by Hui Zhang

Statistics from the National Health Commission of China show that there are now nearly 300 million people with chronic diseases in China, with an annual increase of about 10 million people. The prevalence of chronic diseases in China reached 23% in 2019 with deaths accounting for 86% of the total number of deaths. Chronic diseases have become a major cause of death in China.

Based on such a large population of patients with chronic diseases, assisting them in health management has become increasingly important. Telemedicine, a new method for health management, is also gaining attention and support from both the government and the public.

 

Policy Supports

As early as July 2018, the National Health Commission and the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine issued documents to encourage all parties to actively provide online consultations for both common and chronic diseases, as well as follow-up health management guidance. Since then, the two departments have issued measures for the administration of internet hospitals and telemedicine, giving detailed guidance on internet+ medical service.

On March 20, 2019, a spokesman from the Planning Department of the National Health Commission said at a press conference held by the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council that in the process of pandemic prevention and control, all parties are encouraged to organize online consultations, offer follow-up consultation services for patients with chronic diseases online and provide instant drug distribution services. He also suggested that internet diagnosis and some types of treatment should fall under the payment scope of the medical insurance fund, expanding the online service space and alleviating the pressure on offline medical treatment.

“Patients with minor and chronic diseases are well suited to consult through Internet hospitals,” said Lijun Xin, JD Health CEO. “JD Health cooperates with local health care commissions nationwide to build an integrated online and offline medical system for local cities, thus to intervene in the precise health management of individual users with chronic diseases, significantly improve their compliance, and also save health insurance resources and improve the quality of medical care for patients.”

JD Health’s Doctors

 

JD Health’s Role

Thanks to the government’s policy support, JD Health, as one of the key players in the field of telemedicine in China, gives full play to its supply chain advantages such as industrial chain resources and cold chain logistics, as well as technological advantages such as AI, big data, and IoT to provide integrated and closed-loop online medical services to patients with chronic disease. So far, JD Health has launched three chronic disease centers, which are the cardiology, respiratory and diabetes center. JD Health is committed to helping patients with chronic disease by offering online consultations, telemedicine appointments for long-term chronic disease management, ensuring instant drug supply, providing a smart and life-long method for health management, and more.

Diabetes Center on JD Health

Take the Diabetes Center as an example: JD Health serves patients with chronic disease in the following three aspects. First, integrating online resources with offline medical institutions to meet patients’ daily medication needs. Second, joining hands with leading medical device companies to assist in health management in a smart way; and third, helping patients to live a normal life through offering various healthy products for them instead of simply restricting their diet.

O2O approaches

For diabetic patients with stable conditions, their major needs are instant medical consultations and repeat prescriptions. During the earlier stages of the pandemic, patients with chronic disease in China’s Hubei province were running out of their medication, since some local hospitals and pharmacies had suspended regular services, traffic was restricted, and most people were in quarantine or home-isolation. To address these challenges, JD Health initiated a Chronic Disease Care Project by launching a platform that received 17,000 requests for medicine; 80% of those requests were fufilled.

A lesson learned from the pandemic is that an integration of online and offline services will maximize the effect on chronic disease health management. For diabetics, combining online follow-up prescriptions with offline face-to-face treatment and integrating pharmaceutical supply chain can serve them comprehensively and continuously.

JD Health works closely with diabetes experts and world leading pharmaceutical companies to ensure high-quality services. JD Health can provide patients with a series of professional services including follow-up prescriptions, medication guidance, diet and exercise guidance and more. Leveraging JD’s nationwide logistics network, cold chain capability and cooperation with offline pharmacies, 80% of drugs and other products can be delivered within 24 hours.

JD Health is also working with hospitals to offer supplemental services to online treatment.

For example, JD Health worked with Guangdong Clifford Hospital (广东祈福医院) to construct an offline “Diabetes Intelligent Care Center” which is designed to provide intelligent care assistance to diabetes patients via its comprehensive “internet + health care” services. In their partnership, JD Health and Clifford Hospital take advantage of their respective strengths to create a standardized process for patients, build customized plans for each diabetic in terms of diet, exercise, health data monitoring, drug use, etc., and provide targeted care and guidance for patients with cognitive impairments.

JD is also collaborating with world-famous biopharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi, to facilitate patients with well-rounded chronic diabetes management. Both sides leverage their strengths to explore areas of online consultation, insulin cold chain distribution, and education of both medical institutions and patients. Through this cooperation, Sanofi shares its expertise in diabetes management with JD Health. Patients are able to order diabetes treatment medicine through the JD app, and then pick up their medicine from the nearest pharmacy, or can rely on JD’s effective cold chain fulfillment capability, which ensures the insulin be delivered in as fast as 30 minutes.

“Preventing diabetes and complications requires not only the help from doctors and hospitals, but also the joint efforts and joining of forces from all walks of life. Internet medical care can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of patient education, management and medical care, and facilitate diabetes to be handled quickly. It is also the original intention of my cooperation with JD Health Diabetes Center,” said Dajin Zhou, former deputy director of Chinese Diabetes Society (CDS) and chief physician of the department of endocrinology of Shanghai Tenths People’s Hospital, who joined JD Health’s Diabetes Center after years of practice.

“From a purely therapeutic point of view, medication accounts for only 30% of the treatment of diabetes. Lifestyle management, such as nutrition and exercise, accounts for 2/3 of the share,” said Zhou. “So I think it is very important to use technology platforms to promote planning and individualization of diabetes management.  It is also the future direction of development.”

Technology Application

With the diversified individual needs from diabetics, the application of technology to match patients with the most appropriate medical resources and customize personalized management plans are increasingly significant.

For example, the JD Health Diabetes Center uses big data, AI and other means to achieve accurate matching between doctors and patients, so that patients can find the most suitable doctors for them. JD Health collaborates with medical device companies to promote smart health management. All the data about the patients will be collected and uploaded from their medical devices onto the care center platform where patients’ real-time health reports will be automatically generated. This will help doctors to update and optimize their diagnosis and treatment plans, a process that greatly improves the effectiveness while reducing expenses.

For example, JD Health’s cardiology center and Japanese electronics manufacturer Omron reached an agreement on October 12^th to deepen cooperation on co-creating intelligent health management solutions for chronic diseases. Under the agreement, both sides would use their respective resources to offer more convenient, professional and creative health management services, including co-designing devices for blood pressure management, telemedicine services, and more.

Jianbo Xiao(left), general manager of JD Health, Dayi Hu (middle), one of China’s top cardiologists, and Yao Zhao, general manager of Omron Heathcare China

Meeting Needs of Daily Life

Diabetics attributed their poor blood glucose control to not managing their diet well and not balancing their work and rest. Among these factors, controlling their diet is the most difficult task for diabetics, especially during their daily meals on working days. Letting them enjoy life as normal people do has always been a challenge.

According to JD’s data, nearly 10 million people purchased diabetes-related drugs, monitoring instruments, consumables, videos and more in 2019, and most of the consumers also consulted online at JD Internet Hospital after purchasing related goods. Through JD Health Diabetes Center, patients can not only get a personalized diet plan, but also directly purchase low-cal fast food, healthy snacks, nutritional health products and more, which can solve the inconvenience of daily dining as well as meet their needs for a variety of food without causing health problems or making them feel guilty.

 

Health Management in a Pandemic

During the pandemic, JD Health launched a platform to help patients with chronic diseases maintain their drug supply. The platform connects chronic patients with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies, and provides timely information on where they can get the drugs they need, online or offline.

In addition to launching a platform, JD Health has been collaborating with nearly 60 pharmaceutical companies to provide patients and consumers with online prescription refills, advice on medication, and drug delivery service to ensure adequate supply to patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension – especially for those in Hubei province. Drug deliveries can be made in as fast as within 30 minutes from ordering to keep patients from unnecessary leaving of their homes.

 

Future Development

With increasing support from both government and society, more and more online platforms have been testing the water in the field of chronic disease, one after another. To cope with the homogenization of competition and improve operation abilities, JD Health and other online health platforms should consider expanding the number of cooperative pharmaceutical companies, and improve their medical services. As Chinese patients have not completely formed the habit of paying for online medical services, improving the quality and efficiency of medical services are the key to speeding up the digitalization of medical services.

“Like education, health care is an industry that inherently comes with a socially beneficial nature. JD Health has made two things clear from the very beginning. The first is to help solve the problem of difficult and expensive access to medical care, and reduce the cost of time and money. Second is to apply our technology and service advantages to improve efficiency, quality and thus optimize the consumer experience,” said Xin.

 

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

by Ling Cao and Ella Kidron

When people are gaming on their cell phones, they process is easy. Go to the app, and play. The veteran gamers will gradually add all sorts of accessories to trick out their gaming devices, operating with more and more precision.

Nevertheless, very few people would come to think about what goes on behind the scenes of this rapidly developing industry. As an early mover in gaming laptops and phones, and as the force behind an award-winning e-sports team, JD has demonstrated how the gaming ecosystem is inseparable from a strong supply chain.

 

RMB 270 billion by 2022

According to an industry report, China’s e-sports market grows 10% annually and is expected to reach RMB 270 billion yuan by 2022. Furthermore, On Dec. 16, e-sports was declared an official event for the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

Globally, people have spent more time gaming while at home during COVID-19. China is no exception. JD data shows that the epidemic has promoted the growth of online gaming and more and more customers have bought game related products on JD in the past year.

When inventory was tight at the height of the outbreak, JD used its supply chain advantage to help merchants resolve their stock-out challenges. Going forward, the habits formed around gaming during COVID could be indicative of a long-term trend.

 

How JD got its start in e-sports

JD, which entered the consumer electronics category very early on, moved into the gaming space in 2014 with the first gaming laptop, the G150TB in collaboration with Haier’s high-end laptop brand Thunderbot, with the primary purpose of supporting hours of uninterrupted game time, rather than e-mail, surfing the internet, or even watching movies. In 2015, JD formed a Game+ department, starting with gaming hardware. Also in 2015, the company collaborated with HP to develop the OMEN series laptop. The project involved a deep analysis of JD’s consumer behavior data to determine the ideal specifications from screen size, to memory and more.

HP’s OMEN series laptop

Several years later, there came gaming phones. Finally, moving from being an observer and a facilitator of gamers and gaming to being a full-fledged participant, the company made the decision to operate its own e-sports teams. In the whole process, JD is connecting links from upstream to downstream, from manufacturer to customer.

 

A Bridge between JD and Players

According to Daniel Tan, president of JD Mobile Devices, “Games have become one of the best ways to relax and socialize for younger generations. They can also work as bridge to increase JD’s brand awareness, attracting gamers to search for gaming devices and equipment on JD.” He added, “By entering deeply into the e-sports industry, through efforts such as forming game teams, we gained more valuable feedback from users, which drove our Consumer-to-Manufacturer (C2M) product launch.”

Daniel Tan

The company has also launched game related programs in campus. By cooperating with Tencent to build a campus e-sports player system, both companies have worked with young people to design gaming phones. Design ideas from the initiative will then be put into use in future product design and development.

Dr. Dan Wu, general manager of game device platform at Tencent shared that a recent survey showed that that when buying a new phone, 70% of gamers will focus on whether the phone is good for playing games, 65% of them will focus on smoothness of experience, clear picture quality and ability to endure long gaming sessions. ” We hope the cooperation with JD will promote the awareness of gaming phones among users of our game,” said Wu.

 

JD’s Gaming Layout

Liangkun Jiang, head of e-sports at JD JD Mobile Devices, witnessed the establishment of JD Game+ firsthand. “In the beginning we just wanted to create a new category, because game players are key users for computer and digital products, and e-sports combines both software and hardware industries,” he said. Jiang shared that one good game can promote development of the entire industry. When the famous e-sports PUBG (Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds) launched in 2018, the high requirement for hardware accelerated the upgrading of gamers’ devices. At the same time, hardware companies were all concentrating on upgrading computers, monitors and video cards and more, as well as accessories which use the game’s IP. Through gaming competitions, more and more users will get to know the game. Further, Jiang shared, “We also found it’s important to operate our own game teams, in order to provide an integrated gaming environment for users.”

Liangkun Jiang is attending an e-sports competition held by JD during Singles Day. From left to right: Xiwen Xu from JD Communications; Lingyi Cheng from JD Communications, Chunle Wang from JD’s marketing department, Liangkun Jiang, Bo Yang from JD’s marketing department, Qiaoqiao Wang from JD’s marketing department, Qi Liu from JD Communications

JD has also holds game competitions. Zhiqiang Cui, head of the gaming department at JD Computers and Digital Products shared that this year is the sixth year of the annual JD E-sports Competitions. Leveraging JD’s experience in e-commerce, marketing activities such as livestream, and see-now-buy-now programs, the competitions can help connect JD with its customers. Data showed that customers frequently search game related words, such as LPL, go for it JDG team, game devices and more, on JD during the competitions. As Cui explained, “E-sports can extend a game’s life cycle, and promote sales for e-commerce platform like JD.”

Zhiqiang Cui

 

The Importance of the Gaming Supply Chain

A strong supply chain doesn’t only mean fast delivery and stable inventory, more importantly, it means a tailored solution based on customers’ needs. The PUBG cooperation with Tencent has proved how industry players can work together to provide a solution which provides maximum benefit for customers.

Cui shared, “Currently the game laptops is an important sub-category for JD’s computer and digital products business. JD has worked with many brands to design C2M products, which are welcomed by customers.” These C2M initiatives, which leverage JD’s inherent supply chain capabilities as well as marketing, can help manufacturers expand their product lines, and using the IP of the game to do marketing can also enhance overall sales.

“In the end, JD aims to create a platform, which can share all of the requirements from hardware, software companies and gamers, and effectively deliver a better experience.

 

Further Penetrating

JD has launched many offline stores to provide an omnichannel sales experience for customers, including JD Retail Experience Shops, JD Computer and Digital experience stores and more. These stores are also a place to connect game players as JD has set up full-gaming layouts in some of the locations. For example, at JD’s E-Space experience store in Chongqing, there is a special e-sports area where youngsters frequently will go and play games with their friends on the weekend, or attend events with top gamers.  JD also works with internet cafés.

E-sports area inside JD’s E-Space in Chongqing, China

 

Looking ahead

JD has been continuously developing the gaming sector. On Dec. 18^th, the company launched an e-sports gaming phone alliance with industry partners in Sanya, Hainan province. The alliance leverages JD’s expertise in supply chain, technology, distribution, marketing and payment solutions to upgrade the gaming ecosystem, and also solidify JD’s position in it.

As technology is getting more advanced, gaming is getting more sophisticated. Daniel shared, “With new technologies such as 5G and IoT, it may be possible to develop cloud-based games. This means players will not be limited by devices, and can play games whenever and wherever they want. This will require platforms like JD to integrate resources based on supply chain capability.”

Daniel added, “I hope players in the industry can share user resources, so that gaming-related services can be delivered with more precision, attracting a group of loyal customers with a high repurchase rate. Finally, we hope to make more contributions to the whole industry.”

 

(ling.cao@jd.com; ella@jd.com)