is as high as 174.2‰, while that among children aged 5–14 years reaches 76.9‰. Pediatric outpatient visits account for 9% of total hospital outpatient visits, with the volume showing a year-on-year upward trend.

However, pediatric medical resources are in short supply. In China, children account for approximately one-fifth of the total population, yet there are only 68 specialized children’s hospitals, representing just 0.42% of all medical institutions nationwide; pediatric beds number 258,000, accounting for 6.4% of all hospital beds in the country.

Furthermore, primary-care hospitals face severe challenges in their obstetrics and pediatrics departments, including slow improvement in professional expertise, difficulty in recruiting renowned specialists, low brand influence, and low patient volumes.

In this broader context, Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Healthcare has opted to start with offline operations by partnering with hospitals to establish its own “Sunshine Women’s and Children’s” clinics within hospital facilities. Jin Liang told VCBeat that independently operating clinics is capital-intensive, entailing high costs on one hand and representing a waste of existing resources on the other. “Collaborating with hospitals allows us to fully utilize their underused resources, thereby increasing patient volume and revenue for the hospitals. At the same time, it enables patients to access care closer to home, reducing their healthcare expenses and providing greater convenience.”

In August 2014, the Sunshine Women and Children mobile app was officially launched. Currently, the “Sunshine Women and Children” team comprises over 60 members and has secured RMB 18 million in Series A financing. It is reported that its registered user base has exceeded 9 million.

In 2015, the WeChat platform of Sunshine Women and Children’s Hospital was officially launched. In May of the same year, the Sunshine Tianyu team began planning the establishment of offline clinics. By September, the first offline clinic of Sunshine Women and Children’s Hospital was officially opened at Liangxiang Hospital.

Unlike partner hospitals, Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic does not accept routine outpatient visits for common conditions such as colds and fevers. It focuses exclusively on patients requiring specialized care in areas such as pediatric allergy and respiratory diseases, which demand expert consultation. This approach addresses a key weakness of partner hospitals—their lack of high-caliber specialists in niche fields—while leveraging Sunshine Women’s and Children’s access to the expert resources of the Huizhong Medical Alliance.

Currently, the “Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic” has partnered with 10 hospitals in its initial phase, including regional medical centers such as Beijing Kyoto Children’s Hospital, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, and China Coal General Hospital. By the end of 2015, the number of partner hospitals for the “Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic” in the Beijing area will increase to 100, and in 2016, it will expand to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and selected second-tier cities. In the future, they also aim to introduce a commercial insurance model to reduce patients’ medical expenses.

In the online segment, experts from Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Hospital provide women of childbearing age with nutritional guidance and general childcare knowledge. Meanwhile, young physicians on the platform offer online consultations, triage services, and post-visit follow-up care. Additionally, appointments at Sunshine Women’s and Children’s clinics can be scheduled online, allowing users to view specialists’ availability at nearby hospitals based on location, medical condition, and preferred appointment time. Patients who book appointments online can obtain their registration numbers at the respective hospital.

Meanwhile, the online platform also features self-health management capabilities. Users can record health information at any time, access health consultations, follow up on medical conditions, receive dietary advice, and utilize self-health management tools, as well as share and learn about pregnancy and parenting experiences online.

The offline services are primarily provided by Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic. Upon arrival, patients are guaranteed at least 15 minutes of consultation with their physician. To ensure adequate time for each patient, the clinic limits each specialist to no more than 20 consultations per session, thereby extending the duration of care provided. Patients receive expert diagnostic and treatment services and are eligible for standard medical insurance benefits. For cases involving complex conditions, specialists will initiate multidisciplinary consultations to provide regular in-hospital consultative services. Additionally, Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic offers emergency care; patients can visit the nearest clinic location, where they will be granted expedited access through a green channel for transportation, registration, diagnosis, treatment, and examinations.

After the sequential launch of Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinics, Jin Liang became a loyal user of his own company’s services. His daughter has suffered from allergic symptoms since birth and also has pediatric pharyngitis. The couple previously had to take their child to the hospital regularly. Whether visiting the Capital Institute of Pediatrics or Beijing Children’s Hospital, the facilities were not only far from home, but also required long waits for registration and consultation upon arrival. Essentially, each hospital visit consumed an entire day for both parents, proving time-consuming and laborious. Now, however, there is a Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic near Jin Liang’s home. They simply need to book an appointment online, and one parent can bring the child shortly before the scheduled time. This eliminates the need for on-site registration and queuing, as well as the hassle of traveling long distances. Additionally, the clinic provides small toys for young patients, helping to alleviate their fear during medical visits.

Currently, the registration fee at Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic is only RMB 1, and patients can pay directly online. After accumulating a sufficient user base and building a strong reputation through low pricing, Sunshine Women’s and Children’s will raise its registration fees to a range of RMB 100–300. Jin Liang told VCBeat that parents of pediatric patients have psychological expectations regarding payment for registration: “Everyone knows that registration requires payment, and appointments with specialists may cost more. Therefore, increasing the registration fee will not significantly affect the patient volume at Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic.”

Since its establishment, the daily outpatient volume at Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic in Beijing has reached 300 visits. With the planned completion of 100 clinics by the end of this year, the daily outpatient volume is projected to exceed 3,000 visits.

Sunshine Women and Children’s Hospital has specific requirements for partner hospitals: First, partner hospitals must be public hospitals with the capacity to provide obstetrics, gynecology, or pediatric care. Second, they must have underutilized medical resources, such as consultation rooms and diagnostic equipment. Third, they must be willing to deliver more specialized medical services to a broader population of women and children. Finally, priority will be given to hospitals designated as medical insurance providers.

Experts conduct consultations in the outpatient clinics of partner hospitals. This arrangement not only brings a certain volume of patient traffic but also generates revenue for the partner hospitals, as nearly all medications prescribed in these clinics are dispensed by them. Additionally, specialists from the Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic provide lectures and free training to departmental staff, thereby enhancing the professional competence of the medical personnel. Furthermore, the Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic provides specialized outpatient services to partner hospitals, addressing their shortage of high-quality pediatric specialty clinics. Currently, the specialties offered include Allergy and Immunology, Respiratory Medicine, Autism, Neonatology, and Gastroenterology.

At Kyoto Children's Hospital, the outpatient clinic operated by Sunshine Women and Children has been in service for some time. During this period, the hospital has seen an increase in both outpatient visits and revenue. Prior to collaborating with Sunshine Women and Children, numerous internet healthcare projects approached the relevant executives at Kyoto Children's Hospital, seeking to establish partnerships. Initially, the hospital selected several projects for collaboration, but the results were not significant. Although patients from Kyoto were directed to online platforms, the conversion rate from online to offline services was low, virtually nonexistent. As a private hospital, Kyoto’s core metrics are user base size and outpatient volume; therefore, any project that fails to increase these figures is not worth pursuing.

Jin Liang told VCBeat that the collaboration between Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Hospital and offline hospitals must be built on mutual trust and must be a win-win partnership. Only by delivering tangible benefits to partner hospitals can such collaborations be sustained over the long term.

In the future, Sunshine Women’s and Children’s Clinic will collaborate with pharmaceutical e-commerce platforms to address medication shortages at partner hospitals. Additionally, the clinic will partner with third-party testing centers to provide laboratory services for partner hospitals lacking diagnostic equipment.

Hire Yourself a “Doctor Agent”

For Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic, the Huizhong Medical Alliance Pediatrician Alliance (an alliance equivalent to the currently popular physician groups) provides visiting specialists; while for Huizhong Medical Alliance, Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic serves as its “physician agent.”

Xu Pengfei, founder of the Huizhong Medical Alliance Pediatric Physicians Alliance, believes that as individuals, doctors engaged in freelance practice or multi-site practice wield limited influence. Therefore, establishing a physician alliance to manage, train, and evaluate doctors is extremely necessary. “For the alliance, Sunshine Women and Children’s Hospital aims to provide comprehensive logistical support for physicians and serve as their agents.”

Xu Pengfei told VCBeat that outstanding physicians need to unite through an alliance model to realize their self-worth via practical implementation, and the “Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic” provides an excellent platform for this purpose. At the Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic, physicians can acquire precise patient referrals through outpatient services, enabling specialists to treat conditions within their expertise, thereby enhancing their academic value. Additionally, doctors gain opportunities for peer exchange and training, allowing them to maximize their professional worth and fulfill their spiritual aspirations. Meanwhile, Sunshine Tianyu offers competitive compensation packages; in Xu Pengfei’s words, it enables doctors to “earn money with dignity.”

As a physician agent, when Alliance Doctors conduct consultations at the Sunshine Women and Children’s Clinic, Sunshine Tianyu provides dedicated car transfers. If a doctor is on duty for the entire day, Sunshine Tianyu also arranges a hotel room for afternoon rest.

For most physician groups or alliances, the biggest challenge is how to handle medical malpractice incidents involving member physicians during clinical practice. Xu Pengfei told VCBeat that Huizhong Medical Union is attempting to address this issue from four aspects.

First, Huizhong Medical Alliance has its own stringent admission criteria. Physicians seeking to join the alliance must undergo evaluation by its panel of experts.

Secondly, the alliance has also established a set of medical practice guidelines jointly developed by experts within the alliance. All physicians in the alliance must adhere to these guidelines in their treatment practices to avoid unnecessary errors. Xu Pengfei offers a vivid analogy: “If a person walks in the middle of the road, the risk of being involved in a car accident is high; however, if they walk on the sidewalk, the risk is significantly reduced. We aim to keep our doctors on the ‘sidewalk’ by implementing standardized regulations to constrain their practice and reduce the likelihood of medical incidents,” said Xu Pengfei.

Third, in the event of a medical malpractice incident, the physical healthcare institution (the hospital housing the clinic), Yangguang Tianyu Company, and Huizhong Medical Alliance will collaborate to resolve the issue. Shortly thereafter, Yangguang Tianyu will purchase professional liability insurance for physicians within the alliance to mitigate their practice risks.

As China’s first pediatrician alliance, Huizhong Medical Alliance brings together leading specialists in various pediatric subspecialties from prestigious institutions such as the China-Japan Friendship Hospital (under the National Health Commission), Beijing Children’s Hospital, the Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Peking University People’s Hospital, and Peking University Third Hospital. Currently, Huizhong Medical Alliance comprises more than 250 pediatricians with diverse qualifications.