At the 2026 Global Healthcare Summit in Hong Kong on August 7, Meituan's core local commerce CEO Wang Puzhong stated the company will deepen its role as a healthcare resource connector to co-build a "15-minute medical service circle" with industry partners.
Wang noted that while the focus of building this healthcare circle has historically been on physical infrastructure, such facilities have inherent limitations. He emphasized Meituan's role as a connector in the healthcare sector, using digital capabilities and AI technology to ensure medical resources reach those in need more efficiently, making services visible, fast, and effective.
To achieve this goal, Meituan has built an extensive localized supply and delivery network, integrating the full service chain of "examination, consultation, medication, hospitalization, and wellness." The platform now partners with 160,000 medical institutions and 250,000 pharmacies. Leveraging its delivery network of millions of riders and an intelligent dispatch platform, Meituan has served a cumulative 430 million users. In the first half of this year, Meituan also launched AI tools like the Xiaotuan Health Butler, continuing to explore the construction of an intelligent 15-minute healthcare service circle with industry partners.
Deepening Digital and Intelligent Construction to Improve Healthcare Accessibility
How to make limited medical resources more efficiently reach users is a persistent industry challenge. In July, the State Council issued the "National Health 15th Five-Year Plan," strictly controlling the allocation of beds in public hospitals. According to the National Bureau of Statistics' "2025 National Economic and Social Development Statistical Bulletin," the number of beds in national medical institutions has declined for the first time in over a decade. Meanwhile, the annual number of medical visits increased by 470 million year-on-year. The interplay of "bed control" and "diagnosis increase" means that improving healthcare accessibility requires shifting the focus of resource allocation from large-scale hardware expansion to deep digital and intelligent capacity building.
Wang outlined three dimensions of "accessibility": information accessibility (users know where to find the right doctor and service), time accessibility (the time from need to help is short enough), and service accessibility (users can conveniently access needed medications, tests, etc.). He stated that Meituan's efforts over the past few years have been aligned with these directions.
Regarding information accessibility, Meituan has collected and structured information on 1.8 million medical institutions nationwide. Relying on a real-time review system adding 4 million new reviews monthly and vertical rankings like the Polaris Medical Aesthetics List and Sinan Dental List, the platform presents objective, authentic, and professional health service information to users.
For time accessibility, Meituan's pharmacy delivery service now averages 22 minutes. For urgent medication needs, a one-to-one express delivery service further ensures the fulfillment experience. Furthermore, based on 15,000 24-hour pharmacies nationwide, coupled with 24-hour online consultations, users' needs such as late-night fevers or travel allergies can receive rapid responses.
In terms of service accessibility, Meituan has progressively streamlined processes like medical insurance payments and online appointment booking. Through innovative models such as home testing, home care, and health kiosks, the company is extending professional medical service capabilities to homes and community terminals. The gradual maturity of these capabilities is awakening previously unmet health needs. According to Meituan data, children's vision care consumption has more than doubled year-on-year, and the proportion of Meituan medicine purchases made on behalf of family members has risen to one-quarter.
AI Will Be Deeply Integrated into Family Health Services
AI in healthcare is moving from technical validation to large-scale implementation. As a key theme of the summit, AI health attracted extensive discussion. Against the backdrop of China's core AI industry scale exceeding one trillion yuan, domestic open-source large models surpassing 10 billion global downloads, and China accounting for 60% of global AI patents, AI has become a core force driving medical technology innovation. This "new productive force" driven by AI is profoundly reshaping the smart healthcare ecosystem.
Wang stated that with AI technology, medical services are upgrading from "passive response" to "active service." He noted that in the first half of this year, Meituan launched the Xiaotuan Health Butler, supporting functions like medication consultation, health management, and IoT monitoring. By creating personalized health profiles through the butler, users can access a full-chain health management service from daily health inquiries to online consultations and offline medical visits. This application is underpinned by Meituan's accelerated AI infrastructure development. Mid-year, the new-generation trillion-parameter large model LongCat-2.0 was officially open-sourced. Recently, the full-scenario AI Agent platform CatPaw was also launched and made available to merchants. AI capabilities are being integrated into various aspects of medical merchant operations, helping to improve healthcare service accessibility.
Wang also mentioned that Meituan has begun making investment layouts in embodied intelligence, suggesting that AI could move from a health butler on a screen into more homes, deeply integrating into health services. "The significance of technology is not to replace healthcare, but to make every medical touchpoint more precise, timely, and complete," Wang said. The ultimate goal of upgrading healthcare accessibility is to bring everyone closer to health. Meituan will work with industry partners including medical institutions, pharmacies, and pharmaceutical companies to help build the "15-minute medical service circle," making health services truly visible and accessible.
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