REVIEW article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Digital Public Health
This article is part of the Research TopicAI and Mobile Technologies for Population-Level Chronic Disease PreventionView all 6 articles
Application and Challenges of DeepSeek in Primary Care in China
Provisionally accepted
- 1West China School of Medicine, Sichuan University, Sichuan University affiliated Chengdu Second People's Hospital, Chengdu Second People's Hospital, Chengdu, China
- 2Department of Oncology,Zi Yang Central Hospital, Ziyang, China
- 3School of Health Policy and Management, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
- 4General Practice Ward/International Medical Center Ward, General Practice Medical Center, National Clinical Research Center for Geriatrics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
- 5Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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China's primary care system faced persistent challenges, including uneven resource distribution, a shortage of general practitioners, and a growing burden of chronic diseases. Artificial intelligence (AI) offered new tools to address these issues. This narrative review summarized the applications, benefits, challenges, and practical recommendations for DeepSeek. Literature searches were conducted across both Chinese and English databases, including China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data, and PubMed. In addition, official websites of provincial Health Commissions were searched for AI policies and reports related to DeepSeek deployment. Evidence showed that DeepSeek had been applied to assist clinical decision-making, support chronic disease management, and enhance medical education and research. Reported outcomes included improved diagnostic efficiency, guideline adherence, and patient engagement. However, challenges remained, such as limited model interpretability, potential reductions in humanistic care, unequal accessibility, technical constraints, and data privacy concerns.
Keywords: deepseek, Primary Care, artificial intelligence, Clinical decision support, Medical Education
Received: 09 Oct 2025; Accepted: 17 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Li, Wang, Wu and Lyu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Qingguo Lyu, lvqingguo@wchscu.cn
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