Hospital.jpg (Photo : Reuters)
The Chinese government's cabinet will be sending teams to every area in the country to conduct assessments on progress in public hospitals, according to a Global Times report.
The State Council has tasked 12 teams made up of personnel from the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Food and Drug Administration to perform investigations for the remainder of November.
The move is part of the implementation of the country's medical reform measures, which were first introduced in 2009.
According to the Global Times report, country-level hospitals are tasked to handle 900 million of China's citizens, or 70 percent of the country's population, but the institutions fail to satisfactorily deliver assigned services.
The government's plan is for 90 percent of patients to seek treatment in public hospitals; however, more than 20 percent of them opt to go to private hospitals for health care and management.
It is for these reasons that the cabinet decided to conduct investigations into the management of public hospitals.
The designated teams are expected to "sort out" the hospitals' fund use with the end goal of establishing transparency in medicine sales and supplies.
The teams are also tasked to discuss with local hospital officials areas such as the proper assigning of hospital personnel, payment using Medicare, and diagnosis classification and patient treatment.
