Home Article

Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital shares practices of an "Internet+" hospital in China

2018-10-08

Here is the case when you get sick and want to see a doctor in China. Four line-ups are ahead of you: The first line-up is for making an appiontment, known as guahao in Chinese. After guahao, you wait in line to see the doctor. Then you get your prescription and line up again to pay for it. Now you reach the last queue to pick up your medication.

Just imagine the time you spend on waiting. The situation stems from various issues plaguing the Chinese healthcare system. Good news is, things are changing. With the big push from the state on "internet+" and big data technologies, efficiency and ease of the process have been much improved. On the treatment end, China is making a huge move on pulling together data from multiple hospitals and use that data to improve diagnoses in health care.

Last month, the National Health Commission released Interim Regulations on Internet Diagnosis and Treatment, Interim Regulations on Internet+ Hospitals and Interim Regulations on Remote Medical Services. CAI Xiujun, president of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital (SRRSH), one of the affiliated hospitals of ZJU's School of Medicine, attended the press release and spoke as a representative from hospitals.

As one of the best examples in public hospitals, SRRSH has made great efforts on the development of an "internet+" hospital to provide better service to its patients. Since 2014, SRRSH has enabled patients to skip the lines by online appointment and payment. Particularly, the Hospital adopts big data analytics to review each doctor's out-patient service time in the past three years and estimate the time needed for different patient, and schedule the appointments accordingly, which significantly decreases the average out-patient service time from 4-5 hours to 1.7 hours per visit.

Furthermore, SRRSH established SRRSH·Nali Health Cloud, the first smart clinic cloud platform in China. Centering on the hierarchical medical system and partner public hospitals, the medical services of SRRSH, including online consultation, group diagnosis, payment, two-way referral, collaborative inspection, internet prescription, third-party drug delivery, remote joint out-patient service, distance education, tele-surgery consultation and technical guidance, are now extended to 34 public hospitals across the country, including three in the remote Xinjiang province. Hundreds of community clinics are now connected to the Cloud Outpatient of the platform, which allows return visits done at home. Electronic prescription will be filed online by the doctor and checked by a pharmcist remotely. The patients then will receive their medications through third-party delivery without the hassle of waiting in line.

In addition, through the pre-arrival emergency information system, emergency medical personnel at SRRSH are able to gather information about the patients while they are transported by the ambulance. When patients arrive, all necessary preparations are ready, which effectively save rescue time and improve the success rate.

"All these efforts are in a bid to bring the management of the Hospital's medical and healthcare services into the digital age, in line with the concept of 'Internet+ Healthcare' promoted by the state. Through remote platform and the innovative use of Internet+, any patient can see elite doctors at home and young doctors can get proper instructions from senior professionals. The availability and delivery of required medication are then ensured to all Chinese people, wherever they live," CAI said.