China Launches Nationwide Campaign to Elevate Hospital Care Standards
China’s top health authority has initiated a yearlong campaign to enhance the quality of healthcare delivery, focusing on key issues such as poor risk management, denial of patient admission, and breaches of patient privacy.
The campaign, which began this month and will run through the end of May next year, targets all hospitals and public health institutions within the top two tiers of the country’s three-tier hospital system. The initiative was announced in a joint notice issued last week by the National Health Commission and two other government departments.
According to officials, the campaign aims to address a range of concerning practices, including the refusal to admit patients, delays in emergency treatment for critically ill individuals, failure to perform scheduled ward rounds, and inadequate surgical oversight.
The initiative will also clamp down on the falsification or alteration of medical records, and the issuance of diagnostic reports without direct patient contact.
A major focus will be strengthening hospitals’ capacity to prevent and control healthcare-associated infections. Authorities will scrutinize violations such as improper aseptic procedures, misuse of disposable medical supplies, and failure to report infection outbreaks to higher authorities.
To bolster patient privacy protections, the campaign will tackle issues like unauthorized retention, photography, duplication, or distribution of medical records and imaging data. It will also target the neglect of internal audits and enhance oversight of electronic medical record systems to prevent unauthorized access.
The campaign will further seek to improve training and governance in medical ethics and professionalism, including addressing the mishandling of whistleblower reports and patient grievances.
Authorities stated that representative violations uncovered during the campaign will be publicly disclosed upon its conclusion, serving as a cautionary example to other institutions.
