China to launch nationwide network for cross-province medical imaging access

China will establish a nationwide hospital network to enable instant cross-province access to medical imaging data, a move designed to bring convenience to patients seeking medical treatment outside their home provinces, the National Healthcare Security Administration announced on Monday.

The administration said that as of Monday, 330 million medical imaging records have been indexed and uploaded to data-sharing platforms nationwide.

Several provincial-level regions have already implemented centralized procurement programs for processing, uploading, and storing medical imaging data to achieve long-term storage and quick sharing of these records.

Despite these advances, many leading hospitals across the country still face difficulties accessing medical images originally produced by hospitals in other provinces when receiving non-local patients.

The proposed national network aims to address this challenge, the administration said. It is expected to allow hospitals to swiftly retrieve a patient’s complete medical imaging history and streamline the process for cross-provincial healthcare, it added.