A few days ago, I communicated with a few friends who are doing investment and new media about the future development trend and business model of the Chinese medicine hall, during which they mentioned a question: "Why can't you see a bigger and stronger chain of specialty and disease Chinese medicine halls?"
In the past 10 years, we TCM people have been discussing this topic, and many people have made a lot of efforts and explorations in this area, but with little success.
It is not denied that there are some institutions that have made a certain scale based on TCM specialties, such as Xing'an Jieshou Orthopedic Hospital, which developed from a small TCM orthopedic clinic and became a tertiary TCM orthopedic hospital. However, we must not ignore a basic fact, although Xing'an Jieshou Orthopedic Hospital is under the banner of traditional Chinese medicine, it is actually a combination of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, and the proportion of traditional Chinese medicine needs to be objectively evaluated.
In the market, we have seen that some specialized institutions have introduced Western medicine in the process of expansion, and Western medicine has accounted for an increasing proportion and even a dominant position.
Among the listed specialized medical institutions, such as Aier Ophthalmology, Tongce Medical, Wuhan Asia Heart Hospital, Arrail Group, U.S.-China Jiahe, etc., they are basically all dominated by Western medicine, and there is no shadow of pure Chinese medicine specialized medical institutions.
We can't help but ask, why is this happening?
First of all, we have to admit the fact that after thousands of years of development, Chinese medicine is very technical, standardized and effective in some specialized fields. However, this kind of good technology is limited to family use and within the door, and is not open to the outside world or has no ability to marketize, and the result is that good technology rots in its own small pot.
Here, we briefly analyze the marketization of traditional Chinese medicine technology, and there is a consensus in the traditional Chinese medicine industry that the relevant national policies have seriously hindered the transformation of traditional Chinese medicine technology, which we do not deny. At present, the marketization of traditional Chinese medicine technology is indeed stuck at some policy levels, such as intellectual property rights, technology and product transformation.
However, we must understand that the core reason for this result is that TCM people themselves have not kept up with the development of the times, and deal with complex social relations from the perspective of "small self" and "self-employed" in the treatment of interests, like to close their lives and only pay attention to the realization and continuation of their own interests, ignoring the interests and ecology of those who drive the development of the industry.
Secondly, the diagnosis and treatment logic of traditional Chinese medicine syndrome differentiation and treatment emphasizes the accumulation of individual doctors' experience, which is very personalized, and different doctors have different dialectical methods and microscopic logic, and output different dialectical results. This kind of extremely individualized syndrome differentiation treatment makes it difficult to pass on the knowledge and technology of traditional Chinese medicine, let alone evolve and iterate, and it is naturally difficult to achieve spiral breakthroughs and development in the field of specialized diseases.
Thirdly, the general thinking of TCM people has led to a serious shortage of clinical technology precipitation in the field of specialty diseases. Most of our TCM doctors may not have more than 1,000 clinical data in a lifetime in a certain specialty and disease, and it is unrealistic to make a big breakthrough in the micro field of specialty diseases with such a sample size.
In the actual clinical process, we also personally feel that the so-called successful medical cases written by TCM people are basically the clinical data of dozens of patients, which cannot be used as the basis for standardized clinical medication for specialty diseases. Most of our medical cases are actually similar to the articles written by Chinese medicine enthusiasts like Uncle Wen, and the screen is full of "a XX square, the first party through the ages, conquering, sweeping, and solving all XX problems".
I once talked to a TCM doctor who has 60 patients a day, and he said that his master averages more than 160 patients a day, but among all the diseases treated, there is basically no specialized disease that can produce stable curative effects. Let's ask, this level of TCM doctors are like this, how can we do a good job in the construction of specialties and diseases?
Speaking of which, let's discuss another topic, why do we TCM doctors like to emphasize that we do general practice? Is it because TCM theory pays attention to the overall syndrome differentiation and treatment? Obviously, most of our TCM doctors have grown up from specialized diseases, so why don't they go to the field of specialized diseases for further study, but turn to general practice and treat all diseases, is this logical? If we think and sort out from the perspective of TCM theory and clinical practice, it is certainly unreasonable.
There are three core reasons for the growth path of TCM doctors from specialist diseases to general practice: technical growth, benefits and efficiency.
Technological growth can support oneself to see the whole department, not to mention, but in reality, this situation is rare, and the most important thing is that only by doing the whole department can the benefits be maximized.
Because traditional Chinese medicine sits in the clinic and waits for help, the radiation area is limited, and the efficiency is extremely low.
The author has a deep understanding of this in the process of operating the doctor's IP, and at the beginning, every TCM doctor strongly emphasized that he was doing general practice. However, after operating for a period of time, most of the patients who are attracted through the content are patients with a certain disease, and the result is that the benefit of seeing 3-5 patients with special diseases a day is stronger than seeing 30 general practitioners.
The core reason for this transformation of TCM doctors is that after empowering doctors, they have achieved efficiency multiplication in terms of personal brand, technology growth, number of patients, and efficacy reputation, thus ensuring the growth of doctors' income.
Therefore, when there is no operation or the operation efficiency is low, every TCM doctor will emphasize that he is engaged in general practice, which is in line with the reality of maximizing benefits, and when the operation can well empower doctors and create greater value, there are very few doctors who want to do general practice. Moreover, with the evolution of doctors' technology, they are also going in the direction of high-premium difficult specialties, so how can the logic of general practice come from?
Finally, there is no need for a division of labor in the core diagnosis and treatment process of traditional Chinese medicine, and the doctor can do it alone. This closed loop of diagnosis and treatment formed with individual doctors as the core has greatly affected the sharing, evolution and iteration of TCM technology. Every TCM doctor is an island of information, immersed in his own technological world, and it is difficult to keep up with the pace of development of the times.
With the advancement of national policies related to the development of traditional Chinese medicine, more and more top comprehensive western medicine hospitals have begun to add traditional Chinese medicine departments, increase the proportion of traditional Chinese medicine, promote the construction of traditional Chinese medicine specialties and diseases, and accelerate the transformation of traditional Chinese medicine in the direction of productization, science and technology, and intelligence. I believe that as long as Western medicine is given a certain amount of time, with their evidence-based logic, clinical experience and the division of labor and cooperation model of the group army, it is very likely to make a breakthrough in the construction of TCM specialties and diseases.
Of course, as TCM practitioners, we have witnessed Western doctors knock us down once in their main position, and we no longer want to see Western doctors defeat us again in our main position of TCM. If that's the case, what else can you say besides jumping off the cliff en masse......