I Healthcare reform progress

Henan sets up living subsidy account for old rural doctors

 The Henan finance and health departments will jointly issue a notice on how to manage and issue life subsidies for old rural doctors in Henan, according to a report on Feb 27，2013 by the health department’s medical reform office.

The notice required finance departments at the county level to set up special subsidy accounts for old rural doctors. After getting grants from upper-level authorities, the finance departments have to transfer funds to county-level health departments within five working days. The county-level health departments should open life subsidy bank account for old rural doctors and put the money to their account before the 25th of every month.

Xiamen hires medical safety and quality supervisors

Recently, Xiamen signed a three-year employment contract with four medical safety and quality supervisors to evaluate its medical service, according to a report on February 26 by the Fujian Health Department. The four experts can conduct random checks on medical service alone or together, as well as investigations on major medical accidents or the rectification process of medical institutions.

Anyang will set up traditional Chinese medicine department in all its community health service centers.

A traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) department will be established in all community health service centers in Henan’s Anyang city, according to a report on February 26 by the Henan Health Department. Last March, the city initiated TCM department standardization work. Roughly 30 percent of community health service centers had set up the department. The rest will do it this year to offer residents services including acupuncture, massage, medicinal cooking, healthcare and chronic disease management.

Zhangjiakou includes private hospitals into New Rural Cooperative Medical System

Zhangjiakou has named 14 hospitals as State-designated institutions for treating 14 serious diseases, such as lung cancer, within the new rural cooperative medical system(NCMS), according to a report on February 25 by the Zhangjiakou Evening Post, a local newspaper. They include Zhangjiakou Ren’ai Hospital and Tongji Hospital in Huailai County, both private hospitals. The two hospitals will mainly treat cerebral infarction and other major diseases. Rural people can go to the two places to treat their disease and enjoy relevant medical compensations stipulated by the major disease compensation policy of NCMS

Ningbo initiates centralized procurement on medical consumables

Zhejiang’s Ningbo city recently initiated centralized medical consumables procurement, according to a report on February 27 by Southeast Business, a local newspaper. The purchase catalogue includes mainly consumables for operations, including anastomat, hernia patch, hemostatic and anti-adhesion materials. The prices were all remarkably marked down compared with before.

II Practical exploration

Qingdao Stomatological Hospital brings in consumables information management system

 Qingdao Stomatological Hospital recently introduced a secondary-warehouse information management system to control the rising consumption on health consumables, according to the municipal health bureau on 27 February. Consumables will no longer be distributed to doctors directly from hospital warehouse but will be distributed to the department where the doctors work. The department will further break big package consumables into small packages, and hand out to doctors, to avoid possible waste. Since the introduction of this system, the percentage of health consumables on hospital’s medical revenue dropped by 19.3 percent year-on-year.

Chenzhou use China Mobile software in community health services

Since January, community health services in Hunan’s Chenzhou city have used Fetion, a China Mobile software that can send messages to cell phones from computer terminals, according to the Hunan Health Department’s healthcare reform office on 28 February. Community doctors add the phone numbers of chronic patients, contracted residents and the elderly receiving home-based care to the Fetion platform, and send them heath education information on a regularly basis so they can better maintain their health.