On December 15, the Launch Ceremony of Natali Changzhou Telemedicine ECG Center was held at Changzhou Wujin People's Hospital. Leaders from the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), the Ministry of Health of Israel, the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute (IEICI), the Jiangsu Provincial Commission of Health and Family Planning, the Changzhou Municipal People's Government, the Changzhou Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning and Sanpower Natali attended the ceremony, witnessing the launch of China's first B2C telemedicine ECG center. The ceremony marked the substantial progress of telemedicine B2C in China, and boosted the medical informatization of China.

Scene of the Launch Ceremony

Shao Meng, Deputy Chief of the Division of Asia-Pacific Affairs, Department of International Cooperation, NHFPC; Dr. Afek, Vice Minister of Health of Israel; Lior Konitzki from IEICI addressed the ceremony. They introduced the origin and significance of the Sino-Israeli cooperation program, and looked into the future of telemedicine B2C in China.

China introduces advanced experience from Israel to break ice in B2C telemedicine

Currently domestic telemedicine is predominated by B2B-based inter-hospital consultation. With the development of mobile medicine and IOT, individual-oriented telemedicine B2C has met the conditions for development, but China lacks experience in this respect. Israel leads the world in medical informatization, especially in telemedicine. After extensive surveys, China chose to introduce Israel's advanced experience, technology and model.  

At the 2nd Meeting of China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation in Jerusalem in March 2016, witnessed by Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong and Israeli Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu, China and Israel signed 13 cooperation agreements. The Changzhou Municipal People's Government signed a cooperation agreement with Natali, an Israeli leading homecare and telemedicine service provider on telemedicine ECG service cooperation. Under this agreement, the two sides will jointly work on patient-oriented ECG monitoring, and explore individualized medical and health services. This was the only enterprise-contracted project.

Telemedicine ECG Center inaugurated, telemedicine B2C solution to be duplicated in China

Since the pilot project went into trial operation in July 2016, center construction, talent selection and training, equipment purchase, system improvement and user development have been completed, and the project has met the conditions for full operation.

Guests inaugurate China's first B2C telemedicine ECG center

In the future, Changzhou Telemedicine ECG Center will mainly provide conventional monitoring and emergency aid services to cardiovascular patients. With advanced technical experience from Israel, based on Changzhou Wujin People's Hospital, the center will offer patients remote ECG monitoring service integrating real-time home ECG monitoring, online real-time diagnosis and offline quick treatment, as well as emergency aid and home care service through the center's smart cloud platform and high-tech smart devices, thus greatly reducing the morbidity and mortality of patients.

The center will not only help diagnose and treat cardiovascular diseases, effectively manage discharged cardiovascular patients and track drug effects, but also greatly save medical resources, improve the operation efficiency of the medical first aid system, considerably ease the data processing pressure of medical staff, and reduce medical expenses. According to estimation, the medical cost of cardiovascular diseases will be saved by nearly 21 percent after the center went into operation.

As China's first pilot telemedicine B2C project implemented by NHFPC, the project of Changzhou Telemedicine ECG Center will be extended to other chronic diseases and duplicated to other areas. The duplicable integrated solution will set a good example for enterprise-hospital cooperation. Through data depositing and convenient retrieval, the center will collect first-line data for clinical cardiovascular disease research, perfect medical big data reserves, and boost China's entry into a real era of "Internet plus medicine".