Current Status of the Health Information Technology Industry in China from the China Hospital Information Network Conference: Cross-sectional Study of Participating Companies

Zhongan Zhang; Xu Zheng; Kai An; Yunfan He; Tong Wang; Ruizhu Zhou; Qilin Zheng; Mingfu Nuo; Jun Liang; Jianbo Lei

doi:10.2196/33600

Current Status of the Health Information Technology Industry in China from the China Hospital Information Network Conference: Cross-sectional Study of Participating Companies

JMIR Med Inform. 2022 Jan 11;10(1):e33600. doi: 10.2196/33600.

Authors

Zhongan Zhang^#¹, Xu Zheng^#^{2

3}, Kai An^{2

3}, Yunfan He⁴, Tong Wang⁵, Ruizhu Zhou⁶, Qilin Zheng⁷, Mingfu Nuo⁸, Jun Liang^{9

10}, Jianbo Lei^{3

8

11}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Information Center, Affiliated Qingdao Central Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
² Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, China.
³ Center for Medical Informatics, Health Science Center, Peking University, Beijing, China.
⁴ School of Public Health, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Medical Informatics, School of Public Health, Jilin University, Changchun, China.
⁶ Department of Applied Mathematics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China.
⁷ Department of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
⁸ Institute of Medical Technology, Health Science Center, Peking University, Beijing, China.
⁹ Information Technology Center, Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
¹⁰ Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Intervention, China National Ministry of Education, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
¹¹ School of Medical Informatics and Engineering, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 35014959
PMCID: PMC8790697
DOI: 10.2196/33600

Abstract

Background: The China Hospital Information Network Conference (CHINC) is one of the most influential academic and technical exchange activities in medical informatics and medical informatization in China. It collects frontier ideas in medical information and has an important reference value for the analysis of China's medical information industry development.

Objective: This study summarizes the current situation and future development of China's medical information industry and provides a future reference for China and abroad in the future by analyzing the characteristics of CHINC exhibitors in 2021.

Methods: The list of enterprises and participating keywords were obtained from the official website of CHINC. Basic characteristics of the enterprises, industrial fields, applied technologies, company concepts, and other information were collected from the TianYanCha website and the VBDATA company library. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze the collected data, and we summarized the future development directions.

Results: A total of 205 enterprises officially participated in the exhibition. Most of the enterprises were newly founded, of which 61.9% (127/205) were founded in the past 10 years. The majority of these enterprises were from first-tier cities, and 79.02% (162/205) were from Beijing, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shanghai, and Jiangsu Provinces. The median registered capital is 16.67 million RMB (about US $2.61 million), and there are 35 (72.2%) enterprises with a registered capital of more than 100 million RMB (about US $15.68 million), 17 (8.3%) of which are already listed. A total of 126 enterprises were found in the VBDATA company library, of which 39 (30.9%) are information technology vendors and 57 (45.2%) are application technology vendors. In addition, 16 of the 57 (28%) use artificial intelligence technology. Smart medicine and internet hospitals were the focus of the enterprises participating in this conference.

Conclusions: China's tertiary hospital informatization has basically completed the construction of the primary stage. The average grade of hospital electronic medical records exceeds grade 3, and 78.13% of the provinces have reached grade 3 or above. The characteristics are as follows: On the one hand, China's medical information industry is focusing on the construction of smart hospitals, including intelligent systems supporting doctors' scientific research, diagnosis-related group intelligent operation systems, and office automation systems supporting hospital management, single-disease clinical decision support systems assisting doctors' clinical care, and intelligent internet of things for logistics. On the other hand, the construction of a compact county medical community is becoming a new focus of enterprises under the guidance of practical needs and national policies to improve the quality of grassroots health services. In addition, whole-course management and digital therapy will also become a new hotspot in the future.

Keywords: China Hospital Information Network Conference; county medical community; cross-sectional study; digital therapeutic; health care; hospital information; industry analysis; information network; medical informatics; medical information; smart hospital; tertiary hospital.

©Zhongan Zhang, Xu Zheng, Kai An, Yunfan He, Tong Wang, Ruizhu Zhou, Qilin Zheng, Mingfu Nuo, Jun Liang, Jianbo Lei. Originally published in JMIR Medical Informatics (https://medinform.jmir.org), 11.01.2022.