China created a telemedicine ecosystem to fight the pandemic while still retaining access to essential healthcare services
By Naseer A Ganai
China’s leveraging of telemedicine to combat COVID-19 is a lesson for governments across the world.
In the early stages of the pandemic, community hospitals in Wuhan buckled under pressure owing to outdated equipment shortage of doctors and frontline workers, and limited facilities for testing and monitoring.
As a result, patients began veering towards larger hospitals for diagnosis and treatment, increasing social movement and potentially expanding the spread of the disease.
As infections grew exponentially, China’s healthcare system was nearing a crisis in the early stages of the pandemic. This crisis was, however, averted with effective government action as the government implemented a strict lockdown and boosted healthcare infrastructure including building new hospitals.
One of the initiatives led by the Chinese government that received little coverage was its leveraging of telemedicine with internet hospitals.
China introduced policies to limit physical interaction while still allowing access to essential health services. This included the setting up of infrastructure for e-prescriptions, e-pharmacies, and e-consultations.
With these policies, internet hospitals such as WeDoctor and Alibaba Health emerged as a protective barrier between people and the virus.
When introduced, these policies led to 42.3% of physical hospitals across China establishing their internet-based units, alleviating crowds in hospitals. Latest reports indicate that China has built more than 1,100 internet hospitals since the outbreak in 2020. Internet hospitals today, offer different types of online consultations, including epidemic-related counseling, psychological counseling, and home quarantine guidance.
Data from WeDoctor and haodf.com indicate that 20% of their online medical consultations are related to COVID-19 including protective measures and guidance for home quarantine. Through internet hospitals, patients with chronic or common diseases were able to keep up with their regular consultations without delay.
WeDoctor, China’s largest telemedicine network owns 27 internet hospitals and has linked its appointment-making system to another 7,800 hospitals across China including 95% of the top-tier public hospitals in the country. The network hosts over 270,000 doctors and has 222 million registered patients. It is also one of the few online health care providers qualified to accept payments from China’s public health insurance system which covers over 95% of the population.
WeDoctor today, gives its users an integrated online and offline healthcare experience where users can opt to receive online consultations after an in-person diagnosis. It also allows for the transfer of digital medical records to other doctors should the user adopt to do so.
In January 2020, WeDoctor launched a platform dedicated to COVID-19-related consultations. Data shows that at its peak, the platform handled 97% of Wuhan’s medical needs.
The other frontrunners in digital healthcare are Alibaba Health, JD Health, and Ping a good doctor, DXY.cn, Tencent, Huawei, and Meituan.
As healthcare is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, the rapid growth and success of internet hospitals in China could be the future of health systems. Irrespective of whether telemedicine will sustain after the pandemic, China’s innovative efforts to retain access to essential health services during the pandemic is a lesson to take.
The post How China used telemedicine to fight COVID-19 appeared first on Health Analytics Asia.
