With the rise of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and the wide application of digital and intelligent technologies, the integration of science and technology with the development of economic, social, cultural and ecological civilization has accelerated, and open cooperation has become an inevitable choice to solve major scientific and technological problems and drive the development of human society. According to Catherine Wolfe, CEO of Wolters Kluwer's global growth markets, technological change is creating challenges for the traditional publishing industry, but more importantly, it is an opportunity. Wolters Kluwer, which provides information services and software solutions to professionals, is adapting to trends and changes in product development and innovation.
In 1991, Catherine Wolf set foot on the land of China for the first time as a tourist, and in the past 30 years, Catherine Wolf has not only witnessed the "flowering" of evidence-based medicine in China, but also felt the changes in the concept of Chinese doctors in the process of learning Xi and diagnosis and treatment. Over the past decades, Wolters Kluwer has built a solid foundation in the Chinese market by investing in content, technology and services, as well as building a digital platform to provide professionals with professional insights and efficient tools.
Catherine Wolff has been CEO of Wolters Kluwer's Global Growth Markets since May 2019 and is responsible for building a long-term presence in fast-growing countries and regions, while serving professionals through Wolters Kluwer's expert solutions. In recent years, Wolters Kluwer has been committed to working closely with its Chinese counterparts. Whether it is working with the National Medical Center for Infectious Diseases to improve the diagnosis and treatment ability of doctors in infectious diseases, or the "Uptodate Clinical Consultant Clinical Thinking Case Competition" in full swing in many hospitals, Wolters Kluwer is striving to inject its own strength into the construction of "Healthy China".
A few days ago, Catherine Wolf gave an exclusive interview to the health industry, talking about her thoughts and thoughts after working with the Chinese team for many years.
Catherine Wolfe
I believe that UPTODATE, a clinical decision support system, can help young Chinese doctors build evidence-based thinking, and make it easier for doctors to access the latest medical advances and diagnosis and treatment evidence. Catherine Wolf said that China is an important player in global open science, and in the future, China will accelerate its integration into global open science practices in terms of open access**, open sharing of data, construction of open science facilities and international cooperation in open publishing. She also mentioned that Wolters Kluwer has never stopped innovating and is currently actively researching generative AI technology, which will be a special challenge for the healthcare sector.
Health: What is Wolters Kluwer's development strategy in recent years?How does Wolters Kluwer position itself in the Chinese market in the global growth market you are responsible for?
Catherine WolfeWolters Kluwer regularly updates its strategic direction every three years, which we refer to as the "Three-Year Strategy" plan. The current three-year strategy, called "Enhancing Our Value", consists of three elements.
First, accelerate the development of expert solutions. Our definition of an expert solution is intended to be "an idea to solve a customer's pain point", usually around a workflow or a decision on a difficult problem. Expert solutions combine in-depth domain knowledge of the customer's industry with technical tools to provide customers with professional software solutions. As we all know, the clinical decision support system Uptodate is an expert solution. In addition to medical and health care, we also have corresponding products and services in the fields of law, finance and taxation, auditing, and ESG, and carry out related business in China.
Second, expand business coverage. We are looking at how to strengthen Wolters Kluwer's market position, from improving product capabilities, or marketing strategies and partners to expand customer scale and enter new market segments.
Third, we need to enhance key capabilities and cultivate outstanding talents. This is very important, especially as AI evolves and we focus on expert solutions, and we need to continue to bring in people with technical backgrounds and focus on strengthening our ability to innovate. Health: In a 2014 interview, you mentioned that China is a very important market. What are Wolters Kluwer's business priorities in China today?What milestones have been made, and what breakthroughs do we hope to seek in the future?
Catherine WolfeWolters Kluwer entered the Chinese market in 1985 and our business started with books, including medical books. The Covid database was also one of the early products to enter China, containing journals published by Wolters Kluwer and other publishers, as well as third-party electronic resources.
Over the past 10 years, we have grown our healthcare business bigger and stronger, reaching more customers through the Covid medical research platform, and at the same time, we have launched a localized version of our global clinical decision support system, Uptodate, which we have translated into Chinese and brought to market. Wolters Kluwer also has a strong focus on customer insight and has worked extensively with relevant institutions in the Chinese market.
Last year, we just celebrated the 10th anniversary of the uptodate Chinese version of our product, i.e., uptodate Clinical Advisor. Uptodate's clinical consultants have been recognized by medical institutions including the "Fudan Edition" of the top 100 hospitals, hospitals at the provincial capital, prefecture and county levels, and community health centers. In this process, we invited more than 5,700 clinical experts from tertiary hospitals in China to provide translation and proofreading support for UptodateWe have collaborated with the National Medical Center for Infectious Diseases and the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine of Fudan University to launch a series of evidence-based clinical guidelines, guidelines, and expert consensusWe are also actively involved in and support the work of China's national health authorities to standardize the application of clinical decision support systems, which is very much in line with the department's goal of improving the quality and efficiency of care.
Since 2018, we have been publishing periodicals in the Chinese market. At present, Wolters Kluwer has published 32 English-language academic journals in cooperation with the Chinese Medical Association, universities and medical institutions, including 4 journals that are in the pipeline for launch, all of which are open access journals. These journals cover 20 specialist areas, and 9 of them already have impact factors.
Health: In the past decade, China has become more in line with the international community in terms of medical education, clinical practice, and the publication and dissemination of scientific research results. In your opinion, compared with ten years ago, what changes have taken place in China's medical education, doctors' diagnosis and treatment and scientific research concepts, and technical level?
Catherine WolfeThe first is technology, which has revolutionized the way medical students Xi and the way young residents work. Technology has become a powerful tool for knowledge growth and access to more information through mobile Xi and work. Artificial intelligence also presents a completely different opportunity for knowledge acquisition. In the field of nursing education in the United States, people use adaptive testing systems and machine learning Xi to help them learn Xi more effectively, and there are many applications of virtual reality and big data. These technologies are all potential areas that can be brought to China in the future.
Uptodate is a good example of this. The first doctors in China learned about UptoDate through CD-ROMs, and now UptoDate is like a virtual consultant for clinicians, providing easier access to reliable, evidence-based information and the ability to track usage to help them learn better Xi. It's a very different experience, you don't have to go to the library, you can get the information directly on your phone.
Another change is that evidence-based medicine is gaining more and more support over time. In traditional medicine, the quality of medical care received by patients depends on the individual doctor, and patients expect their doctors to not only have rich experience, but also maintain a Xi mentality and keep up with the latest medical advances. Now with the development of evidence-based medicine, everyone has access to the latest evidence, and a lot of medical best practices have been changed through research and evidence.
I have been working with the China team since 2008. On the medical side, I see a lot of people focusing on how to improve quality, including high-quality research, high-quality care, and training more good doctors to make health care more accessible to the Chinese people. This is a very important trend that I have noticed.
Health: Practicing evidence-based medicine requires good Xi from healthcare practitioners. What are the arrangements and efforts made by Wolters Kluwer in the Xi of Chinese medical students and young doctors?
Kathleen Wolfe: In terms of Xi for medical students and young doctors, first and foremost, we want to make sure that we have the most up-to-date information, whether it's clinical decision support systems, whether it's the scientific research that we publish**, and make sure that we use technology to make that information easily accessible and help doctors improve their capabilities through the use of products.
For example, the use of uptodate can allow doctors to make better decisions, and there have been many studies on this in recent years. According to a study by the National University of Singapore, 37% of doctors have changed their decision-making by using UpTodate. We have also seen many examples of doctors in hospitals using the content on UptoDate to reduce the incidence of sepsis, reduce the use of antibiotics, and so on.
In terms of training, we have a "Uptodate Clinical Consultant Clinical Thinking Case Competition" program, and at each edition, many hospitals will cooperate with us to hold an in-hospital case competition, and submit the cases of the hospital winners to Wolters Kluwer, and we will work with a jury of clinical experts to select the annual winners nationwide. We have been organizing this competition for many years and it is very popular, which really helps young doctors develop clinical thinking skills and promotes the practice and application of evidence-based medicine in clinical work.
In addition, we also cooperated with the Chinese Medical Doctor Association to provide free visits to residents in designated hospitals in 5 provinces in China, and then conducted a one-year uptodate use survey among residents, and the final results were published in the form of **, showing the value of clinical decision support system as a learning Xi tool, which makes doctors more confident in diagnosis and treatment, and really helps them establish a lifelong learning Xi mentality.
Health: Today, open access is a trend in the research community and the STM publishing industry. As a well-known publisher in the field of medicine and care, what is Wolters Kluwer's attitude and strategy towards open access?What is Wolters Kluwer's open access practice in China?
Catherine WolfeWolters Kluwer recognized the open access opportunities more than a decade ago and began publishing journals under an open access model. In terms of publishing methods, whether it's print, **, open access, or subscription, we are open to all of these models, and it's important to follow a strict peer review process to ensure the quality of the article.
We are currently discussing the open access model with societies and journal editors in China. We have built a very comprehensive set of business processes to better share our knowledge and best practices on open access around the world. We provide them with training and help them establish this professional model within their organization and implement a go-to-market strategy that works for them.
Health: There are many medical databases, what are the uniqueness of Wolters Kluwer's related products, including UptoDate and Covid?What are the future concerns and R&D priorities?
Catherine WolfeAs mentioned earlier, quality has always been our focus, and whether it's a database, a journal article, or a reference book, customers around the world rely on our products to provide them with up-to-date, accurate, and accurate information. And we have always been at the forefront of innovation and development. Uptodate is also an innovation, it is the pioneer of clinical decision support systems. So it's fair to say that we have a long history of innovation. In addition to the Chinese version of Uptodate, we will soon launch a localized version of the digital anatomy product to the Chinese market, including the application of virtual reality technology, which we have now translated into the Chinese version.
We are actively working on generative AI technology, which is a particular challenge in the healthcare sector, as its accuracy is closely related to people's lives and health. Wolters Kluwer has always had a strong focus on innovation, and we reinvest approximately 11% of our revenue each year into product development and innovation.
We're looking at ways to responsibly apply generative AI technology to our products, such as improving search to help people get the information they need faster. In the long run, we evaluate whether generative AI technology can help people answer questions or do other things, and be more qualitatively assured.
We take customer insights very seriously. Wolters Kluwer has a full-time customer insight specialist based in China who is responsible for working on projects to truly understand the needs and pain points of our customers. China is a very attractive market with unique needs, so we will continue to look for opportunities to help the market grow.
Health: Revolutionary technologies such as digital technology and AI have brought technological iterations to related industries around the world. Wolters Kluwer will carry out product development and innovation to adapt to this change and give customers the greatest help and the best experience?
Catherine WolfeAgain, this work starts with customer insight, and sometimes small innovations can help, such as introducing smart feeds to long documents that previously didn't have a feed. This can be a very simple thing, innovation doesn't always mean large-scale technological change.
We are very interested in generative AI and are working on projects within Wolters Kluwer to find more market opportunities. Our approach is to generate a "list of ideas" based on the needs our employees have learned from their interactions with customers, which we prioritize and test with highly skilled technical teams. If an idea is promising, we will commercialize it;If the test is not successful, we will not develop it. In the midst of a lively discussion about AI technology, we did an internal business analysis and found that in the first half of 2023, 58% of Wolters Kluwer's digital revenue came from products that applied AI. Based on Wolters Kluwer's own high-quality content, we are working with Microsoft on the development of generative AI. In healthcare, the quality of content remains paramount, and it must be accurate and ethical to ensure that our recommendations are not biased towards a certain group of people or biased in some way.
Uptodate Clinical Consultant Institution Probationary Application: