China announces 81 pilot regions for integrated medical services

BEIJING -- Eighty-one cities and districts have been announced as pilot regions for providing integrated and continuous medical and health services for their residents, according to China's National Health Commission on Friday.

The pilot regions, including Beijing's Chaoyang district and the city of Datong in North China's Shanxi province, will be built into integrated urban medical groups that can provide services such as disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, nutrition, rehabilitation, nursing and health management for residents within the region.

According to a circular jointly issued by the NHC and other government departments, the integrated urban medical groups will build resources-sharing centers for functions such as medical examination and medical imaging, realize the mutual recognition of medical results within the region, establish a telemedicine collaboration network, and improve the allocation and efficiency of the use of medical resources.

The leading hospitals in each group are required to reserve at least one third of their outpatient visits and 25 percent of their inpatient beds for contracted family doctors or medical and health institutions at the primary level, according to NHC.

Contracted residents referred by medical institutions at the primary level can be given priority for medical treatment, examination and hospitalization in the leading hospitals, which focus on providing diagnosis and treatment for those with critical and complex diseases.

The government expects that the pilot programs will offer useful experiences for the operation of such medical groups that can be replicated and promoted across the country by 2025.