Following the announcement of a more favorable visa policy between China and Russia, Russian officials expressed strong interest in cooperating with hospitals in Shanghai.

An official delegation from the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic has recently visited Shanghai Yida Hospital to look for cooperation on remote medical consultation, smart medicine innovation, and international medical tourism.

Russian officials said they wanted to learn from Shanghai's whole-life management system, which covers disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and elderly care.

Shanghai's digital system, ranging from children's health to elderly's chronic disease management, is in line with the health policy Russia is planning to promote, according to Kishkareva Kseniia, head of the ministry.

They expressed interest in learning about Shanghai's hospital cluster network consisting of city-level hospitals and community-based medical facilities and said such a network can help solve Russia's problem of unbalanced medical resources in rural areas.

Liu Chunlong, president of Shanghai Yida Hospital, said that they will carry out remote medical technology and joint research on heart disease prevention and control in the polar regions and welcome Russian patients to Shanghai on medical trips.