How global tech can drive local healthcare innovation in China.

With an ageing population rapidly increasing the rate of disease, China's healthcare system is ripe for innovation.

From established corporations to fledgling startups, all recognize the potential for digital technologies, such as telehealth and artificial intelligence, to alleviate China's overstretched healthcare professionals and help provide better care.

In fact, the 2019 Future Health Index from Philips, which surveyed healthcare professionals in 15 countries around the world, shows that China is leading the way in adoption of digital health technology.

However, global health technology innovators looking to China face barriers - including a medical and digital infrastructure that is vastly different from other countries, unique regulatory demands, and a lack of affordability of existing solutions for more widespread use in rural or impoverished regions.

How to overcome such barriers To help make China's healthcare system fit for the future, I believe that global health technology companies need to rethink the traditional model of importing medical products developed in western markets. Today, the key to successful innovation lies in having a deep understanding of market-specific needs and challenges, and the ability to forge local partnerships - while also keeping an eye on best practices in other healthcare systems. In other words, by combining a local and a global mindset.

Healthcare services in China are spread unevenly

One problematic aspect of China's healthcare system that calls for locally relevant innovation is the uneven distribution of resources across the country.

Major cities in China offer access to top-tier hospitals, but many other cities and rural areas do not. This problem is exacerbated by a lack of primary care facilities. China has one general practitioner for every 6,666 people, compared to an international standard of one for every 1,500-2,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.

This causes people to flock to hospitals, sometimes travelling hundreds of miles, only to find themselves queuing up in increasingly long lines. Many hospital specialists are overworked, sometimes seeing as many as 200 patients a day.

Clearly, from the perspective of a global health technology provider, what's needed here is an approach that transcends the traditional model of importing technological innovations and fitting them into the existing local healthcare system.

As Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of...