On June 16, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University (referred to as "Friendship Hospital"), and Ant Group officially signed a cooperation agreement to deepen collaboration in areas such as AI medical innovation services, major clinical discipline projects, and research data sharing. The two parties aim to explore new paradigms for the integration of AI in healthcare. Currently, the gastrointestinal specialty intelligent assistant "Gastrointestinal Assistant" jointly developed by both parties has been launched. Users can access it via the AI Health Manager on Alipay. It will provide full-chain services covering "prevention-diagnosis-treatment-rehabilitation" for patients.
This intelligent assistant is built on Ant Group's medical multimodal large model, deeply integrating authoritative medical knowledge systems, rich clinical diagnostic and treatment experiences, and unique diagnostic approaches from Friendship Hospital's Gastrointestinal Department. It can simulate doctors conducting logical and coherent consultations, providing professional, rigorous, and convenient disease consultation services for patients. Through this, the gastroenterology team can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the condition of visiting patients, making offline diagnosis and disease management more efficient.
Li Peng, vice president of Friendship Hospital, stated: "With the advent of the era of large models, hospitals must embrace cutting-edge technologies actively while promoting their practical application with a high sense of medical responsibility and prudence. After thorough evaluation, the hospital chose to start its collaboration with Ant Group through the gastroenterology department, which is a widely covered discipline and plays a key role in chronic disease management. This collaboration will truly combine the profound accumulation of Friendship Hospital in digestive diseases with leading AI technology, jointly exploring effective models for the integration of technology and medicine, allowing high-tech to benefit people's medical experience and health management."
This year, an increasing number of hospitals are embracing large models. As the carrier connecting hospitals and users, AI intelligent assistants have become a new path to enhance the accessibility of medical services and explore doctor-AI collaboration. It is understood that currently, over a hundred renowned doctor intelligent assistants from top hospitals like Peking Union Medical College Hospital and Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine have been gathered on Ant AI Health Manager. Among them, the urology specialty intelligent assistant co-built with Renji Hospital in Shanghai has accounted for more than 50% of AI services in outpatient visits within half a year since its launch; the doctor intelligent assistant launched by Dr. Mao Hongjing, director physician and vice president of Hangzhou Seventh People's Hospital, has served over 2 million patients cumulatively, helping Dr. Mao's team screen approximately 20,000 individuals with sleep disorders.
Junwei Liu, general manager of Ant Group's Medical and Health Business Unit and head of AI Health Manager, stated: "In the journey to build a 'Healthy China,' we firmly believe that AI technological innovation will become an important connector and booster. From digital healthcare to smart healthcare and AI healthcare, Ant always aims to be an innovative engine for upgrading medical institutions' diagnostic and service capabilities. We are entering the core of medical services with Friendship Hospital to create products that doctors and patients can use, enjoy, and want to use."
Public records show that Ant Group officially entered the field of AI healthcare in 2023. Its medical large model has consistently ranked first in multiple categories, including medical knowledge questions, in MedBench's large model evaluation. It is one of the most application-rich vertical large models in the industry, with the deepest collaborations with medical institutions, doctors, and hospitals. Centered around the medical large model and connected by AI Health Manager and HaoDoc, Ant has formed a three-dimensional service system of "medical institutions-doctors-patients," creating a closed loop from diagnosis, service to health management in AI healthcare.
Reporters learned that Ant Group plans to collaborate with top domestic renowned doctors in the next year to build an AI intelligent assistant matrix covering areas such as tumors and chronic diseases.
