Professional escort clinics need to find out in advance which floors of each department in the hospital, where the bathroom is, and where the examination is done, so that customers can improve the efficiency of medical treatment in the shortest possible time, and they also need to provide customers with certain medical professional services.
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Would you place an order online and ask a stranger to accompany you or a loved one to the hospital?
"Our clients mainly fall into the following categories: children who cannot accompany their sick parents to see a doctor in time, young parents whose children are sick but cannot escape because of work, and young people who live alone who go to the hospital for surgery alone... Now every day there are 1 -2 orders." A year ago, He Yiyan, born in the 1990s, was still a nurse in a tertiary hospital in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. She resigned to become a full-time escort because she was optimistic about the development prospects of this emerging profession as an escort." The company has nearly 1,000 part-time escorts across the country, most of whom are born in the 90s with hospital work experience or medical background."
As one of the emerging professions, why are professional escorts favored by young people?
How is the industry service specification?
Is it possible for everyone?
Recently, reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily interviewed young professional clinicians from Hangzhou, Xi'an, Jinan, Haikou and other places in response to these issues.
From part-time escort to entrepreneurship
"On average, there are 2-3 orders a week, and the fee is 200-300 yuan for half a day and 400-500 yuan for a full day." Jiang Dan, born in the 90s, has been working part-time as a professional medical escort for nearly half a year.
After graduating from university, she worked in a pharmaceutical company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province as a pharmaceutical salesman, and she often went to and from major hospitals in the city.
"It is often seen that elderly people who go to the doctor alone cannot operate the intelligent equipment in the hospital. They can't understand the simplest registration and taking numbers. At that time, I thought it would be good to have a special person to help them." Jiang Dan told China Youth Daily China A reporter from Qingwang.com really decided to become a professional medical escort because her father was ill, and she was unable to accompany her to see a doctor while breastfeeding.
"At that time, I searched the Internet and found that there is really a profession as an escort, so I discussed with a few friends to do it together."
Before officially becoming a professional escort, Jiang Dan also consulted some doctors in the top three hospitals.
She said: "Many doctors would like to have such a group between the hospital and the family, the doctor and the patient, to reconcile and solve the needs of both sides."
Jiang Dan explained that due to the large number of patients, the doctor's outpatient time for each patient is limited. Some patients may misunderstand the doctor's bad attitude or the patient's description of the condition in a short period of time does not fully understand the doctor's order, which leads to the medical treatment. When conflicts arise, "We can not only help patients to ask about their condition and treatment plan in a short period of time, but also help doctors and patients to promote mutual understanding."
At the end of February this year, Jiang Dan and his friends also obtained the business license for individual industrial and commercial households, and their business scope includes "patient care service". Next, they will recruit IT majors to join them and develop a WeChat applet for online ordering.
Li Caiwan, who is also born in the 1990s, takes professional medical escorts as a new choice for entrepreneurship.
Originally, Li Caiwan was a claims adjuster of an insurance company in Haikou City, Hainan Province. She has been dealing with hospitals all the year round, and she also found out that it is difficult for the elderly to see a doctor and there is a real need for unaccompanied medical treatment.
"I think I have reached the age of starting a business." In March 2021, Li Caiwan officially became a flexible employee, from the initial offline leaflet distribution to the short video promotion, from taking orders to escorting clinics to online escorting clinics In training, from only taking orders from Haikou City to "warming in a group" with professional clinicians from other provinces and cities, Li Caiwan's entrepreneurial path has broadened and nearly 100 trainees have been recruited.
"My current team includes unemployed mothers, college students, and takeaway errands. Most of them work part-time. The half-day and full-day charges are 150 yuan and 250 yuan respectively."
Like Li Caiwan, Zheng Gang's daily life, in addition to accompanying clinicians, is to shoot short videos or live broadcast to introduce the profession of clinicians.
Zheng Gang ran a daily necessities store next to Qilu Hospital in Shandong Province before taking professional escorts as his entrepreneurial direction.
"I see too many patients who go to other places to see a doctor. The cost of seeing a doctor is too high. Travel expenses, accommodation expenses, and meals are not small expenses. There are also cases where one person is sick and the whole family asks for leave to accompany the doctor. , I don’t want to worry about my relatives, and I don’t want to trouble my friends and colleagues.” In 2019, Zheng Gang was hospitalized for more than 40 days due to a brain tumor. So he began to study short videos, promoted order taking, and developed WeChat mini-programs, online queuing registration, substitute results, errands, medical records home, consultation and other services.
"Vocational escort is just one of the many new occupations that are constantly emerging. In view of the pain points of people seeking medical treatment, they use their professional skills, physical strength and time to provide services to meet social needs while increasing their income." Zhang Libin, director of the Employment and Entrepreneurship Research Office of the Institute of Social Security Sciences, said that more and more young people are choosing emerging careers, which to a certain extent reflects young people's keen market insight, bold innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, and active service to society in terms of job hunting and employment. The awareness of employment and entrepreneurship, "this is different from the traditional career view".
The escort is not just "running errands"
"This morning, I accompanied a post-90s young man with abdominal pain to the hospital to see a doctor. From pre-diagnosis reminders, preparing epidemic prevention kits, small benches, and blankets, going to the outpatient clinic to pick up the number, see the doctor, make an appointment for examination, and get the examination results. We need to take a step, and we are responsible for the whole process." In Li Caiwan's view, professional escorts belong to the life service category, which is equivalent to "running errands" in the hospital outpatient department. Where and where to do the inspection, so that customers can improve the efficiency of medical treatment in the shortest possible time.”
In this regard, Lu Ding, the founder of Youxiang Accompanying Clinic App, believes that professional escorts are not only "running errands", but also accompany family members to accompany them, "but also need to provide customers with certain medical professional services."
Lu Ding was originally a software developer for a company.
At the beginning of 2020, seeing the huge market demand for professional escort clinics, I started a business with my friends. In the continuous market research and actual escort clinic services, I will take the number before the clinic, conduct the consultation, send the results, buy medicine on the agent, The whole set of Internet products such as App, Mini Program, and order dispatching system have been developed for the whole process of escort and other patient consultation needs.
"Whether it is a full-time escort like He Yiyan or a part-time escort recruited from various places, we strictly require that they must have a professional medical background, a college degree or above, 2-3 years of medical-related work experience, and provide 3 A medical certificate within a month." Lu Ding told a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily that during the process of accompanying the clinic, he found that the patients and their families had high professional requirements for the accompanying clinicians, "I want to get a relatively high level of professionalism from us. Professional medical services, such as basic understanding of the expertise of each hospital and doctor, precautions for the treatment of various diseases, quickly and accurately describing the disease to the doctor when accompanying the doctor, and then feeding back the doctor’s order and treatment plan to the family.”
Jiang Dan and her team members have corresponding hospital work experience, and she also believes that the threshold for professional escorts is not low.
In her opinion, patients and their families not only want to know which hotels near the hospital are cost-effective, where to eat and park, but also want to know the precautions before and after seeing a doctor, "For example, there are many types of cancer, and we will conduct a case study every time. After reviewing the results, we will sort out and summarize various types of cancer conditions; for example, when some young people do painless gastroenteroscopy, we need to understand in advance the medical treatment process before and after anesthesia treatment and how to take care of them if nausea, vomiting, or dizziness occurs.”
"It looks simple, and you can earn a few hundred yuan in a few hours. It seems that everyone can accompany a doctor, but it took me half a year of hands-on teaching to really bring out an apprentice who can get started directly. Professional escort is a part of the service industry. Kind of, without a set of professional service procedures, it will not last long." Zheng Gang admitted that he and his team members have not been able to make ends meet since he became an escort. It is irresponsible for consumers and not conducive to the development of the industry.”
In this regard, Shan Gong, a senior position analyst directly hired by BOSS, believes that escort is a highly professional job, and an escort needs to have certain medical first aid knowledge and psychological knowledge.
He believes that the addition of professionals such as doctors and nurses from top-three hospitals such as He Yiyan can not only give full play to the advantages of medical expertise, but also fill the "professional" lack of current professional escorts to a certain extent.
Occupational entry barriers are unclear
"The demand for escorting clinics is like the demand for taxis. It exists for a long time. Our entrepreneurial team wants to create an Internet product like a taxi software app." After more than two years of exploration, Lu Ding also found the escort clinic industry. There are many irregularities. "The number of escorts across the country has gradually increased. Our family alone has nearly 1,000 part-time escorts across the country. But there has not yet emerged an industry benchmark for pre-job training and practice management of escorts. There is no uniform standard."
"After consulting relevant lawyers, we have formulated a risk notification letter for users to check when they place an order. In order to avoid risks, we do not provide pick-up and drop-off services for patients, and require family members to provide the phone numbers and identity information of two emergency contacts, critical and 70 Elderly people over 10 years old must be accompanied by their family members.” Jiang Dan believes that if escort clinics develop into an industry, a set of professional and standardized service processes must be established, which can refer to the development model of nursing practice, and ultimately form a joint construction with the hospital.
In the interview, the reporter learned that, in addition to the lack of management norms for the escort, if an accident occurs to the patient during the escort process, the division of risk and responsibility is not clear.
When some escorts provide consultation services, the patients need to mail their ID cards and other materials to the escorts. The patient's condition information is kept confidential, and the ID card information is not used for other purposes, which basically depends on the personal moral constraints of the escorts.
In addition, some young people who blindly join the escort industry are also prone to vicious competition, and even the past dealers, medical care providers, etc. may change into the vests of the escort and take advantage of their own advantages to obtain improper benefits.
"The fees for escort services are determined according to the income level of each region, and some escorts deliberately fight price wars to disrupt the market. Some escorts promise to help patients with specialist numbers, or 'go through the back door' to book surgeries in advance. "Li Caiwan told reporters that he hopes to have a special platform for receiving and dispatching orders in the future to accompany clinics."
In this regard, Shan Gong said that in the early stage of the development of new things, due to the lack of industry system norms and access standards, it is inevitable that practitioners will be mixed for a period of time.
He believes that basic issues such as the employment standards, charging standards, service standards, and regulatory authorities of professional medical escorts need to be resolved as soon as possible. Social value".
The reporter noticed that the "14th Five-Year" Public Service Plan also included inclusive non-basic public services into the plan, and proposed to realize the realization of payment, affordable, quality assurance, and safety supervision.
Many escorts expressed in interviews that they expect the professional escort industry, which integrates medical care and services, to be classified as non-essential public services and to develop in a more standardized and professional manner.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Wang Shanshan Source: China Youth Daily