It is one of the priorities of the new round of healthcare reform to develop regional healthcare alliances through vertically integrating resources. This paper reviews the framework and characteristics of Shanghai’s healthcare system, and then analyzes its strengths and weaknesses, underscoring Shanghai’s exploration in the vertical integration of medical resources as a response to the pressing issues in healthcare. The paper outlines the main tasks and groundwork of the Shanghai healthcare alliance initiative and gives an outlook on the expected outcomes. It ends with some thoughts on the problems and challenges confronting regional healthcare alliances in Shanghai.
Objective To explore the impact of community healthcare workers’ (CHWs) knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) on the influenza vaccination among elderly people. Methods By means of simple random sampling, 1 residential quarter of each communities, 2 communities of each districts, 5 districts of Chengdu city were randomly selected, and the elderly equal to or more than 60-year-old were on-site investigated. Meanwhile, the questionnaire survey was conducted among healthcare workers in the selected communities. Results There were 4 KAP factors played a positive role in influenza vaccination among elderly people: CHWs’ affirmation of the effectiveness of influenza vaccine, explicitly knowing the focus groups for influenza vaccination, recommendation of vaccination in flu season when the elderly visits, and participation in flu-related education activities. When the accuracy rate of each factor got improved by 1%, the influenza vaccination rate would improve by 2.747%, 1.299%, 0.864%, 0.602%, respectively. Conclusion The knowledge, attitude and practice of HCWs have impacts on the influenza vaccination rates of elderly people. They are significant to improve the influenza vaccination rates of the elderly.
It is essential to improve the practice of community healthcare service for the resolution of the problem of inadequate and overly expensive medical services, to promote the harmonization of doctor-patient relationship. From the aspects of the introduction of community healthcare service and the necessity of its standard management, the civil legal relation of community healthcare and its major problems, as well as the rights and duties of community doctors, the authors discussed the importance and necessity of scientific management, right protection by law as well as sound and orderly development of community healthcare service.
Objective To systematically review and conclude the healthcare reform policy in rural China throughout the past 62 years. Methods This study was applied with PICOS structure to formulate research issues. National/ministry policies and documents on healthcare reform in rural China were systematically collected. The primary healthcare issues and healthcare reform measures carried out at each stage were studied, and, the criteria as population healthcare indicators, indicators for healthcare workforce and infrastructure in rural areas, healthcare expenditure indicators, and the results of national surveys for healthcare service were used to evaluate the reform performance achieved at each stage. Results A total 396 national policies on healthcare reform in rural China were included through comprehensive search. In accordance with the results of quantitative analysis on literatures, characteristics of economy system reform at each stage as well as actual advancement on healthcare reform, the reform courses of healthcare system in rural China in this study were divided into six periods as follows: national economy recovery and adjustment period, cultural revolution period, early stage of economy system transition, initial stage of healthcare reform, middle stage of healthcare reform, and implement stage for new rural cooperative medical system (NRCMS). The average policies of each period increased year by year, which generally showed as features as laying more emphasis on medical services than medicine, and thinking little of medical insurance. The population health indicators, sickbeds per thousand rural population and medical practitioners kept improving gradually. Yet the import of market mechanism and influence of international economy condition led to the decline in public welfare of healthcare system, increase of personal expenditure proportion among general healthcare cost, and duplicate content among some polices.Conclusion Commonwealth orientation is the fundamental principal to fulfill healthcare service system, thus performance on policies should be concluded in combination with the present national conditions, future requirements as well as evidence-based policy-making, and additionally, such performance should be improved during implementation.
Objective In light of problems related to the accessibility and affordability of healthcare, we aimed to investigate the status and causes for the shortage of qualified health human resources in the rural and primary health care setting, and to propose solutions to these problems at the level of health policy system. Methods The principles and methods of evidence-based medicine were applied. We developed the study selection criteria on the basis of the proposed questions, and identified relevant literature from biomedical databases and other additional sources. We graded eligible studies, extracted data, and summarized the data to draw conclusions. In addition, we conducted a survey to refine the proposed solutions. Results We identified 147studies from PubMed and CNKI, of which 30were in English. After summarizing the information, and using knowledge about the human resources for health in primary healthcare in China, we proposed a model of resident doctor aid healthcare. The survey that we conducted to assess such a model included interviewees of top level policy makers, medical students and staff in medical universities. Most of the interviewees (85%) thought it was feasible to develop an aid healthcare system. Among those who disagreed, the lack of corresponding policy was the most common factor. Conclusions It is suggested that the government develop relevant policies and make an attempt to practice the aid healthcare system. Emerging problems could be identified and addressed in practice.
The increasing need for healthcare services in rural areas cannot be satisfied because of the lack of healthcare professionals, and poor medical education and training. These result in the low competency of rural healthcare workers. Therefore, the medical education system needs to be reformed in order to improve healthcare human resources in rural areas.
The hospital information structure, which is made up of various medical business systems, is suffering from the problems of the "information isolated island". Medical business systems in the hospital are mutually isomerous and difficult to become a whole. How to realize the internal barrier-free interaction of the patients effective medical information in the hospital and further to complete the area sharing of patients longitudinal diagnosis and treatment information has become a question having to be solved urgently in the process of healthcare informatization. Based on the HL7 standard, this paper refers to the IHE technical framework, expounds the overall structure of the interaction in the hospital internal and area sharing of medical information with the medical information exchange platform. The paper also gives the details of the whole process of the complete display of the discrete patient health information using Portal technology, which is saved in the business systems in different hospitals. It interacts internally through the information exchange platform and at last stores the information in the regional cinical data repository (CDR).
Integration of heterogeneous systems is the key to hospital information construction due to complexity of the healthcare environment. Currently, during the process of healthcare information system integration, people participating in integration project usually communicate by free-format document, which impairs the efficiency and adaptability of integration. A method utilizing business process model and notation (BPMN) to model integration requirement and automatically transforming it to executable integration configuration was proposed in this paper. Based on the method, a tool was developed to model integration requirement and transform it to integration configuration. In addition, an integration case in radiology scenario was used to verify the method.
ObjectiveTo evaluate the current status of primary healthcare system reform in Xinjin county, in order to provide baseline data for improving the healthcare service system and population health in Chengdu. MethodsPrimary health care services and population health in Xinjin county were quantitatively described and compared. Resultsa) Eleven township hospitals (100%) and 89 village clinics (66.42%) were upgraded according to the national standards. The management of 60 village clinics were integrated with township hospitals. And 417 and 76 essential healthcare services were provided by township hospitals and village clinics, respectively. b) In 2010, the number of outpatients and inpatients in Xinjin county were increased by 24.2% and 46.3% respectively compared to those of 2009, while the costs per outpatient visit and inpatient discharge were reduced by 21.5% and 18.6% respectively. c) In 2010, health records of 98.2% of population in Xinjin county have been established; 96.3% of pregnant women were managed systematically; 98.8% of children immunization programs were implemented; 100% patients with severe mental disorders and about 78% with hypertension and diabetes were in follow-up and treatment; and 28.8% of total population got the free physical exams in 2010. d) The essential medicine accounted for 96.7% of total types of medicines and 97.8% of total expenditure of medicines in primarily healthcare institutions in Xinjin. The cost of medicine management was reduced from 8.5% to 4.2% while the medicine turnover rate was increased by 50%. e) Average life expectancy in Xinjin county was 77.97 years, infant mortality rate was 6.82‰ in 2010; and there was no maternal death in recent 8 years. f) The regional healthcare information system was established covering three-tier rural health care network spanning the county, township and village. Conclusiona) The primary healthcare system reform in Xinjin county improves the infrastructure of primary care system, the utilization of essential medical care, essential public health service, and essential medicines. b) Life expectancy, infant mortality rate and maternal mortality of Xinjin county are better than the average levels in Sichuan province and China. Xinjin county is a representative pilot county for healthcare service system reform in Chengdu city and a nice model to successfully promote healthcare system reform based on regional healthcare information system.
ObjectivesTo investigate the utilization of essential medicines and antibiotics in primary healthcare system of Xinjin county of Chengdu city from 2009 to 2011. MethodsThe data of utilization of all the medicines, essential medicines and antibiotics was collected from 17 hospitals of Xinjin primary healthcare system. Microsoft Excel 2003 was used to analyze the data. ResultsCompared with 2009, the total costs of medicines and essential medicines increased by 72.27% and 135.4% respectively in 2010. After the implementation of essential medicine policy in 2010, the proportion of essential medicines accounted for more than 90% in community healthcare centers (CHCs) and township hospitals (THs) and over 50% in county-level hospitals in 2011. In 2010, the average cost per prescription among outpatients increased by 3.51% in total, but deceased by 16.23% in CHCs/THs (RMB 15.09 yuan per prescription). In July of 2011, the policy to control the use of antibiotics was implemented in Xinjin county. The use of antibiotics decreased, but still accounted for over 30% in 9 out of 13 CHCs/THs. The use of bigeminy antibiotics and trigeminy antibiotics accounted for 0.42 to 5.56% and 0 to 0.44%, respectively. ConclusionsThe use of essential medicines increases in Xinjin county and met the national requirements. The average cost per prescription among outpatient decreases in THs and CHCs. After controlling the use of antibiotics, the proportion and cost of antibiotics is still very high, and irrational use of antibiotics probably still exists. The training and guide for evidence-based rational use of medicine should be enhanced in future.