reMED 2015 — Reconstructing the Healthcare Ecosystem Summit: Insights and Product Launches

On January 31, 2015, the “reMED 2015—Reconstructing the Healthcare Ecosystem” Summit (hereinafter referred to as the reMED Conference), co-hosted by the Institute of Internet Information and the School of Economics and Management at Communication University of China, and jointly organized by the China Internet Healthcare Association of Communication University of China and iData Consulting, was successfully held at Communication University of China.

The reMED Conference aims to establish a high-level dialogue platform for internet healthcare, focusing on the future development trends of cross-sector integration in China’s internet healthcare industry. It is reported that the conference invited more than 20 renowned entrepreneurs from fields such as tertiary hospital administration, internet healthcare, cloud-based health management, smart devices, and biotechnology. It attracted over 800 emerging leaders in the internet healthcare sector, along with more than 50 media representatives from mainstream outlets and authoritative industry media. Centered on the theme “Reconstructing the Healthcare Ecosystem,” the conference facilitated discussions on new forms of future development in internet healthcare. Additionally, the “China Internet Healthcare Alliance” was officially launched and established during the event, and the “reMED 2015 China Internet Healthcare Development Report” was released.Click here to download the full report）

Liao Xiangzhong, Vice President of Communication University of China; Zhao Shuqing, Dean of the Institute of Internet Information; and Zhang Shuting, Dean of the School of Economics and Management and Dean of the MBA School, opened and presided over the conference.

Wang Shan, President of Peking University People’s Hospital; Liu Jian, Chairman of the Board and Party Secretary of Beijing Friendship Hospital; Zhang Rui, Founder of Chunyu Doctor; Xu Huansheng, Founder of Beijing Health Cloud; Liu Yi, Chairman of Andon Health and Founder of iHealth; Chen Dengkun, General Manager of Kingdee Medical; Li Tiantian, Founder of DXY; Chen Hua, CEO of 111.com; Wang Jing, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Internet Healthcare Conference; and Lu Zigui, Vice President of Guahao.com, delivered insightful presentations on topics including hospital management, health cloud management, wearable devices, mobile healthcare, pharmaceutical e-commerce, internet hospitals, and the 2014 Annual White Paper.

In addition, Zhao Hong, founder of Health界; Bai Jianfeng, Editor-in-Chief of the Health Section of the Economic and Social Department of People’s Daily; Liu Muyun, President of Beike Biotechnology; Xu Junquan, Chairman of Boao Jingdian; He Shixiang, Partner at Fortune Capital; Li Datao, founder of VCBeat; Chen Xiangjun, President of Dayi Boai; Zhang Rui, founder of Chunyu Doctor; Lu Zigui, Vice President of Guahaowang; and Liu Chenhui, COO of Apricot Forest, respectively participated in high-level dialogues during the morning and afternoon sessions on “Exploring the Development Direction of Internet Healthcare” and “How the Internet Is Disrupting the Traditional Healthcare Industry.”



As VCBeat served as the conference’s media partner, its founder, Li Datao, also attended the event and moderated the afternoon’s high-level panel discussion.

The morning’s high-level dialogue was moderated by Zhao Hong, founder and editor-in-chief of Health Circle. Participants included Liu Muyun, President of Beike Biotechnology; Bai Jianfeng, Senior Journalist at People’s Daily and Editor-in-Chief of the Health Section of the Economic and Social Department; Xu Junquan, Senior Vice President of Boao Biotech and Chairman of Boao Jingdian; Jin Lin, Vice President of JD Finance; and He Shixiang, Partner at Fortune Capital. The discussion primarily explored the potential impact of internet healthcare on the future and perspectives on how future internet healthcare models might enter the market.

The afternoon’s high-level dialogue was moderated by Li Datao, founder of VCBeat. Participants included Zhang Rui, founder of Chunyu Doctor; Liao Jieyuan, founder of Guahao.com; Liu Chenhui, Chief Operating Officer of Apricot Forest; and Chen Xiangjun, President of Dayi Boai.

The afternoon session primarily reviewed the activities of several leading players in internet healthcare during 2014, outlined prospects for 2015, explored practical experiences in user acquisition, and shared insights on potential applications of big data analytics in the future.

Wang Shan, President of Peking University People's Hospital: Opportunities and Challenges in Internet Healthcare

The use of cloud technology will undoubtedly help healthcare practitioners and researchers select personalized treatment plans in the future. By providing access to detailed therapeutic options based on the latest research findings, it enables truly individualized treatment regimens—this is where the medical ecosystem is genuinely transformed. Regardless of the auxiliary terms added, medicine remains medicine; its essence cannot be altered. Internet or IoT technologies are akin to earlier innovations such as CT, MRI, and ultrasound—they facilitate the advancement of medicine but neither overturn nor change its fundamental nature.

New models inevitably face challenges in medical administration. Traditionally, China has not yet enacted a comprehensive Medical Law. When multiple medical institutions simultaneously provide care to the same patient, questions arise regarding liability and legal disputes: Who should be held accountable? Who bears the responsibility? Given that medical administrative regulations impose specific practice requirements across various specialties, what constitutes the true standard under new models? Correspondingly, what are the appropriate technical specifications and standards for intermediary layers? Our greatest concern is the inability to achieve interoperability and data sharing. Once connectivity is established, even if only partial data is shared, the primary challenge becomes security and privacy protection—an issue that even the most developed countries continue to grapple with.

Future trends will see specialized medical terminals and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) evolving into multi-network converged platforms, namely open internet-based platforms. These will facilitate cross-platform terminal applications, particularly for electronic medical records (EMR). Additional functionalities will include patient and hospital navigation, patient management, doctor-patient interaction, and health consultations, leveraging a range of platforms such as WeChat.

Whether it is mobile health, mobile medicine, or internet-based healthcare, these are disciplines that have emerged in response to the advancement of various modern technologies alongside medical development. The application of technologies such as the internet, the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile platforms, big data, cloud computing, and cognitive computing has brought new opportunities to clinical practice, research, and teaching, without undermining the core essence of medicine itself. If leveraged effectively, these technologies can significantly promote progress in the field.

Xu Huansheng, Founder of Beijing Health Cloud: Health in the Cloud Era

Traditional enterprises, whether manufacturing scales or blood pressure monitors, have historically neglected service. In the internet paradigm, service is paramount. By integrating services that address user inquiries about blood pressure, weight, and weight loss, new business models will emerge. As the government gradually deregulates prescription drugs in the future, doctors will be able to communicate directly with patients. Currently, prescriptions are limited to a two-week supply, whereas chronic diseases require long-term medication. In the future, patients will have the opportunity to consult with doctors entirely from home, with direct integration into medical insurance systems and access to premium expert consultations. Such services will reshape the future healthcare ecosystem and influence business models. Therefore, this user-value-driven, capital-fueled business model will bring significant changes to internet healthcare.

Therefore, the first thing we need to do is focus on users, enabling them to access high-quality, affordable products that are very inexpensive or even free, while delivering substantial value. The second aspect concerns the industry. In the past, promoting hardware and medical solutions was extremely challenging; however, today we can rapidly stimulate industry growth by leveraging capital and market forces. The third objective is to address government concerns, particularly those related to social security. Currently, insurance companies are seeking to reduce premium expenditures through such validation. From a U.S. perspective, health management and routine prevention have significantly lowered insurance premiums, whereas China lacks comparable case studies. This year, some insurers may conduct regional pilot programs involving 500 individuals receiving these health services and another 500 not receiving them, followed by a comparison of their medical insurance expenditures. These data will provide strong support for government decision-making. Given the severe scarcity of medical resources in China, extending these services into households can help alleviate the shortage of physicians. Collectively, these measures will enable us to gradually address the public’s health challenges.

iHealth Founder Liu Yi: In the Next 10 Years, Data Science and Software Will Contribute More to Medicine Than All Biological Sciences Combined

Traditional medical devices are poised for significant transformation. This shift represents a major change in the landscape of conventional medical equipment, focusing on how to facilitate more convenient, simpler, and easier data acquisition and application. From our perspective, hardware serves as the entry point and an inevitable starting point for health big data. By naturally and seamlessly aligning with user habits, it enables the continuous collection of health data that is closely relevant to users' health information. Such health big data may possess several critical characteristics: it is likely personalized and metric-based; without quantifiable metrics, it would have limited utility in medicine. Furthermore, the data should be continuous and automatically collected rather than manually entered, as manual data collection has already been addressed to some extent in the past. We aim to provide health consultation services centered on individual health management needs, thereby completing the closed loop of data collection.

The core idea we currently hold is that hardware serves as the entry point, providing data usable for medical purposes and enabling collaboration with more healthcare service providers to deliver such services. In fact, some of the points raised earlier by Director Wang are quite accurate. The most critical element in healthcare is, above all, physicians. Our work must help them improve efficiency, monitor treatment outcomes, or facilitate remote monitoring—essentially, it must address their practical challenges. Only by solving these problems can we truly drive the restructuring of the healthcare ecosystem.

Zhang Rui, Founder of Chunyu Doctor: Hospital Decentralization Amidst the Internet’s Transformation

We see that hospitals currently serve as information hubs, where all diagnostic processes must be completed; the act of diagnosis is essentially a process of information assessment. Hospitals also function as physical centers, as many surgical procedures and treatment protocols must be carried out within a hospital setting. Is this correct?

Specifically, what does hospital decentralization look like?

First, the shift of the information center will transform how medical care is accessed. We believe that the vast majority of diagnostic activities will be conducted online. Second, internet-based consultations that are transnational, cross-border, and interdisciplinary will become the norm. Third, doctor-patient interactions will achieve point-to-point connectivity beyond the confines of hospitals. Fourth, Electronic Health Records (EHR) will aggregate rich data spanning genomics, general health, laboratory tests, pathology, environmental health, and healthcare consumption.

I believe the primary driving force is the government. Many people claim that the Chinese government is conservative, that China’s medical regulatory framework is highly distinctive, and even that the government constitutes a major obstacle. No. I contend that the government is the most critical driver of healthcare innovation. This is not flattery; rather, for any nation, health represents both an immensely valuable asset and a substantial burden. China has entered an aging society, its working-age population is shrinking, and its basic medical insurance system is under severe strain. In this context, from the government’s perspective, improving public health management and reducing medical insurance expenditures are paramount. Consequently, the government is becoming more open and, at times, may even adopt aggressive measures to promote healthcare innovation. Those outside the healthcare sector may be unaware of the significant shifts in medical policies in recent years.

The second driving force is the public, as the overall healthcare expenditure in China has placed immense pressure on health insurance funding; therefore, low-cost medical services will garner substantial support from users.

Third, capital. The capital side will drive such smooth development.

The combined force of these three will usher in a brand-new and different 2020, a year worth looking forward to.

Liu Jian, Party Secretary of Beijing Friendship Hospital: Internet Technology and the Healthcare Industry Grow Together

The integration of the internet has injected vitality into the healthcare industry, while also expanding the platform for internet applications. Therefore, I believe the relationship between the two is one of mutual growth, rather than one disrupting the other.
Conceptually, the healthcare industry must keep pace with the development of new technologies. When a new technology emerges, it is essential to engage in constructive dialogue and collaborate on its refinement, rather than blindly criticizing or rejecting it without adequate understanding. Internet technology and the healthcare sector need to evolve together; indeed, they can grow in tandem.

Yi Yao Wang CEO Chen Hua: Selling a Box of Medicine Well

Today’s conference theme is disruption. Online pharmacies and offline drugstores have already diverged significantly. While we still cannot use medical insurance cards for online purchases, and the online sale of prescription drugs has not been fully deregulated, other aspects are already demonstrating advantages and overtaking traditional models. Offline rent increases year after year, whereas online sales continue to grow. Medications can be sold via mobile phones, covering all of China with 24-hour delivery. Consumers make choices based on online user reviews rather than being influenced by the overly attentive sales assistants in physical stores. For instance, when a customer asks for “999 Weitai” (a popular gastric medication), the assistant might claim that it is overpriced due to heavy advertising and recommend “38 Weitai” instead, asserting that its 99% composition is identical to that of “999 Weitai.” In reality, this recommendation is driven by the higher rebates provided by the “38 Weitai” brand. Ultimately, we will integrate medical services, with the ultimate goal of achieving personalized health management.

We have accomplished all our tasks for today, and I have marked “ABC” in the title. Finally, I would like to share some good news with you: just last week, 111.com (Yi Yao Wang) successfully completed its Series C financing round, raising over USD 73 million, equivalent to RMB 450 million. Our investors are all from overseas. During our communications with them, we strongly sensed that the entire world is filled with high expectations for China’s internet healthcare sector, which is also the reason behind our current high valuation. Secondly, through our efforts, we have provided satisfactory answers to a common question: given that e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD.com are also entering the pharmaceutical market, how can you compete against them? Through our dedicated efforts, we have developed our own distinctive, professional, and unique advantages. More importantly, we have many clear strategic plans that will gradually be realized step by step. In addition, we have a strong team. Based on these three factors, investors have placed significant trust in us. I hope to utilize this funding effectively in the future to enhance customer experience, mine and integrate data, and streamline the industry chain. We aim to enable all consumers to enjoy high-quality online services that are affordable, convenient, professional, and trustworthy. I believe that achieving this will earn greater support from consumers, which in turn will secure stronger backing from venture capital investors.

Chen Dengkun, General Manager of Kingdee Medical: Hospital Transformation in the Era of Mobile Internet

I have summarized today’s discussions into three key terms. The first is “existing stock.” China’s healthcare services market is vast, with numerous issues pertaining to existing resources. On one hand, we can address these legacy challenges to improve patients’ healthcare experiences. The second term is “incremental growth.” New models like Chunyu Doctor enter the market by tapping into new, incremental demand. The third term is “value.” Ultimately, all approaches converge on the same goal: serving the health needs of the public. Given the sheer size of this market, no single enterprise can dominate it entirely. Therefore, I believe various business models are worth exploring, and they should mutually inspire and inform one another, rather than engaging in the industry-wide tendency to attack competing models. As a traditional healthcare IT company transitioning to an internet-based model, our journey is also worth sharing with you all.

To address the issue of hospital overcrowding, we believe there are three areas of transformation. The first is technological transformation, which involves increasing the number of doctors, improving their technical skills, and adding medical equipment. Second, there are still significant issues with hospital efficiency, leaving considerable room for improvement. The third aspect is service transformation. As patients, what they feel most deeply about hospitals is their service; ultimately, what patients experience is their healthcare journey. Currently, the most important thing is service transformation. Service transformation itself consists of three elements: participatory treatment, healthcare experience, and humanized medical care.

Li Tiantian, Founder of DXY: The Future of Healthcare Is Sour

ACID represents my analysis of four aspects of mobile health and future healthcare, arranged precisely in this order.

“A” stands for Apps, referring to the various applications on your smartphone. According to statistics, there are approximately tens of thousands of healthcare-related apps available in the Apple App Store.

To address the issue of data silos, the current trend shows a transition beyond the app-centric phase—whether on mobile phones or hardware devices—toward the next stage. In the United States, for instance, discussions at conferences two years ago predominantly focused on apps and wearable devices; today, these topics are rarely mentioned. Instead, the focus has shifted to "Connected Health," which aims to resolve the aforementioned problem of data silos. The goal is to collect, store, analyze, transmit, and share data using unified standards. In this context, when an individual uses multiple devices, it becomes possible to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their physical, pathological, physiological, and overall health status—including metrics such as blood pressure, blood glucose, blood oxygen saturation, and body weight. Through unified collection, organization, and analysis, these data form a personalized digital health profile that can be accessed by various stakeholders across different sectors, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and even family members. Thus, under this connected framework, the data coalesce into an integrated dataset, rather than remaining isolated as they once did—for example, with fitness bands serving only as standalone trackers or smart insoles merely counting steps.

Whether it involves services, the interpretation of data, or the handling of uncollected data, professional expertise is required for accurate interpretation. Based on our understanding of the healthcare industry, we believe that core medical practices are often resistant to change; what can be transformed are primarily procedural aspects, such as payment processes, laboratory result reviews, and patient navigation. Simplified consultations lead to data gaps, which may pose significant risks. The limited information derived from such brief interactions makes it difficult to form reliable clinical judgments.

In our view, patient safety will always remain the core objective of healthcare services; convenience must never come at the expense of safety. Physicians are the cornerstone of healthcare and will never be replaced by algorithms or machines, nor will hospitals ever become obsolete. Supporting physicians—through content, tools, and platforms—to enhance medical efficiency and increase their income represents a viable path toward optimizing healthcare resources.

Lu Zigui, Vice President of Guahao.com: Opportunities and Challenges in Internet Healthcare

Looking back at the development of mobile health, 2014 was regarded as the inaugural year of internet healthcare. In 2014, industry analyses were widely reported, highlighting the key trends in the mobile health sector throughout the year. Beyond three major financing cases, statistics show that more than 120 investment and financing transactions were completed last year. The integration of online diagnosis and treatment, big data, and wearable devices is paving the way for emerging concepts such as virtual hospitals and medical robots, whose roles will expand alongside industry growth.How should we understand the relationship between healthcare, health, and mobility? I believe this is the fundamental starting point for those engaged in this industry. Health is a basic human need and a prerequisite for survival; everyone desires a foundational guarantee for their life and well-being. When health issues arise, people seek access to quality treatment, favorable conditions, and effective solutions provided by doctors and hospitals. Healthcare also serves as a vital means of saving lives.As we examine the industry’s development priorities, it becomes clear that the core of mobile health lies in enhancing resource utilization, maximizing the value of physicians, and improving administrative efficiency within hospitals through greater convenience, higher efficiency, and cost reduction. Its essential nature should remain closely aligned with the fundamental elements of healthcare.

We believe that the government has fulfilled its regulatory and service functions, which serve as a critical pillar for the rapid development of internet healthcare in the future, necessitating strong support from government policies.

In terms of business models, I believe that mobile healthcare may become the most complex commercial system in the future. In the past, when a startup presented its venture on a platform, it could claim that its business model was clear-cut—either B2C or B2B. However, in the realm of mobile healthcare, I personally believe that its complexity may exceed our expectations. This is an area that requires continuous exploration by all stakeholders.

Furthermore, the “reMED2015 China Internet Healthcare Development Report,” released at the conference, pointed out that 2014 marked Year One of internet healthcare in China, with a tenfold growth potential anticipated over the next decade. Internet healthcare is poised to reshape five key areas: health management, methods of seeking medical care, patient experience, medication purchasing channels, and the doctor–patient ecosystem. The report also asserts that China’s internet healthcare sector is in the early stages of a major developmental opportunity, offering entrepreneurs unprecedented prospects for startup ventures and innovation. In addition, critical challenges remain for industry development, including inadequate supporting policies, absence of standards, and insufficient information sharing.

From the perspective of internet development trends, the internet and mobile connectivity are driving the healthcare industry toward mobility, intelligence, and informatization. Internet-based healthcare has significant implications for improving the quality of life for all citizens, extending human lifespan, disseminating medical knowledge and concepts, promoting the advancement of public health, and shaping the future of humanity. It is foreseeable that the integration of national health with the internet is a natural progression; mobile connectivity will reshape the healthcare service order to be more equitable, transparent, and patient-centered. Traditional healthcare will undergo profound changes, with transformation being merely a matter of time.

Attachment：《reMED2015 China Internet Healthcare Development Report》