The coronavirus brought a lot of challenges to the medical community, and JD Healthcare was there to meet the challenge. In fact, JD health established a free online consultation platform on January 26. The site was used to help those possibly infected with the virus deal with the symptoms. On February 6th, JD Health and Wellness was able to expand those services to all diseases.
Frustration Grows Regarding Medical Resources
For Ms. Wu Yan, traveling over 100 kilometers between the cities of Zhangzhou and Xiamen in southeast China was, to say the least, very frustrating. However, due to the severity of her illness, there was no choice but to travel the long route between these two cities. Unfortunately, because of the lack of medical resources, Ms. Wu Yan was not only not reacting to the treatment but getting worse each time she was treated with a drug. This is not unheard of within China, as an imbalanced distribution of medical resources is a big problem for many people. That is why JD.com chose to spearhead a project aiming to make receiving medical services that much easier.
Doctors Utilizing the Internet to Cure
Although this was already a problem before the pandemic, the issue became even worse once people were not allowed to travel or meet up within hospitals. That is why JD Health and Wellness began to look at a better way to treat their patients. One of the best ideas involved having doctors utilize the current JD e-commerce platform and technology to reach even the most rural of patients. In fact, over 30,000 doctors offered their service to ensure that the population was being taken care of, especially during these difficult times. Fortunately, the program has so far been a success, with most patients being able to receive service and an answer for their use within three minutes of looking for a doctor. This is not only possible because of the number of doctors online but because of their individual experiences.
Hospitals & Governments Come Together
If the rollout of this program were going to be successful, both hospitals and the government would have to work together. Although JD has provided a platform or “Smart Clinic” to have people sign on and use their services, local governments have also taken steps to include the service within their own platforms. This will help spread the message even further about these great services being offered to people. In fact, since 2019, patients from within the First People’s Hospital of Suqian in east China have been able to enjoy reaching out to doctors whenever they needed thanks to the platform.
JD Health Becomes Unicorn
In November, JD health was able to raise over one billion dollars in funding which ended up valuing the small company at just over 7 billion dollars. Because of this, JD health became just the third unicorn created by JD.com. This area of providing healthcare via the internet is just one part of the various measures being taken by JD health and the doctors working within the platform.
