Panoramic Review of Mobile Healthcare in 2014 (Part II): Mobilization of Industry Giants

Where Are China’s Most Powerful Companies Concentrated? Answer: The real estate development and telecommunications sectors are home to many industry giants. As the mobile health wave approaches, they have already mobilized en masse!

VI. Real Estate Developers

Developers have certain advantages in entering the hospital and elderly care industries. First, these projects require substantial upfront investment, and developers possess relatively strong financial capabilities. Second, real estate development drives population inflow, necessitating supporting medical and elderly care facilities that align with the government’s top-level design and involve partial implementation; thus, developers are better positioned to understand local demands and development trends in healthcare and eldercare. Finally, medical real estate can be effectively integrated with products focused on livability, elderly care, leisure, and wellness, thereby enhancing the added value of existing properties. Consequently, a large number of developers have entered the healthcare sector. The list below includes only some representative projects, representing just the tip of the iceberg.



1. Yango Group

On March 14, 2014, Yango Group announced the establishment of a joint venture with Fujian Star-net Communication Co., Ltd. to forge a strategic partnership in the research and development of smart communities, smart homes, cloud call center services, and flagship products for smart communities. On July 3, Yango Group added departments such as the Medical and Health Management Center and established Shanghai Weizhibo Medical Investment Management Co., Ltd. to further expand its presence in the medical and health industry.

2. Vanke

Vanke is currently preparing to establish three children’s hospitals, which will be located in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, respectively. High-quality children’s hospitals are relatively scarce in China. Once Vanke Children’s Hospitals gain a certain level of recognition, they will also provide enhanced supporting services for the surrounding residential projects developed by Vanke. Meanwhile, Vanke has been collaborating with other relevant companies in the fields of smart elderly care and smart healthcare, conducting pilot programs in selected communities.

3. Yihua Real Estate

Yihua Real Estate invested RMB 120 million to acquire a 20% equity stake in Youdeyi Technology, a company specializing in the development of internet-based medical information platforms and providing comprehensive digital solutions and products for the healthcare industry. Currently, Youdeyi has established network hospital clinics in 30 communities and chain pharmacies across Guangdong Province as part of its promotional efforts.

4. Greentown

Greentown Health Medical Services refer to services that continuously optimize various health indicators of property owners by improving their lifestyles or providing systematic diagnostic and treatment services, thereby enhancing their overall health status and truly realizing "health management at your doorstep." Currently, Greentown is collaborating with mobile medical hardware manufacturers and service providers, including Neusoft Xikang, to initially offer services such as "cloud-based healthcare" and health interventions in select high-end communities, thus improving the quality of life for residents and enhancing the service quality within the residential parks.

5. Yunsheng Industrial

Acquired a stake in Shanghai International Medical Center (SIMC), focusing on the high-end medical market. Increased capital investment in Shanghai Rongda Information Technology, one of the earliest companies in China to engage in grassroots regional health informatization. The company is positioned to provide digital healthcare software for small and medium-sized hospitals, with three major products and solutions: grassroots informatization, digital grassroots hospitals, and regional electronic drug supervision.

In summary, it becomes evident that the primary pathways for real estate operators to cross over into the mobile health sector include: investing in hospitals or medical platforms, which partially serve as carriers for mobile health and telemedicine; acquiring or taking equity stakes in healthcare IT companies to directly penetrate the core of the industry; and collaborating with smart hardware providers and mobile health service providers to implement on-the-ground strategies focused on elderly care or smart communities. Consequently, these operators tend to leverage their financial strength and existing customer base, adopting relatively straightforward and aggressive approaches in pursuit of immediate results. Since their primary objective remains to support their core real estate business by providing added value, this fundamentally determines that they cannot become the main driving force of the mobile health industry, but rather will remain significant participants.

VII. Telecommunications Operators

Mobile healthcare, as the name suggests, relies on mobile internet technology as its foundation. As providers of this underlying infrastructure, can telecommunications operators afford to stand by and watch? They not only possess substantial financial strength but also command a vast user base. With 100,000 proprietary and partner service halls across China and tens of thousands of account managers active within local communities, their market penetration is unmatched by typical healthcare enterprises. Therefore, identifying areas for collaboration with telecom operators to establish stable partnerships represents a highly strategic choice. Particularly now that the 4G era has officially begun, it has become technically feasible to enable “remote visualized” mobile healthcare.

1. China Mobile

Central City Layout

China Mobile Beijing Branch, in collaboration with the Beijing Red Cross Society 999 Emergency Center, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, and Peking University People’s Hospital, has jointly established an integrated emergency medical information coordination platform. This platform will serve as a comprehensive, multi-dimensional emergency medical information system covering emergency command centers, ambulances, medical personnel, and receiving hospitals. Starting from the moment a patient calls 120, the emergency command center will dispatch appropriate ambulances via the most efficient routes based on the patient’s specific condition, select the hospital with the optimal overall treatment capabilities, and provide “telemedicine” guidance to emergency medical staff. Meanwhile, hospitals will complete necessary preparatory measures for emergency care, such as blood bank readiness and operating room preparation, prior to the patient’s arrival.

"Encircling the Cities from the Countryside"

Rural markets have become a key entry point for telecom operators in the mobile health sector. It is reported that China Mobile has partnered with the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) in 13 provinces across China, leveraging channels such as the 12580 hotline, mobile news services, and wireless city portals to provide patients with mobile-based appointment registration, rural medical identity verification, payment processing, reimbursement, and information inquiry services, thereby securing a strategic foothold at the user interface level.

Collaborate with universities to build technical reserves

On April 9, 2014, the signing ceremony for the strategic cooperation between Central South University and China Mobile was held in Changsha. The two parties will collaborate in specific areas such as medical big data, mobile health, regional healthcare, and Digital Central South. Under the agreement, Central South University is responsible for the design and development of prototype systems for “mobile health” applications, while China Mobile is tasked with building the “Medical Cloud” platform to provide the necessary technical support for the design and development of these applications. Furthermore, both parties will promote the sharing of high-quality medical resources, renowned as “Nan Xiangya,” with other regions, and provide remote teaching services to rural doctors in central and western China as well as current medical students. This initiative aims to leverage information technology to facilitate the sharing of medical knowledge and promote balanced development in medical education.

Other Healthcare Projects

China Mobile has already launched several mobile healthcare projects, such as remote monitoring systems for sleep health and cardiac function, wireless hospital initiatives for medical institutions, a project in collaboration with its Shandong branch to establish 40 medical monitoring systems across 17 prefecture-level cities, and the teleconsultation system in Tibet.

2. China Telecom

Central Cities Collaborate with Enterprises

China Telecom’s Shanghai Branch has partnered with Wanda Information, primarily focusing on services based on Wanda Quan Cheng’s O2O health platform. The collaboration includes online traffic partnerships and app pre-installation. Offline, China Telecom’s store channels also promote Wanda Quan Cheng’s products. Specifically, China Telecom provides the network infrastructure and data traffic, while Wanda Quan Cheng delivers mobile healthcare services, remote diagnostics, pharmaceutical e-commerce, online medication delivery, and various payment options linked to social insurance and commercial health insurance. Currently, the project has been deployed in ten districts and counties of Shanghai. However, field visits and data analysis reveal poor operational performance. The model largely imitates Neusoft Xikang’s “Health Kiosk” approach, procuring expensive yet outdated equipment. Apart from one recently opened facility resembling a health examination center (which also serves internal employees and their families), the remaining sites are idle and have failed to establish viable operations.

Life Watch

In January 2014, China Telecom and the Swiss company LifeWatch jointly launched the world’s first medical diagnostic smartphone, with its mobile health system platform provided by Yunhu Technology. LifeWatch is a well-known provider of remote cardiac monitoring services; however, as of now, this product has not appeared in the market, and its actual deployment remains unclear.

Medical Industry Informatization Application (Shanghai) Base

As a provider of comprehensive smart healthcare solutions in the mobile internet era, the base has launched new versions of its Palm Healthcare APP and Health Kiosk APP, while also introducing smart healthcare solutions, converged communications solutions, and cloud computing and operational service products. Implemented projects include the smart hospital initiative at the First People's Hospital and the hospital wireless services at Yueyang Hospital, which are based on Wi-Fi and new Bluetooth technologies.

Remote Areas

Guizhou Province, together with other remote provinces and regions such as Ningxia and Tibet, has launched pilot programs to establish telemedicine collaboration platforms with renowned domestic hospitals, including the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital and Peking Union Medical College Hospital. Leveraging its network resources and service advantages, Guizhou Telecom has actively built a provincial telemedicine information network. This network is set to cover people’s hospitals in 25 counties (including 15 nationally designated poverty-stricken counties), which will serve as recipient sites for remote consultations, with Guizhou Telecom also participating partially in future operations.

3. China Unicom

Strategic Positioning in Central City Collaborative Networks

In August 2014, Shanghai Unicom, the Shanghai Medical Union Center, and Taifu Health jointly launched “Cloud Health,” a medical and health information service product based on an integrated model leveraging SMS/MMS, voice services, and mobile applications. Built upon the resident electronic health records provided by the Shanghai Medical Union Center, the product utilizes Shanghai Unicom’s cloud computing capabilities and big data platform to integrate medical services from Taifu Health’s strategic partners, aiming to achieve interoperability among the three parties’ platforms.

China Unicom Fujian Branch

Initially, a unified appointment and diagnosis platform for public hospitals was jointly established with the 12320 Management Center. Building upon this foundation, the “Wo Health” cloud-based health management service platform was subsequently developed. In November 2014, the “Green Star Initiative” was launched by Fujian Unicom in partnership with professional health management companies (Kangwei: Diabetes Control). This initiative primarily recruited 350 diabetes volunteers through online and offline channels, who received a complimentary mobile intelligent cloud glucometer and one year of blood glucose monitoring and management services. Meanwhile, the intelligent cloud sphygmomanometer is expected to be launched in early 2015.

Currently, Fujian Unicom has partnered with Xiamen Zhiye to provide healthcare informatics solutions, primarily comprising three systems: first, a Mobile Medical Nursing System that seamlessly integrates the Zhiye Mobile Nursing Workstation with the Zhiye Nursing Electronic Medical Records; second, an Outpatient and Emergency Mobile Infusion Management System, which establishes a new model of high-standard, high-quality infusion nursing services; and third, a Mobile Collaborative Office System, which mobilizes hospital administrative operations to effectively enhance work efficiency.

China Unicom Guangdong

Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group and China Unicom Guangdong Branch have launched collaborative projects in areas such as base cooperation, community healthcare management, group-wide informatization, mobile informatization, and pharmaceutical distribution system development, jointly advancing the construction of the “Smart Health” ecosystem. Consumers can conveniently purchase medications via online pharmacies using mobile devices and verify the authenticity of pharmaceutical products.

Shijiazhuang Unicom

Shijiazhuang Unicom’s “Smart Healthcare” project initiated the construction of a “Smart Healthcare” system by focusing on healthcare informatization initiatives such as drug regulation, mobile hospital rounds, and cloud storage for medical imaging. A flagship component is an electronic drug supervision project that enables drug traceability. Shijiazhuang Unicom leveraged 3G mobile APN technology to build the hospitals’ overall intranet infrastructure, with servers and 3G signal reception equipment deployed at central nodes, while 3G dedicated-data SIM cards were installed in terminal scanners to transmit data back for drug verification. Currently, all pilot sites for “drug traceability”—comprising the first batch of 800 pharmacies and community health centers across the city—exclusively use Unicom’s 3G dedicated-data SIM cards. The project, currently government-led, is being replicated and promoted throughout the province.

Oubridge's "Heart Guardian"

In May 2014, Ouqiao Company successfully signed a strategic cooperation agreement on mobile smart healthcare with China Unicom Headquarters. The partnership primarily leverages the “Heart Guardian,” a portable remote real-time ECG monitoring system developed by Ouqiao Company, as its platform. By utilizing China Unicom’s mobile network technology and sales channels, the collaboration provides health monitoring services to end-user households.

Mindray “Hospital Chain”

Shenzhen Mindray is one of China’s largest medical device manufacturers. It has established a comprehensive strategic partnership with China Unicom. By fully integrating China Unicom’s Wo 3G high-speed wireless network with various medical devices, the two parties aim to extend Mindray’s hospital-based product technologies into out-of-hospital markets. Current efforts primarily focus on pre-hospital emergency care, primary healthcare, and chronic disease management, aiming to build a multi-tiered medical emergency network through grassroots healthcare institutions. Additionally, a mobile healthcare solution for chronic diseases is being developed, with the goal of entering households to help patients manage complications. However, no commercially available products have been observed to date, suggesting that the initiative is still in the preparation and integration phase and warrants further observation.

China Unicom’s 3G-based remote monitoring and appointment registration services, along with its collaborations with certain hospitals (such as the Medical Communication Cloud at Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital and the Yiwutong project in Weihai), the Shandong Provincial Remote Consultation Center project, and the Beijing Cloud Health project, will not be further elaborated here.

Finally

Due to space constraints, we cannot elaborate on Leye Communication’s mobile health project, the policies and demonstration initiatives implemented by Health and Family Planning Commissions across China (such as the “One-Card” system launched by the Liaoning Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission), or the independent research and practical applications of mobile health technologies undertaken by certain large hospitals. Representative companies in each sub-sector will be covered in subsequent articles. The eventful year of 2014 has passed; more exciting stories lie ahead. Let’s keep up the good work, everyone!

(This article was first published by NetEase Technology and reposted by VCBeat with authorization from Dr.2)