Senyint International: Bridging 'Internet + Healthcare' Through Telemedicine

Chinese medicine has a long and storied history. Throughout the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, many sage-like physicians have emerged, such as Bian Que, Hua Tuo, Zhang Zhongjing, Sun Simiao, and Li Shizhen. Their shared characteristics can be summarized in four characters: “Great Physicians Are Sincere and Skilled” (“Da Yi Jing Cheng”). This phrase originates from the first volume of Beiji Qianjin Yaofang (Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold for Emergencies), authored by Sun Simiao during the Tang Dynasty. It is an extremely important document discussing medical ethics within the canon of Traditional Chinese Medicine literature and is considered essential reading for students of medicine.

During the High Tang Dynasty, China introduced Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to various Asian countries, including North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia. Over time, these nations produced renowned physicians through their orderly inheritance of TCM. In 1999, South Korean broadcaster KBS aired a television series titled “Heo Jun,” which chronicled the life of Heo Jun, a celebrated Korean physician. The series achieved immense popularity in South Korea, attaining a viewership rating as high as 63.5%. Most audiences regarded the show not merely as casual entertainment but were deeply moved by Heo Jun’s medical ethos. For Wang Xingwei, founder and chairman of Heart Doctor International, this series resonated profoundly with him and even inspired the name “Heart Doctor.”

In the series, there is a scene in which a farmer sustains an injury from a cow’s kick and develops purulent abscesses on his back. Xu Jun’s mentor uses his mouth to suction the pus from the patient’s wounds. Without offering any verbal instruction, he demonstrates through concrete action how to be a good physician. Wang Xingwei, a graduate of a traditional Chinese medicine university, remarked, “Although my experiences differ from those of Xu Jun, I deeply resonate with the medical ethics conveyed throughout.”

An ancient saying goes, “Great physicians are both proficient and sincere; healers possess benevolent hearts.” “Proficient” requires physicians to have exquisite medical skills, while “sincere” demands that they uphold noble moral character.

Wang Xingwei stated that “Xinyi” (Heartful Medicine) refers to physicians who empathize with patients’ suffering and treat them with compassion and mercy. Naming the company “Xinyi” reflects the aspiration to use this name as a constant reminder to himself and his team to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to delivering high-quality products and services, and to excel in the healthcare informatics industry.

Wang Xingwei

Xinyi International is a company dedicated to innovative healthcare and internet-based telemedicine solutions. Established in June 2010, 70% of its core management team has either engaged in clinical medical practice or graduated from medical schools. Currently, Xinyi International employs over 400 staff members, with its solutions deployed across 80% of China. The company has established R&D centers in Dalian, Shenyang, and Shanghai; a marketing center in Beijing; and after-sales service branches and teams in multiple regions including Xi’an, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Chengdu, and Xining, serving more than 2,000 medical institutions nationwide. The company holds three patents and over 80 proprietary software copyrights, and has obtained certifications from the FDA, CFDA, IHE, and CMMI.

Original Intention for Founding the Startup

Wang Xingwei and Tai Congyue, President of Medlive International, were college classmates. Both enrolled in Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the mid-1990s, majoring in Traditional Chinese Medicine Pharmaceutical Manufacturing. During their university years, Wang and Tai served together on the Student Union. After graduation, Wang joined a domestically listed pharmaceutical company, starting as an ordinary “Clinical Promotion Representative for Pharmaceuticals.” Through diligent effort and outstanding performance, he gradually transitioned into management roles, eventually rising to Marketing Director before embarking on his entrepreneurial venture, which remained focused on pharmaceutical and medical device distribution. Meanwhile, Tai chose a different career path, becoming a professional manager and joining multinational corporations. He previously worked at Eli Lilly Asia and GlaxoSmithKline’s joint venture in China, Tianjin Smith Kline & French Laboratories Ltd. Over a decade of professional development, he advanced from Regional Business Manager and Regional Sales Manager to National Division Director.

Thirteen years after graduating and pursuing separate career paths, Wang Xingwei and Tai Congyue have reunited. This reunion is rooted in the simple ideals they shared during their student years and the development opportunities emerging in the internet healthcare sector.

Wang Xingwei stated that his decision to enter the healthcare informatics industry was influenced by his personal background. Having grown up in a rural area, he was often approached by fellow villagers for medical assistance whenever he returned home. With limited opportunities for rural residents to access healthcare in major cities, he sought ways to enable people in rural and remote areas to benefit from urban-level medical services without the burden of extensive travel. The founding of Sinomed International was driven by this simple yet profound aspiration. Tai Congyue, on the other hand, was particularly eager to leverage his years of accumulated industry experience and resources to establish a company centered on healthcare services, striving to address the current challenges in China’s healthcare landscape and the imbalance in the distribution of medical resources.

In late 2012, Xinyi International secured RMB 30 million in Series A funding from Shiming Investment. In 2014, it raised RMB 100 million in Series B financing, led by the China-Israel Fund.

Xinyi International’s initial business venture was the development of in-hospital systems. After establishing collaborations with numerous hospitals through its PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System), Xinyi International gradually expanded its product portfolio for digital hospitals. Currently, its product line includes Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems, Anesthesia Information Management Systems (AIMS), Hospital Information Systems (HIS), Business Intelligence (BI) systems, medical imaging and 3D post-processing solutions, and telemedicine platforms.

Now, after four years of dedicated efforts, Mindray International has begun to lay out its internet healthcare strategy as planned, with internet-based telemedicine being the top priority.

Telemedicine in the “Internet Plus” Era

Tai Congyue, President of Xinyi International, told VCBeat that before initiating its telemedicine strategy, the team conducted extensive research. The findings indicated that the primary factors constraining the rapid development of telemedicine in China are as follows.

Tai Congyue

On the one hand, the coverage of telemedicine equipment is low; among the more than 10,000 hospitals in China, only slightly over 10% have such coverage. Apart from national supportive policies and requirements, few hospitals proactively procure telemedicine equipment. Even when purchases are made, the lack of specialized operational management results in low utilization rates, with most installations becoming mere “vanity projects.”

On the other hand, asymmetry in diagnostic information and a lack of technical support prevent the provision of sufficiently specialized and effective patient data to experts, thereby hindering optimal assistance for physicians in remote consultations. The core issue that telemedicine must address is the symmetry of data and information. Traditional remote radiological diagnosis relies on methods such as film scanning for transmission, resulting in incomplete and inaccurate information available to specialists. Furthermore, the integration of multiple hospital business systems poses a significant challenge, impeding the rapid and accurate provision of patient information to support physicians in remote diagnosis and treatment.

The third issue is data security. If data security cannot be guaranteed, neither patients nor physicians will trust the telemedicine platform.

Tai Congyue stated that there is no need to worry about the security issues at Xinyi International. Currently, Xinyi International has completed data de-identification and established a robust data security system architecture with appropriate security level protections. The next challenge is to rapidly expand market coverage and operationalize its telemedicine platform.

“Without coverage, there are no users; without users, there is no user experience; without user experience, no user habits are formed; and without user habits, no one will pay you.” Tai Congyue told VCBeat that XinYi International began its offline promotion in 2014, leveraging internet thinking to achieve market coverage. By adopting a “use first, pay later” model and deploying telemedicine platforms, the company aimed to cultivate users’ habitual usage.

“Fortunately, our software is independently developed, which helps reduce costs,” said Tai Congyue. He noted that having a fully proprietary software suite makes assembly, operations, configuration, and maintenance more convenient.

The ultimate goal of deployment is to enable rapid market coverage for the product, thereby achieving economies of scale. “If we were to sell to hospitals one by one, we could cover at most one or two hundred hospitals per year,” said Tai Congyue. During the deployment and operational process, Xinyi International requires hospitals to sign a 3–5-year exclusive cooperation agreement for its remote system. In addition, hospitals are expected to collaborate with Xinyi International in driving teleconsultations; currently, each hospital conducts approximately ten teleconsultation cases per month. Furthermore, the interfaces of various hospital software systems must be integrated with Xinyi International’s telemedicine platform.

To date, Xinyi International’s telemedicine platform has established 38 international and national-level consultation centers and 22 provincial-level consultation centers at tertiary hospitals, while extending coverage to 1,800 secondary and tertiary hospitals at the grassroots level. Wang Xingwei revealed that by the end of 2015, Xinyi International’s telemedicine platform aims to cover more than 3,000 secondary hospitals across China, ensuring that each of the country’s 657 cities (as of December 31, 2004, there were 283 prefecture-level cities and 374 county-level cities nationwide) has at least one covered hospital.

How to Complete Promotion and Operations for Over 1,800 Hospitals Within Eight Months: Tai Congyue Highlights Three Advantages of Xinyi International

First, the distributor network spans across China. XinYi International’s original traditional business had many distributors, forming a vast network in the Chinese market, which facilitates the promotion of its telemedicine platform.

Second, the team is diverse and capable of meeting users’ multifaceted needs. Tai Congyue told VCBeat that most telemedicine companies either possess medical devices and proprietary software technologies but lack operational services, or offer services but lack accumulated expertise in devices and proprietary software. In contrast, Winning Health International excels in both areas, enabling it to provide the most comprehensive services to physicians, patients, and partners.

Third, ample funding sources. XinYi International’s traditional business generates revenue for the company. On one hand, this traditional business has allowed XinYi International to accumulate technical expertise; on the other, it has delivered solid income. Tai Congyue stated, “Telemedicine is our core, while health informatics serves as the foundation for our self-sustaining growth. These two lines of business are closely integrated. If a hospital adopts our telemedicine platform and experiences the advantages of XinYi’s products and services, and subsequently has additional health information system needs, I can recommend our solutions to them, thereby creating more project opportunities.”

Xinyi International has long served hospitals at all levels across China, providing clinical operations and telemedicine software services. “More importantly, we offer ‘face-to-face’ technical training support, case discussions, and practical guidance to physicians in these hospitals. This process has helped us accumulate a substantial base of highly engaged physician resources. Through our end-to-end services, professional networks among physicians, doctor-patient communities, and patient-to-patient support groups are taking shape,” stated Tai Congyue.

Furthermore, a series of favorable policies introduced by the government this year to support telemedicine will undoubtedly boost the development of Xinyi International. On April 23, 2015, the General Office of the State Council issued the Implementation Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Comprehensive Reform of County-Level Public Hospitals, proposing the gradual establishment of a tiered diagnosis and treatment pattern characterized by initial consultations at primary care institutions, two-way referrals, separate management of acute and chronic conditions, and coordination between upper- and lower-level medical facilities. On September 11, 2015, the General Office of the State Council further released the Guiding Opinions on Advancing the Construction of a Tiered Diagnosis and Treatment System, which stated that by 2017, telemedicine services should cover more than 50% of counties (cities, districts) in pilot areas.