Beijing, December 30 (Xinhua) -- The National Health Commission and 10 other departments recently jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a Close-knit County Medical and Health Community," calling for the promotion of the integration of urban and rural areas, townships and villages, counties and townships, and rural areas, and vigorously improve the capacity of primary medical and health services.
The Guiding Opinions propose that according to the geographical location, the population served, and the layout of existing medical and health institutions, a county-level medical community should be established led by county-level hospitals and composed of several other county-level medical and health institutions, township health centers, and community health service centers. The lead hospital is generally a non-profit general hospital or a traditional Chinese medicine hospital above the second level.
Promoting the construction of county-level medical community is an important measure to deepen medical reform. In recent years, China's medical and health service capacity has improved as a whole, but there is still a gap between the ability of primary medical services in some areas and the people's expectation of "seeing a good disease" nearby.
According to the relevant person in charge of the Primary Health Department of the National Health Commission, the close county-level medical community is a systematic reshaping of medical and health resources in the county, and on the basis of summarizing the experience of the previous pilot, focusing on the goal of "strong at the county level, active at the township level, stable at the village level, upper and lower linkage, and information communication", to promote the realization of general diseases in cities and counties, and daily diseases in the grassroots level.
According to the guiding opinions, the second ** hospital should improve the service capacity and management level of the county-level medical community through expert dispatch, specialist co-construction, and clinical teaching. The leading hospital should send clinical and management personnel to the township (street) all year round to help solve grassroots problems and carry out itinerant medical treatment for the countryside. Qualified public village clinics will be gradually converted into village-level medical service points extended by township health centers, and unified management of administration, personnel, business, drugs, finance, and performance will be implemented.
The guidance also puts forward specific requirements for improving the overall service capacity of county-level medical communities from five aspects: promoting resource service sharing, improving major epidemic response and medical emergency response capabilities, expanding family doctor contract services, innovating medical and prevention integration services, and improving traditional Chinese medicine service capabilities. Among them, it is required to coordinate the establishment of five resource sharing centers in the county, including medical examination, medical imaging, electrocardiogram diagnosis, pathological diagnosis, and disinfection, and coordinate the establishment of five major clinical service centers in the county, including tumor prevention and treatment, chronic disease management, minimally invasive intervention, anesthesia and pain diagnosis and treatment, and intensive care.
The guiding opinions require that by the end of June 2024, the construction of a close county-level medical community will be comprehensively promoted at the provincial level. By the end of 2027, the close-knit county-level medical community will basically achieve full coverage.