Healthcare platform Ping An Good Doctor unveiled its first staffless medical clinic and  pharmacy at the Wuzhen World Internet Conference earlier this month. The ‘One-minute Clinics’ include a Smart Medicine Cabinet and Independent Advisory Room. Patients enter the booth to receive a virtual consultation. This is initially via Ping An’s ‘AI Doctor' software, which helps assess a patient’s condition and supports the company’s human physicians’ diagnosis. Patients can then get their prescriptions from the attached Smart Medicine Cabinet vending machine, which stocks over 100 medications; any medicines not in stock can be purchased through the Ping An app and delivered in an hour.

Three discussion points that you should take away from this innovation:

Staffless: the new standard. So you’re keeping a close eye on Amazon Go. But, as we said back in our Future of Retail report earlier this year, you should be watching the many different ways that innovators in all sectors and markets are deploying staffless solutions to improve the customer experience. That’s why we’ve featured everything from vending machines for the homeless in the UK, to robotic baristas in China.

Demand, meet supply. Ping An plans to open 1,000 clinics by the end the year (yes, that’s less two months from their launch!). But given the three-year old company already serves nearly 50 million Chinese patients a month via its app, we wouldn’t bet against them! Okay, so your numbers might not be as dramatic (!) but could a staffless solution enable you to reach entirely new, currently under-served, customer segments?  

Elevated experience. The One-minute Clinic is not just about access and convenience. Ping An’s AI has been trained on data gathered from 300 million patient visits (hello Chinese data regulation!) to enable the company’s 1,000 human doctors to give more robust medical advice. Which human interactions could you remove in order to give your customers a similarly better experience?