Guiyang selected as pilot city for dense urban medical group development

The National Health Commission, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance, and six other departments recently issued a notice announcing 81 pilot cities for the development of dense urban medical groups, including Guiyang in Southwest China's Guizhou province.

According to the previous work plan for the development, dense urban medical groups will be responsible for providing integrated and continuous medical and health services related to disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, nutrition, rehabilitation, nursing, and health management for residents.

A dense urban medical group is composed of a leading hospital and member units. The leading hospital should be a grade-A tertiary hospital at the city or district level.

At least one-third of outpatient sources and one-quarter of inpatient beds at the leading hospital should be signed with family doctor service teams or grassroots medical and health institutions.

Residents who sign contracts with these teams can receive priority treatment, examinations, and hospitalization through referral from grassroots medical and health institutions.

The leading hospital mainly provides diagnosis and treatment services for critical and complex diseases and receives transferred patients from other medical facilities.

Member units mainly include secondary hospitals or medical institutions that can provide diagnosis and treatment services for common and chronic diseases, emergency rescue for critical illnesses, and follow-up medical services for patients transferred from the leading hospital.

The dense urban medical group will establish resource-sharing centers for medical testing, medical imaging, electrocardiogram diagnosis, pathology, disinfection, and supply to achieve mutual recognition of inspection and test results within the group.

In addition, a remote medical cooperation network covering all units of the medical consortium will be established to improve the efficiency of medical resource allocation and utilization.

Pilot cities are expected to complete the layout of dense urban medical groups by the first half of 2023. By the end of 2023, support policies should be formed.

By 2025, the management system of the pilot cities' dense urban medical groups should be more scientific, the operation mechanism should be perfected, the service model should be optimized, the supply and demand of medical resources should be more even, medical treatment should be more convenient, and pilot work should provide a beneficial experience that can be replicated and promoted.