Residents needing medical treatment will soon be able to use the WeChat health barcode, an electronic label, to pay for treatment at local hospitals.
According to a strategic agreement signed by the Shenzhen health commission and Tencent yesterday, medical institutions will release their health codes via WeChat mini-apps. Residents will be able to use the health barcodes at hospitals to pay for medical treatment.
The barcode service is one of the programs that Tencent and the health commission signed yesterday to build a digital health Shenzhen. It could be used in other hospitals in Guangdong and other parts of the country when the provincial and national digital health platform is formed.
According to the agreement, the two sides will build a public health data platform as well as a medical imaging artificial intelligence platform and facilitate digitalized health services through all-round cooperation.
The medical treatment process will be fully digitalized, so patients can make social insurance inquiries and payments as well as treatment reservations and payments, and get treatment guidance and prescription checks under the Internet Plus program by using the WeChat accounts of Tencent, the health commission and the hospitals.
The public health big data platform is an infrastructure for the construction of digital health Shenzhen. The two parties will team up for the construction of the data platform and contribute to the construction of an open, integrated, intelligence-based public health service system.
Shenzhen is the first city in China to adopt online payment for medical fees via WeChat. At present, Longhua People’s Hospital, Shenzhen Children’s Hospital, Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital and Nanshan District People’s Hospital have realized inter-provincial online medical fee settlement through WeChat.
The two parties also agreed to engage in artificial intelligence innovation projects in medical imaging, auxiliary treatments and medical quality control through a new-generation AI innovation platform developed by Tencent. The two sides will build a medical imaging AI platform in Shenzhen, explore AI-based diagnosis standards and mechanisms for continuous improvement in medical quality and promote the upgrade of the health services.
Tencent AI technologies have been used for imaging in many Shenzhen hospitals to screen for diseases like esophageal cancer, pulmonary nodules, and diabetes as well as pathologic changes in retinas.