E-prescriptions set new medical era's pulse racing

The government's favorable policies launched during the epidemic period also boosted the rapid growth of the online medical services sector. On Feb 3, the National Health Commission issued a guideline on epidemic prevention and control, which said that medical institutions should take advantage of internet-based healthcare to relieve the pressure on offline clinics and hospitals.

On March 2, the National Healthcare Security Administration and the NHC jointly issued a guideline on internet-based healthcare, noting that eligible online medical services are now included in the national insurance system.

Zhang Xiaoxu, a research fellow at VCBeat, an online healthcare website, said: "Owing to epidemic prevention and control requirements, numerous physical hospitals across the nation have now introduced online consultation services.

"However, online reimbursements, as an integral link of healthcare, had been hindering the development of internet healthcare for a long time. The introduction of the policy gave green light to this link, enabling patients to receive reimbursement for expenses on authorized online medical services."

A few years ago, the sector was not developing as smoothly as it seemed. According to the NHC's guidance issued in August 2014, only brick-and-mortar medical institutions were able to offer information technology-based diagnostic and treatment services, and internet-enabled hospitals without a license could only render consultation services.

In July 2015, the NHC introduced a guideline on promoting the Internet Plus strategy, supporting third-party institutions to establish medical information-sharing platforms, as well as medical institutions to offer internet-based services, including diagnosis reservations, service waiting reminders, online payments, and drug delivery.

Three years later, to promote industry standardization, the commission carried out three documentations of enhancing the supervision of internet healthcare, which had forced the shutdown of many internet-based medical startups.

The COVID-19 epidemic shifted users' care-seeking behavior online, which resulted in stimulating and reviving the entire internet-based healthcare sector, industry experts said.

Chen from Analysys noted that while the whole sector received a boost during the epidemic, future business opportunities lay in what the online healthcare platforms will do to maintain the recent spurt in traffic.

"Their emphasis should be on how to cultivate the newly added users and convert the new traffic into regular users who will be willing to pay for the e-services. Enterprises should think about ways to reinforce the users' habits of seeing a doctor and buying drugs online, getting them further acquainted with the online diagnosis and treatment mode," she said.

A report from Analysys said young consumers will likely be the target of internet-based medical firms as the former were the mainstay of the newly added traffic during the epidemic.

To this end, online healthcare enterprises may launch new modes of marketing promotions, such as livestreaming, graphic popular science content and interactive games, to increase the user stickiness among young consumers.