Say goodbye to "gorgeous adventures" Internet healthcare needs to be "serious" development

This year's Internet medical circle is very lively.

First, enterprises in the industry have gathered for listing and financing, and second, after a large influx of capital, the competition has become fierce and the industry chaos has emerged.

In September, "Good Doctor Online" reported that the "Zhaoyang Doctor" platform was suspected of drug kickbacks, tax evasion and unfair competition. The "fight" between online consultation platforms reflects the waves of the development of the entire industry.

In recent years, the state has been promoting the separation of medicine and breaking the chronic disease of "using medicine to support medicine". A report by the good doctor online unveiled the chaos of moving the offline "medicine to support doctors" to the internet.

The 2021 government work report proposes to promote the development of "Internet + medical health" norms. From the previous "encouragement" to "standardization", the change of policy wind direction has quietly begun. How to go about Internet medical treatment in the future has aroused concern.

In October, the National Health Commission issued the Detailed Rules for the Supervision of Internet Diagnosis and Treatment (Draft for Comment), which pointed out the gray areas that exist in the development of the Internet medical industry: AI prescription, first buy medicine and then make up for prescription, drug rebate, etc., and also draw a clear boundary between medical, pharmaceutical and technical services, requiring Internet medical treatment to be "the same quality and same supervision" as physical diagnosis and treatment to the greatest extent.

In addition, problems such as difficult transformation of light consultation, homogeneous competition, and single profit model have also been criticized by the market. At present, most Internet medical companies are in the stage of burning money, and the high sales costs also show that the industry is still racing and internal competition is fierce.

Internet medical enterprises have reached a key node of transformation: after rapid access to traffic, enterprises must pay attention to the improvement of quality, which is also the policy and market expectations for the development of Internet medical enterprises.

In the process of actively improving quality, Internet medical companies have said that they should do "serious medical treatment". What is "serious medical care"? In the author's view, its original intention and core is to put the interests of patients in the first place, take this as a starting point, design and polish products, and make online medical and offline medical treatment homogeneous, in the same quantity, and in the same industry. At present, whether it is pre-diagnosis, pharmaceutical e-commerce or patient management, it is an important part of medical treatment. The rapid development of artificial intelligence and 5G technology has brought new possibilities for telemedicine applications, but it is still unable to replace the effect of the physical medical model, and more is assisted diagnosis and treatment.

After the formulation of normative standards, the Internet medical industry has "great potential for a broad world". At present, the first generation of Internet medical user groups have been formed, with the collection of drugs to force the outflow of prescriptions, the acceleration of new drug approval, and the gradual access of online medical insurance payments in various provinces, Internet medical care still has room to play in the field of pharmaceutical services. In addition, in terms of improving the efficiency of hospital management and operation, Internet medical companies can also show their skills. It should be noted that the investment cycle of medical services is long and difficult, and the market needs to give patience, time and continuous support. (Zhang Min)