China Exclusive: Medical care goes mobile

Every day, 31-year-old Chen Peng exercises with a smart bracelet on his wrist. Changes to his body index are recorded and tracked by his smart phone and he can share his jogging routes and times on social networks to compete with others.

"It is the excitement of competing with friends that changed my previous opinion of exercise," said Chen, who lives in north China's Tianjin Municipality.

With functions such as monitoring sleep quality, exercise calculations and body-index tracking, mobile medical care equipment like smart bracelets are fast-gaining popularity in China.

More than 2,000 smart phone applications, which match up with mobile medical care equipment, have been developed in China, according to a report released at the first China International Telemedicine Technology Exhibition held last month.

"With mobile medical care equipment, and smart devices, patients can now test their blood glucose level or emotional wellbeing by themselves," said Conrad Jones, chief digital officer of Stevenson Technical Services, Inc.(STSI).

According to Jones, mobile medical care equipment could help doctors give advice without geographical restrictions.

With an aging population, biotechnology and medical instruments are hot investments and there is no doubt that China is a large market, said Jones.

Not only favored by foreign investors, these mobile instruments are also a commercial opportunity for domestic companies.

Snoring and a decline of oxyhemoglobin saturation -- which can easily lead to high blood pressure, stroke and myocardial infarction -- often go hand-in-hand. However, traditional oxyhemoglobin examination is very complicated and face-to-face doctor-patient contact has been unavoidable.

Oranger developed China's first sleep apnea monitor that was designed to be worn on the wrist.

"The wristwatch could monitor and upload the status of real-time oxyhemoglobin saturation to a data cloud. Patients could read the report and get suggestions from their doctor," said Zhang Dan, CEO of Oranger.

Traditional hospitals have also begun to sit up and use the accessibility of smart devices to make their services more convenient.

Many hospitals have official Wechat accounts that allow patients to make appointments, register and pay for treatment -- all with their smart phones.

"These clinical-case databases could be utilized by hospitals, schools or governments, which is a revolution to the whole industry," said Feng Xue, president of Tianjin international telemedicine technology association.

"Chinese medical care is moving swiftly into the mobile era," said Cui Tongzhe, general manager of Hinacom Software and Technology, Ltd.

According to Cui's calculations, the domestic smart medical care industry made about 22.5 billion yuan (3.7 billion US dollars) in the last year. He believed that it had the potential to top 45 billion yuan in 2018.