Mobile apps transforming China's medical services

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-01-05

A patient scans the QR code of the Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical
Center with Alipay Wallet, a mobile app operated by Alibaba, May 30. (Photo/CNS)

China's medical services sector, which has often been criticized for its lack of efficiency in the past, is undergoing a transformation ushered in online third-party-payment services, according to Guangzhou's 21st Century Business Herald.

Scenes of patients waiting in long queues to make appointments, which were often seen outside Shanghai's First Maternity and Infant Hospital before it opened at 7am in the past, no longer exist today, said Zhuang Siliang, head of PR at the hospital.

This all happened after the hospital joined Alipay's "future hospital" program in August and introduced the WeChat payment service in October, according to Zhuang.

Alipay and WeChat users can use these two services to make appointments with doctors, receive messages reminding them of their appointment, pay medical bills, and check their prescriptions online, completing most steps in the process at a faster pace, the newspaper stated.

Alipay and WeChat launched their respective programs in May and August, as both plan to tap into the medical services sector by improving user experience and optimizing resource allocation in hospitals.

Alipay, the third-party-payment subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba, told the newspaper that it has signed up 21 hospitals, while Tencent's social messaging app WeChat has the same number of hospitals in its program.

Zhuang said the use of the two services is most frequent at the outpatient department and patients no longer have to be present physically at the hospital just to make an appointment.

The newspaper added that Alipay is planning to further incorporate online prescriptions, delivery of medicine and claims for medical insurance in its program, which is expected to be built into an online health management platform.

This reflects how internet companies can monetize online data and traffic through cloud computing the analysis of big data, the newspaper said.

Zhuang said the use of mobile applications may help optimize the use of resources, but it is still unable to resolve the problems of expensive medical bills and the lack of access to medical services in the country.