China’s telemedicine market had been predicted to grow vigorously even before the latest epidemic
WHEN SARS, a disease caused by a coronavirus, hit China in 2003 citizens hunkered down at home. This proved a blessing for some businesses. Chinese social media took off. So did e-commerce. Richard Liu, who ran a chain of consumer-electronics shops, shut all his brick-and-mortar stores and set up JD.com. The firm is now valued at $56bn.
Xin Lijun, boss of JD Health, says that his platform’s monthly consultations have grown tenfold since the outbreak, to 2m. Some 1.6m tuned in to a talk by a top cardiologist that the JD.com subsidiary live-streamed. Without the outbreak, such a shift in consumer behaviour would have taken perhaps five years, reckons Mr Xin. Chen Qiaoshan of Analysys, a consultancy, thinks China’s online health-care market may near 200bn yuan this year, up from her pre-outbreak estimate of 158bn yuan.
Until now, however, most of these firms have stuck to delivering drugs or, in Ping An’s case, booking appointments with specialists, whom Chinese patients favour over general practitioners , even if it means queuing for hours at a hospital. Prestigious “AAA” hospitals account for one in ten public medical institutions but receive half of all outpatients.
Last year the government began to lift some restrictions, such as a ban on the sale of prescription drugs. But covid-19, as the new disease is known, has accelerated the shift. At the peak of the epidemic in early February a health-ministry directive mandated that internet-based medical services be given “full play” to diagnose and treat patients. Another encouraged hospitals to give online consultations.
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