Xing Liping, a partner of PwC's medical industry consulting service, said: "11 emerging technologies will increasingly penetrate people's daily medical treatment and life."

AI: Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the top of the list. AI will be applied to medical insurance claims and fraud detection. This technology has been applied to some high-end medical insurance and national medical insurance funds in China to reduce fraud and reduce fraud. Speed ​​up claims processing. Big players like Baidu are noticing that the real value of AI is not limited to this, but in areas such as enhanced diagnosis, genetic analysis and precision medicine.

Telemedicine: Telemedicine can help reduce medical costs and save patients’ time and energy. Currently, dozens of Internet hospitals in China are the main promoters of telemedicine.

Medical robots: Medical robots are one of the weaker categories in China. The share of medical robots in European and American countries accounts for 62% and 24% respectively. At present, top universities in China are researching and applying robotics in at least four fields: surgery, rehabilitation, assistance and service.

VR: At present, the domestic virtual reality (VR) application is to treat chronic diseases in a free form through necessary behavioral changes. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has developed and commercialized virtual reality-based rehabilitation functional training software to help patients with cognitive impairments improve their daily living and work skills.

Doctor's practice platform: The doctor's online practice platform will go deeper into the patient, such as "Doctor Almond", through this platform, the patient can establish a long-term and stable connection with the doctor he/she is familiar with and trust, and has sufficient time and opportunity to communicate with the doctor.

Accurate diagnosis: Medical technology equipment will become more accurate and even predictive, and the increasing sensitivity of disease detection will reduce the occurrence of medical misdiagnosis. The focus is on minimally invasive surgery and the development of new compact devices, such as portable therapeutic ultrasound scanners, which are rapidly growing in the Chinese market.

Sensors and trackers: Although China currently has 980 million mobile phone users and holds the world's largest share of the mHealth market, mobile apps and platforms have failed to attract active users, let alone bring in much revenue, as they often provide fragmented the value of. Some areas of value include: predicting users' health needs and designing gamified models to translate needs into medical actions; providing the largest health consumer market (elderly and chronically ill) and a one-stop service platform. Smart wearable devices that can measure patient vital signs, respiratory rate, blood pressure, heart rate, electrocardiogram, and body temperature are increasingly being adopted by surgical patients in operating rooms and by users living alone in remote areas.

3D Devices: Across China and across Asia, more and more patients are presenting unique needs for custom orthopaedic implants, repairs and corrective treatments. But 3D electrical and equipment spare parts applications for supplier manufacturing and hospital services are often overlooked, and may often be in demand in remote medical locations.

Next-Generation Sequencing: This is an exciting area of ​​research worldwide, and some have predicted that the technology will eventually become commoditized, with prices as low as $100. But China has a proven track record of speed and scale in technological optimization. Companies such as BGI, Illumina and iCarbonX are following this path.

IoT: Most medtech companies are enhancing services that are independent but compatible with their products. The interplay between devices, data collection, value-added operations, and data feedback is where the value lies for many other users. The importance of cybersecurity in this area is higher than in other industries, as most health data breaches and hacking incidents occur at IoT access points.

Digital Supply Chain and Blockchain: The integration of new data sources such as sensors and signal transmitters and medical machines provides opportunities for the development of China's health industry, not only improving safety and security, but also in customizing planning, procurement, production and delivery. development opportunities are provided. Although the manufacturing industry is currently actively responding to quality management system requirements, blockchain solutions have great potential for application in pharmaceutical and food distribution and safety.

"Traditional enterprises in the health industry should continue to look for cooperation meetings with technology start-ups and other new enterprises to jointly find unique solutions and value-added services." Xing Liping said.

In addition to emerging technologies, PwC predicts that healthcare payments will undergo major changes.

At present, the traditional payment process for medical treatment in domestic hospitals has problems such as many payment links and slow payment speed. In 2017, the modernization process of the medical payment system will be widely launched around the world, in order to create a better consumption experience for patients. There are three main factors that determine whether patients have a good consumption experience: the modernization level of the medical payment system, information security and standardization.

Consumption upgrades and changes will also bring new opportunities to the market. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that health and related industries are still a blue ocean market in China. Compared with the global market size of 1.49 trillion US dollars, the Chinese market is still small, but it has expanded rapidly in recent years with an average annual double-digit growth rate and is expected to reach 80 billion US dollars in 2020. The annual consumption of healthy food in the Chinese market has reached 29 billion US dollars.