More than 1,600 domestic Internet hospitals
Expert: The problem of idleness and homogeneity is serious
Our reporter Dai Xiaopei
On July 31, the Internet Hospital High-Quality Development Summit Forum was held in Peking Union Medical College Hospital.
As of June 2021, there are more than 1,600 internet hospitals in my country.
Wen Jian, chairman of the Internet Hospital Branch of the Chinese Research Hospital Association, said that my country’s Internet hospitals have made great achievements, but the overall situation is still in its infancy and there are many problems, especially in terms of fuzzy function positioning, poor interconnection mechanisms, and difficulties in industry supervision. .
In the existing Internet hospitals, the problems of idleness and homogeneity are serious.
The "2021 China Internet Hospital Development Report" pointed out that benefiting from the country's access policy on Internet + medical care in 2018 and the catalysis of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the approval of Internet hospitals has accelerated and the number has increased significantly.
As of December 31, 2020, a total of 1,004 Internet hospitals have been built nationwide.
Gao Yong, deputy director of the Medical Resources Division of the Medical Administration and Hospital Administration of the National Health Commission, revealed that as of June 2021, this number has increased to more than 1,600.
Internet hospitals have become an important part of the medical service system, playing an important role in the sinking of high-quality resources and hierarchical diagnosis and treatment.
"Internet hospitals have entered a period of centralized construction. If total volume control or planning control is not implemented, it is possible for every hospital to have an Internet hospital in the future." Wen Jian said, "However, the built-up Internet hospitals are not in use. And the homogeneity problem is serious, that is, they are doing non-medical core businesses such as appointment registration, medical consultation, follow-up visits and prescriptions, and prescription sales."
In addition, the construction of interconnection is not ideal.
In reality, each Internet hospital basically operates independently, and data and resources cannot be shared.
"An Internet hospital is an island of information. As many hospital experts as patients find, they need to download as many apps." Wen Jian said bluntly.
In response to the above-mentioned problem of ambiguity in the function positioning of Internet hospitals, Wen Jian proposed that Internet hospitals should rely on physical hospitals and take public hospitals as the main body to fully play a supporting role in opening up the "last mile" of medical reform.
The Internet hospitals organized by hospitals should be consistent with the functional positioning of physical hospitals, especially not beyond the functions of physical hospitals.
"When a public hospital builds an Internet hospital, it must do something about it, work hard on difficult and miscellaneous diseases, give full play to experts and technical advantages, carry out continuing medical education, lead innovation, clarify processes, and strive to be standards." Jian said that he must continue to sum up his experience in managing Internet hospitals in practice.
When talking about breaking the barriers of interconnection, Wen Jian said that it is necessary to establish the concept of joint interaction, sharing and win-win, and jointly build an Internet medical public platform through government-led, social support, and hospital participation.
Wen Jian emphasized that such platforms are public resources for public welfare, and they do not aim at profit, and do not pursue capitalization, so as to avoid the problems of Internet platform companies from occurring in the medical field.
At the same time, the platform must be inclusive. For example, it can be connected to medical insurance agencies, commercial medical insurance agencies, and all compliant pharmaceutical production companies, operating companies, and distribution companies to ensure their credibility.
The platform should also be intelligent enough to make communication between various subjects more convenient and faster.
It is also very important for the platform to implement unified data standards. Through a unified data center, a unified data sharing method, and a unified security system, the integration of supervision and practice must be realized, but information security must be protected.
Many experts emphasized the need to strengthen the supervision of Internet hospitals.
In addition to industry self-regulation, it is also necessary to improve laws and policies and strengthen social supervision.
It is reported that the relevant departments of the National Health Commission have drafted relevant documents on the supervision of diagnosis and treatment of Internet hospitals.
Qin Mingwei, director of the Telemedicine Center of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, said that the construction of Internet hospitals must always be people-oriented.
Xin Youqing, secretary of the party committee and chairman of the Beijing Friendship Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, believes that the construction of Internet hospitals must persist in innovation and shine the light of medical ethics, science and humanity.
Yang Bin, deputy director of the Institute of Network Behavior, Tsinghua University, emphasized that it is necessary to build a healthy ecosystem for the development of Internet hospitals, so that people's health, hospital survival and subject development can be integrated.