Mar 2, 2023|
JD Health Releases “Doctor-Searching Map for Rare Diseases”
by Vivian Yang
On February 27, one day before the global “Rare Disease Day,” JD Health pledged to step up efforts on supporting people with rare diseases through its “Twenty Million Care Project,” referring to the estimated number of affected patients in China.
Under the project, JD Health launched a new “doctor-searching map for rare diseases” in collaboration with Bo’ao Winhealth Rare Disease Medical Center, gathering information about doctors with experience in treating rare diseases across China and classifying their geographical locations. There’s a saying that goes, “Doctors for rare diseases are even rarer than patients.” JD Health’s digital map is thus created to fill this information gap.
With the help of the map, patients can conveniently look up and contact doctors relevant to their health conditions in areas close to their residence. In some cases, doctors and patients can directly chat online before making in-person appointments.
At the same time, in order to make medicines for rare diseases more accessible, JD Health has been building its medicine supplies in this field since 2021, and as of now is offering nearly 80 percent of medicines and all types of food for special purposes for rare diseases that are available on the Chinese market, becoming China’s most comprehensive online retailer for medicines of this category.
Thanks to JD’s well-established infrastructure of nationwide logistics and omni-channel drug store network, JD Health blazes the path to deliver rare disease medicines whenever and wherever people need them in the country. In 2022, 71,000 patients acquired their medicines for rare diseases and corresponding medical services through JD Health.
Additionally, JD Health’s rare disease care foundation has so far allocated RMB 2.23 million yuan to patients living with any of 35 types of rare diseases. The project also organized 34 charity activities that helped raise more than RMB 700,000 yuan, and attracted over 50,000 merchants on its platform to join this charity program through making voluntary donations per sale. To date, the program has received more than 55 million donations.
Enlin Jin, CEO of JD Health, pointed out that the issue of rare diseases is not only a medical challenge, but also one that affects the whole society. Besides charitable activities, JD Health will continue improving the services for this group of patients, letting more people truly feel supported with medicine supplies and other medical resources, which will be easily accessible and inclusively affordable. Meanwhile, JD Health, as a platform, will also do its best to raise awareness across a wider range of society to support people with rare diseases.