Nursed to health on home turf

The price for each order varies from about 140 yuan ($21) to more than 400 yuan, depending on the time needed and the complexity of the task. About 75 percent of the fees go to the nurses and the rest to Goldnurse.

Goldnurse provides services including injections, blood collection, catheterization, atomization and other treatment. It has also opened several offline nursery stations around Beijing with nearly 100 full-time nurses, Ding says.

His decision to get into the business in 2014 was both personal and commercial, he says.

When his grandparents were in their last stages of their lives it was difficult to find the appropriate home care, he says, and in terms of the number of nurses and care beds available demand far outstripped supply.

Ding says he hopes that eventually Goldnurse, in line with the latest government policies, can work hand in glove with hospitals, including opening the platform to them, so that they can carry out more specialized services, involve more nurses and serve more patients.

Liu says that when she considers which online service to use she considers its reputation, safety management and back-end service quality.

"Customer feedback and ratings are also very important. People choose nurses with high ratings, as with any other internet platforms."

She has completed several thousand orders and barely receives any negative comments, she says.

Before she leaves for a patient's home she phones to get detailed information about the patient's age, condition and a history of their illness, such inquiries being extremely important to ensure medical safety and help her to be well prepared.

Nursing patients at home is very different from working in a hospital, she says.

"In the hospital you just need to follow doctors' instructions, and if you're unsure about something, you can always ask the doctor. But in a patient's home you have to make your own judgment. That's why we need to be extra careful in finding out about a patient's condition."

The visiting nurses' professional knowledge and expertise are also very important for avoiding accidents, she says.