By Wang Liejun & Ge Yanfeng, Research Team on “The Improvement of Tiered Medical Service System”, Research Department of Social Development, DRC

Research report, Special Issue No.29, 2017 (Total 1553) 2017-07-28

Abstract: Tiered medical service system rests on a proper medical service system with clearly-defined institutional functions and sound cooperative relations between medical institutions. It should be noted that there are obvious defects in China’s medical service system, leading to the fact that patients would prefer to go to hospitals and especially large hospitals in cities instead of seeking medical assistance in local ones. Consequently, local medical service facilities could not be made full use. For the sake of enhancing tiered medical service system, the reform of medical service system should follow the general principle of “delegating more power to grassroots medical institutions and strengthen the regulation on large hospitals”. With regard to grassroots medical institutions, the top priority task is to enhance their present medical facility, delegate more power to grassroots medical institutions and enhance personnel motivations. As regards large hospitals, work should be done to make them concentrate on difficult and complicated cases that are hard to be treated by local hospitals and strictly restrict the expansion of scale and function of large hospitals through regional medical planning and institutional reform. Efforts need to be made to encourage cooperation between various medical groups with the formation of an appropriate internal incentive mechanism; a multi-layered and low-cost rehabilitation system needs to be established to shore up the weak points; and modern information technology needs to be fully utilized.

Key words: medicare, tiered medical service, service system, cooperation