China News Finance, January 20 (Reporter Zhang Ni) "After several years of development, coupled with the promotion of the new crown epidemic, capital giants have 'entered the game', Internet hospitals have entered the 'peak season' of licensing, but the process of development has gradually exposed some problems and drawbacks, with the continuous deepening of industry practice, regulatory policies have gradually become clear, and 'norms' have become the key words." Wang Hang, founder and CEO of Good Doctor Online, told China News Network's "China New Observation" column.
User habits are gradually developing The development of the industry is still in its early stages
Data from the National Health Commission shows that at the end of 2018, the number of domestic Internet hospitals was only more than 100, and by June 2021, the number of Internet hospitals soared to 1600, and more than 7700 hospitals above the second level provided online services. Third-party platforms have also opened Internet medical services. Especially during the new crown pneumonia period, Internet + medical treatment has allowed many people to enjoy convenience.
"This epidemic, on the doctor side and the patient side, has completed a large-scale cognitive popularization, the degree of trust of patients in Internet medical care is increasing, and user habits are slowly developing, so in the post-epidemic era, more and more people have taken Internet medical treatment as an important way to seek medical treatment."
Wang Hang believes that the gradual cultivation of user habits has provided a good mass foundation for the development of the industry, and at the same time, the introduction of a series of policies with "standardized development" as the core is also escorting the development of the industry from the policy level, which are important opportunities for the future of the industry.
But at the same time, he also stressed that because the development of the industry is still in its infancy, there are still some irregular development phenomena, the industry's profit model is not clear, etc., which need to be faced by the whole industry.
Data chart: Medical staff answering questions on the line Fang Yongle photo
Is the hospital's self-built platform and the third-party platform competitive or complementary?
So, is the relationship between the hospital Internet platform and the Internet medical third-party platform today a competition or complementarity? How should different platforms leverage their strengths to serve patients?
In this regard, Wang Hang believes that the two positioning is different, and they should give full play to their respective advantages based on their own positioning to jointly serve patients.
In his view, the self-built Internet hospitals of public hospitals are first of all a reserve of emergency response capabilities to ensure that basic medical services are not interrupted in the "wartime" state of fighting the epidemic. Second, for tertiary hospitals, the "usual" online follow-up business should be a problem of continuous treatment (compliance) to ensure difficult and major cases, rather than ordinary follow-up of common diseases and chronic diseases.
The positioning of the third-party platform should be the grass-roots hospital on the Internet, first, should use their own Good Internet technology to expand the patient population covered by the platform; second, to reach as many doctors as possible, and through artificial intelligence triage technology, live free clinics, etc., to help doctors screen out accurate patients, patients who need further treatment, and let doctors smoothly refer these patients to their own offline hospitals; third, is to do some low-risk common diseases, chronic diseases online follow-up business.
Infographic: Kiosks in a hospital. Photo by Xu Jing
Capital has "entered the game", how to avoid industry crisis?
Since the issuance of the "Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting the Development of "Internet + Medical Health"" and other documents, all localities have taken rapid action, innovated and implemented, and achieved remarkable results in promoting the development of "Internet + medical health".
"After several years of development, coupled with the promotion of the new crown epidemic, capital giants have 'entered the game', and Internet hospitals have entered the 'peak season' of licensing, but in the process of development, some problems and drawbacks have gradually been exposed, and with the continuous deepening of industry practice, regulatory policies have gradually become clear, and 'norms' have become the key words." Wang Hang said.
He said that in recent years, "Internet + medical health" has only completed the first step in business, and there is still a lot of in-depth work to be carried out. On the one hand, it is necessary to explore and establish business norms, and on the other hand, it is necessary to improve the quality of medical services.
Wang Hang said that for example, in the field of pharmaceutical management, the hierarchical management of the clinical application of antibacterial drugs, the application management of high-warning drugs, and the management of ultra-prescribed drugs are urgently needed by industry experts to study in depth and issue detailed guidelines and specifications.
For another example, online outpatient medical records are still missing, and how to require, how to manage, and then do a good job in medical quality management based on medical records is an urgent problem to be solved.
In addition, at present, there are some signs of irregular development in the industry, such as offline drug rebates online and other issues, if allowed to develop, it will bring a huge crisis to the entire industry.
Wang Hang also analyzed that at present, there are still a large number of unresolved pain points and breakpoints, such as the problem that doctors are busy with clinical work and cannot respond in time online; for example, experts do not have time to carefully explain the problems that lead to patient dissatisfaction after giving conclusions; doctors and patients cannot be online at the same time, the online consultation time is very long, the doctor's work efficiency is low, and so on.
He said that none of these problems can be easily solved, and each of them is a system engineering with complex causes. However, if not solved, there is no next step in the development of the industry. From another point of view, each problem is also a potential opportunity for the development of the industry, an opportunity to create value for society.
"Standardized development and high-quality development are the key to the survival of the Internet medical industry, and they are also the direction of the future." The organic combination of standardization and innovation will make the pace of industry development more stable. Wang Hang said. (End)