Health care at your fingertips in China

 22-Feb-16, China Daily

Technology is changing the way we go about staying healthy or getting well.

They may not have the bedside manner of the very best doctor, but the kind of apps that bring pizzas and taxis to your front door may now be in the process of revolutionizing the way medical care is delivered.

Image: China Daily

For many Chinese that means not only being much more aware of their state of health and being able to take the appropriate steps when necessary, but avoiding time-consuming waits in long hospital queues that have long been one of the biggest headaches for anyone seeking medical care.

These changes hold the promise of dramatically changing the country's health care system from one based on episodic, institutional health care to one that favors long-term community-based care.

However, one mobile industry practitioner says that mhealth in China needs to achieve many more things before it can be said that the promised revolution has been delivered and the status quo has been upended. Many app developers are simply copycats out to make a quick buck who are apt to waste valuable social resources and leave the health care sector short of the innovation it so desperately needs.

In this pioneering field, too, a consistent set of legal frameworks is yet to be developed, leaving many open to risks of all sorts.

 Read the full article 

 Insights