Tencent, Novartis launch online platform for heart patients

Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis and China's internet giant Tencent jointly announced the official launch of an online long-term disease management platform for heart patients during the ongoing China International Import Expo on Wednesday.

The platform called "AI", representing care for the heart in Chinese, covers daily health indicator monitoring and health condition assessment through voice and image recognition and interaction as well as access to personalized information, and lies inside WeChat as a mini program, the developers said.

It is the country's first of such online AI-powered platform providing disease management for heart patients, the companies claimed.

Official figures showed that there are at least 10 million patients with heart diseases in China, and medical experts said that around 50 percent of the patients die within five years after being diagnosed.

Ma Changsheng, director of cardiology center at Anzhen Hospital in Beijing, said that disease management among patients in China is not ideal so far, and patients are hospitalized for an average of nearly 2.5 times a year as a result.

"From foreign experience, we can observe that long-term health condition monitoring can obviously improve patients' living quality. A disease management model covering the whole disease process for patients is believed to help them achieve a better prognosis," he said.

Novartis said it is committed to bringing innovative therapies and services for the wellbeing of patients in China, and the innovation in the application of big data technology and digitalization will be a focus.

The company said it is also mulling to replicate such online platforms in long-term disease management for patients suffering from other chronic diseases.