中国的公共医疗支出约占GDP的7%，低于英国的约11%，而顶级医院仅占全国医疗机构的大约10%。在约33,000家乡镇卫生院中，仅约一半全科医生拥有大学学位，随着60岁以上人口比例预计从今天的21%上升到2050年的约35%（约4.87亿人），这一基础薄弱的问题将被急剧放大。

在数字化方面，疫情期间远程医疗迅速扩张：京东健康在截至6月的12个月内声称拥有2亿活跃用户、日均在线问诊超过50万次，而支付宝母集团蚂蚁旗下的AQ截至9月已服务1.4亿患者并吸引近100万名医生入驻。然而，这些服务主要被本就享有更好公共医疗资源的年轻城市居民使用，且许多医生只是下班后额外接单，导致过劳问题并未缓解，有学者建议医院将医生5–10%的日间工作时间正式分配给线上诊疗并通过医保支付。

在此基础上，中国政府计划到2030年在基层医疗机构实现“全面覆盖”的AI辅助诊疗工具，以提升初级医疗的容量和效率，同时节省大规模培训新医生的成本。现实阻力包括患者对医疗体系的历史性不信任、一次严重的错误诊断就可能摧毁公众对AI的信心，以及目前质量参差且割裂在各医院和诊所之间的患者数据，但中国过去绕过银行卡直接跃迁到移动支付的经验表明，在灵活企业、积极官员和高数字素养人口的共同作用下，其在医疗科技上的跨越式发展或将难以被其他低预算国家复制。

China spends around 7% of GDP on health, compared with roughly 11% in Britain, and top-tier hospitals account for only about 10% of medical institutions nationwide. Among roughly 33,000 township health centres, only about half of general practitioners have university degrees, a serious weakness as the over‑60 population is projected to reach about 487 million, or 35% of the population, by 2050, up from 21% today.

Digitisation has reshaped access: during the covid‑19 pandemic JD Health claimed 200 million active users in the 12 months to June with over 500,000 online consultations a day, while Ant Group’s AQ app had served 140 million patients and attracted nearly 1 million doctors by September. Yet usage skews toward younger urban residents who already enjoy better services, and many doctors use these apps only for extra after‑hours income, so overwork persists; one proposal is to allocate 5–10% of doctors’ daytime hours to telemedicine and ensure they are paid via state health insurance.

Building on this, the government plans “full coverage” of AI‑powered diagnosis and treatment tools in grassroots health centres by 2030 to boost primary‑care capacity without massive new training costs. Obstacles include entrenched distrust of the medical system, the risk that a single bad AI‑driven diagnosis could poison public opinion, and fragmented, low‑quality patient data, but China’s leap from cash straight to mobile payments suggests that with agile firms, supportive officials and a digitally literate population, its rapid technological transformation in health care may be hard for other budget‑constrained countries to replicate.