Chronic disease management contest launched in Beijing

A national online chronic disease management competition was kicked off on Wednesday in Beijing, which was jointly organized by Chinese Medical Doctor Association and online healthcare company Medlinker.

Doctors could apply for the contest and submit online chronic disease management cases through the website of the association and the health app of People's Daily.

Through the contest, the association hopes to enhance Chinese doctors' professional skills to better serve patients, as well as promote the health development of the online healthcare industry, according to Yang Min, deputy president of the association.

2021 marks the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, during which protecting people's health is a top priority. It is important to emphasize disease prevention and health maintenance to better implement the Healthy China Initiative, while injecting more momentum to the health industry with digitalization and information technologies, he said.

Zhou Zheng, chief operation officer of Medlinker, said chronic disease management is becoming increasingly important in disease prevention and control, because many once incurable diseases such as AIDS and tumors have become chronic with progress in treatments and technologies.

China will, with emphasis on prevention, continue to advance the Healthy China initiative and carry out extensive patriotic health campaigns, according to the Government Work Report delivered during the two sessions held earlier this month.

The country will deepen reform of the system for disease prevention and control, strengthen community-level public health systems and develop new mechanisms for enhancing coordination between disease prevention and control agencies and hospitals.