Tencent-backed WeDoctor hopes app will create ‘health care free economic zone’ in Greater Bay Area

Tencent-backed online health care services provider WeDoctor Group hopes to turn the Greater Bay Area into a “health care free economic zone” through its platform by offering cheaper and efficient cross-border medical services, according to a top executive.

The platform, expected to launch by the end of January, hopes to achieve greater efficiencies and lower costs through digitalisation and sharing of patients’ medical records between hospitals, cross-border medical insurance coverage and better matching of demand and supply of medical services and equipment.

“In Hong Kong, it could take up to a year for patients to get a CT scan done through the public hospital system, but this can be done much faster and for less in a Shenzhen hospital,” said Jeffery Chen, chief strategy officer of the Hangzhou-based start-up, which was valued at US$5.5 billion in the latest round of fundraising in May.

But the road towards its eventual goal of seamless integration of medical resources in the 11 cities in the region – Asia’s largest and most populous area with almost 67 million inhabitants – will be long, he said in an interview.

“The Greater Bay Area itself will need to come up with a more mixed policy framework than what is currently available,” said Chen, a former Credit Suisse and HSBC technology, media and telecommunications sector investment banker. “It will be quite difficult to ensure that the platform is at the forefront of health care services, and at the same time meets all the policy directions that the area’s governments want to set.”