Demand dividend continues to be released. Digital healthcare is ushering in the best era!

As of October 20, 2021, there have been more than 240 million people infected with new coronary pneumonia worldwide and nearly 5 million deaths.
The epidemic has prompted people to further think about the value of digital medicine in improving human life and health
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Digital technologies such as AI, 5G, and big data have played an important role in the prevention and control of the epidemic, and have a wealth of application scenarios, such as intelligent disease diagnosis, epidemic question and answer, patient diagnosis and treatment, face recognition, infrared temperature measurement, material distribution, disinfection and antivirus, etc.

Digital medical care is not just a simple collection of digital medical equipment, but a new modern medical method that applies contemporary computer technology and information technology to the entire medical process
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Experts predict that the development momentum of digital medical care in 2021 will continue to rise and usher in a new round of major development, bringing unprecedented changes to the medical field

01 Large room for development of digital healthcare

China’s aging society is developing rapidly.
According to the United Nations, the proportion of China’s elderly population in the total population will increase at an average annual rate of 2.
35% from 2015 to 2055.
The world’s average rate of this proportion is only 1.
53%, making China a The country with the largest elderly population in the world also has the characteristics of getting old before getting rich, and it is urgent to improve the level of the medical system to meet future challenges
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There are more than 1 million domestic medical institutions, 95% of primary medical institutions, 35,000 hospitals, and only 8% of tertiary hospitals.
With the reform of the medical system, the quality of medical services is gradually increasing
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Digital medical content continues to develop along with technological advances, making medical equipment, medical network systems, and medical system-related services more intelligent, providing more efficient integrated services, and helping to improve the service capabilities of medical institutions

McKinsey estimates that the global digital healthcare market is expected to reach US$600 billion by 2024
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At present, there are more than 1,000 telemedicine companies in China, the hospital information system (HIS) third-level hospitals have basically reached full coverage, and the second-level and below have basically reached 80% coverage, and the penetration rate has grown rapidly

02 China's medical digital development never stops

In the mid-1990s, HIS products distributed by IBM first entered the domestic market
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HIS takes charge as the center, connects registration, price verification, charges, dispensing, hospitalization registration and other medical treatment links, and integrates the information of medical institutions' personnel, finances, and materials.

In 2009, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Medical and Health System" (Zhongfa [2009] No.
6) (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions")
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Article 14 of the "Opinions" proposes the establishment of a practical and shared medical and health information system, emphasizes the construction of hospital informatization with the focus on hospital management and electronic medical records, and puts forward reform requirements around all aspects of medical services

In August 2014, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other eight ministries and commissions issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy Development of Smart Cities", proposing for the first time to promote the construction of smart hospitals and telemedicine
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In the same year, after more than a month of trial operation, the Guangdong Provincial Network Hospital was officially launched in the Second People's Hospital of Guangdong Province, becoming the first network hospital in the country to be licensed by the local health and family planning department

In 2016, the state further proposed to "promote the deep integration of information technology and health services such as cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, mobile Internet, virtual reality, etc.
" to open up new growth space for Internet healthcare
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In 2018, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Development of "Internet + Medical Health"" Guobanfa [2018] No.
26, and the National Health Commission and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine organized and formulated the "Internet Diagnosis and Treatment Management Measures (Trial) "Management Measures for Internet Hospitals (for Trial Implementation)", "Management Specifications for Telemedicine Services (for Trial Implementation)" and other documents, industry development began to be guided by relevant laws and regulations
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In 2019, the digital medical industry has become a market for policy dividends.
The State Council government report pointed out that the digital medical industry is conducive to improving the quality of life of the people
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In 2020, the National Medical Security Administration issued a document "Guiding Opinions of the National Medical Security Administration on Actively Promoting "Internet +" Medical Services and Medical Insurance Payments", which answered medical institutions on how to better carry out "Internet +" medical services and medical insurance payments.
The required qualifications and conditions, the scope of medical insurance payment and reimbursement for medical service items, and how to conduct medical insurance settlement are hot issues related to the Internet + digital medical industry
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The promulgation of this document has promoted the "standard" and "innovation" of the "Internet +" medical service model in all respects

03 Digital Medical Market Layout

The development of the digital medical industry is based on the current medical ecology, and each part has traces of previous experience.
Digital medical first needs to digitize the system, and secondly, it needs to break through the barriers between various parts of the system, and then realize value through data.
Finally, the optimization of the service is realized
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On the whole, China's digital medical industry is still in the first stage, attracting Internet companies such as Apple and BAT, medical and health companies such as Sanofi, and other emerging innovative companies
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Table 1: Classification of participants in the digital healthcare system

Source: Flint Creations compiled according to public information

The layout of Internet companies is relatively large, and applications such as a full set of hospital operation services, consultation services, and AI diagnostic services will be involved.
Enterprises will also invest in external entrepreneurial enterprises.
The service segmentation direction is selected with traditional corporate characteristics, but common content dominates
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Internet companies have not yet formed a relatively clear business model in the digital medical industry
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Companies such as Google and IBM are adjusting their directions .

For hardware Internet companies, mainly in wearable devices, technological advancements have made it possible to monitor all-weather health.
In 2020, the world’s top five equipment vendors shipped 185 million pieces, a year-on-year increase of 9.
9%.
The industry’s bargaining power seems to depend on the companies themselves.
The homogeneity of product functions is obvious
.

Traditional medical device companies are undergoing digital upgrades.
The barriers of the medical device industry are concentrated in high-end areas, and digitalization is an important trend
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Surgical robots and other medical devices can improve the level of operation.
At present, it is difficult to increase domestic sales.
Due to the high cost, the most qualified consumers are in the tertiary hospitals, but the more urgent needs are the grassroots hospitals, which are currently facing problems such as imbalance in economic benefits.

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Domestic robots such as orthopedic surgery have been piloted into medical insurance in Beijing, and it will take time to gradually roll out
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Figure 1: Simplified system diagram of digital healthcare

Source: Flint Creations compiled according to public information

Table 2: Three important components of digital healthcare

Source: Flint Creations compiled according to public information

04 Digital Medical Application Value

It is difficult to improve the efficiency of the medical system.
Objective problems such as the large domestic population base, different patient conditions, and multiple medical service links have caused both doctors and patients to pay a lot of effort in the diagnosis process, through the integration of intelligent and information technology.
, Reduce the doctor’s investment in trivial matters, optimize business processes and resource allocation, put more time, manpower and other resources on key things, and improve service efficiency
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Digital medical care can provide telemedicine services and empowering platforms or smart devices to a certain extent, helping patients in different regions to obtain more effective treatment services as much as possible to meet the service needs of different types of patients
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In terms of costs, medical costs include the cost of medical equipment, doctor service costs, and element circulation costs.
The digital medical system uses technology to improve resource matching and the efficiency of medical equipment research and development, so as to promote more economical use of resources and reduce total costs
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05 Digital medical development problems

In the development process, although digital medical care has many advantages, it also faces many challenges
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The first is the rational use of data
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Medical data is often closely related to personal health information.
The ownership of patient data belongs to the patient.
At the same time, there is no unified use cooperation agreement between data resources.
There is still no very effective means to protect data security and legal issues.
Hospitals and other related institutions It's just a limited choice between benefits and risks
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Secondly, related to laws and regulations, the National Health Commission and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly formulated and issued the "Internet Diagnosis and Treatment Management Measures (Trial)", "Internet Hospital Management Measures (Trial)," Telemedicine Service Management Specifications (Trial), and " Documents such as the “Notice of the General Office of the National Health Commission on Further Promoting the Development and Standardized Management of Internet Medical Services” mainly regulate the access conditions and technical requirements established on the existing medical system.
The content of services, the responsibilities of medical service participants, ethics and other related aspects have been further improved
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Third, technology is independent, but when applied to the human environment, it is not completely independent.
There are prejudices among different groups of people in society.
The availability of resources cannot be simply pinned on technology.
The current application of technology still has a lack of trust and The problem of group bias
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Finally, technological breakthroughs face greater uncertainty
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At present, Internet diagnosis and treatment are mainly focused on chronic disease management and follow-up diagnosis.
The development of science and technology is not a linear growth.
The development of intelligent manufacturing technology and artificial intelligence technology is relatively slow, and the development of digital medical treatment is bound to be full of dangers
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06 The future of digital healthcare can be expected

The high-quality development of digital healthcare is spliced ​​by multiple local innovations.
Enterprises in different sectors of the medical system are entering this system through fusion technology
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Restricted by some factors such as technology and law, the industry is still in its infancy.
Related applications are only in one or more links of the medical system.
Systematic solutions are still lacking.
Market business models are still being explored.
Digital medical applications Currently facing the problem of insufficient clinical value
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In addition, digital health care is related to the national economy and people's livelihood, involving life safety, data security, etc.
, and compliance with the law is the most important thing in the development process
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The initial development of the digital medical industry was full of challenges, but during the epidemic period, the digital medical market showed strong vitality.
With the strong support of policy, technology, capital and other factors, digital medical has a good application prospect in the future
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