Here’s a polished English translation of the Chinese title: **”Walking Together in the Light, Embarking on a New Journey — The 4th Novartis China Patient Day Successfully Held”** Alternatively, a more concise and natural version: **”Together in the Light, Toward a New Horizon: The 4th Novartis China Patient Day Concludes with Success”** Both versions capture the poetic and aspirational tone of the original Chinese.

ShanghaiJune 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Today, the fourth Novartis China Patient Day was successfully held in Shanghai under the theme “Walking Together in Light, Creating the Unseen.” The event brought together over 100 industry guests from patient organizations, academic research institutions, medical institutions, digital health platforms, and media. Over the two-day event, participants extended the “patient-centric” concept from disease treatment to patients’ daily lives, humanistic care, and social integration, jointly exploring how to better integrate patient needs into disease management and long-term care system building, helping patients achieve a higher quality of life.

In his keynote speech, Li Yao, President and Managing Director of Novartis China, stated: “In the pharmaceutical industry, patients are at the center of everything we do. The launch and hosting of Novartis China Patient Day aims to bring together industry insiders and beyond to exchange ideas, discuss, and practice how to better serve patients. Over the past four years, with the support of partners from all sides, Novartis China Patient Day has grown from an industry dialogue into an important platform that connects all sectors of society and drives the development of patient value. In the future, Novartis will continue to collaborate with all parties to deepen patient care and ecosystem synergy, promoting the co-creation of a warmer and more sustainable healthcare future.”

Harnessing Multi-Stakeholder Wisdom to Explore New Paths for Patient Ecosystems

In the inaugural year of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” China’s healthcare system is accelerating its transition toward high-quality development. Patients are increasingly evolving from mere recipients of medical services to key participants in health decision-making. How to drive earlier integration of patient needs into medical security, health management, and patient support systems has become one of the key topics of industry focus.

Around this topic, industry experts and representatives from patient organizations engaged in in-depth exchanges from various perspectives, including industry collaboration, multi-tiered security system building, and patient support practices, jointly exploring how to leverage the strengths of all ecosystem stakeholders to streamline the communication chain between patient needs and health decisions.

Jin Chunlin, Director of the Shanghai Health Development Research Center, mentioned in his keynote speech: “With national policy support and the joint efforts of the pharmaceutical industry, the introduction and launch of innovative drugs in China are accelerating, and the time gap for simultaneous global accessibility is continuously narrowing. At the same time, the focus of the healthcare system is gradually shifting from disease treatment to patients’ full-lifecycle health management. The high-quality development of the healthcare industry ultimately aims to bring innovation to patients faster and help them achieve a more quality life and living. The level of care for patients also reflects a society’s level of civilization and social warmth.”

Expanding the Boundaries of Patient Care with AI Innovation

As cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data rapidly integrate into healthcare scenarios, the connotation and boundaries of patient support are also continuously expanding. From disease management and health education to needs insight and organizational collaboration, digital technology is reshaping patient service models and opening new possibilities for building a more precise, efficient, and sustainable patient support ecosystem.

“AI helps patients access health information more conveniently, significantly lowering the threshold for ‘proactive health.’ Taking Ant Forest as an example, we aim to use AI technology to help users better understand medical examination reports and obtain health advice, making professional medical services more inclusive and accessible, so that health management not only happens in hospitals but also deeply integrates into patients’ and even the public’s daily lives,” said Bu Xiaolong, Head of Ant Health Digital Medicine Industry.

At the event, patient organizations and patient representatives shared excellent cases in patient advocacy and digital practice, discussing the practical application of digital technologies in scenarios such as disease management, health education, and patient services, and exploring how to make technological innovation more aligned with patients’ real needs. Meanwhile, attending guests advocated leveraging digital intelligence to broaden traditional treatment evaluation dimensions, incorporating patients’ full-cycle physical and mental status and quality of life into the criteria for assessing medical value.

Liu Zhengchen, Founder and Chairman of the Beijing New Sunshine Charity Foundation and Standing Committee Member of the Medical Security Professional Committee of the China Health Economics Association, shared: “In long-term patient services, AI has already demonstrated powerful capabilities in assisting community operations, translating educational materials, and supporting professional knowledge learning. Although AI can replace human labor, causing concerns in many industries, for our understaffed charitable organization, we should proactively embrace change, study AI, and use AI to fill human resource gaps, thereby multiplying the quantity and quality of our public services. However, this process cannot be rushed: the foundation of intelligence is digitization, the foundation of digitization is work standardization, and the foundation of standardization is innovation and evidence-based practice. To this end, our foundation has established a Digitalization and Intelligence Department and a Research Department, with the Research Department coordinating innovation, evidence-based practice, and standardization across departments, and the two departments supporting and advancing each other collaboratively.”

Deepening Humanistic Care to Illuminate Patients’ Lives

As patient needs become increasingly diverse, the focus of medical care is also extending from disease treatment itself to longer-term and deeper needs such as psychological support, emotional care, and social integration. Based on this insight, this year’s Patient Day added topics related to psychological care and social support, and set up interactive workshops. Patient organizations, social media platforms, and industry partners discussed real cases around issues such as reducing stigma, emotional support, and social integration, jointly exploring how to integrate humanistic care into every aspect of patient services.

Shi Anli, Honorary Chair of the Beijing Aipu Cancer Patient Care Foundation, stated: “In daily interactions with patients, we are increasingly aware that returning indicators to normal or successfully removing lesions should not be the endpoint of treatment. Truly high-quality patient services not only rely on professional medical means to resolve disease crises but also require warm companionship to meet emotional needs. Measuring health value should not be limited to clinical efficacy but should be based on the full lifecycle, taking patients’ physical and mental well-being and quality of life as important evaluation criteria.”

In the process of building a full-cycle patient care system, social media platforms, with their strong connectivity and dissemination power, have become an indispensable force in the patient support ecosystem. They not only provide an open space for patients to express their needs and establish emotional connections, allowing humanistic care to reach more groups, but also create more possibilities for health science communication, public awareness enhancement, and the elimination of social prejudice. Li Liang, General Manager of Weibo Health and Lifestyle Division, pointed out in his sharing: “Social media carries the value of connection, empathy, and dissemination. Health communication is not about generating traffic and exposure, but about making issues seen, explained, discussed, and ultimately prompting some people to take action. We always believe that providing emotional support for patients is an indispensable part of medical humanistic care. At the same time, the platform is continuously expanding channels for health science communication, breaking the boundaries of traditional medical scenarios, so that those feelings that were once overlooked, misunderstood, or dismissed have the opportunity to be taken seriously and move toward standardized diagnosis and support earlier.”

Over the past four years, Novartis China Patient Day has witnessed the journey of patient voices from being heard and included to gradually being respected and responded to, while continuously driving the alignment of medical warmth with professional depth. At the same time, as patients’ participation in their own health continues to increase, patient organizations are maturing, and new practices and explorations are constantly emerging in the field of patient support, injecting sustained momentum into a more patient-centric healthcare ecosystem.