Medical System Reform in the New Era

On September 15, the 1st LifeHealth Conference themed at China's Medical System Reform in the NewEra, jointly sponsored by China Health Economics Association and ShanghaiUniversity of Finance and Economics and was jointly undertook by the School ofPublic Economics and Administration, School of Information Management andEngineering, School of Finance and School of Business of Shanghai University ofFinance and Economics, was successfully held at Shanghai University of Financeand Economics. The main forum in the morning was held in the lecture hall onthe first floor of Entrepreneurship Center at the Wuchuan Road Campus, and the conferencewas hosted by Professor Liu Xiaobing, Dean of School of Public Economics andAdministration of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Prof. Jiang Chuanhai, the Presidentof Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, gave his warm welcome andsincere gratitude to the guests. Afterwards, he introduced the great concernand active participation of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in thefield of life and health. Furthermore, he said that the school would continueto adhere to the strategy of Healthy China, to play the advantages ofdisciplines, to serve the alumni' causes, and to serve the social need andnational strategy. Professor Li Ling, Vice President of the China HealthEconomics Association, delivered a speech and introduced the fact that ChinaHealth Association has been committed to promoting the construction anddevelopment of China's health economics discipline. Next, she said that she wasvery happy to see more and more young people joining our health service and shewished the conference a complete success.

At the main forum of the conferencein the morning, Professor Li Ling, the Vice President of China Health EconomicsAssociation, Mr. Leng Xiliang, the Director of Planning and DevelopmentDivision of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning, andProfessor Yu Wei of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, respectively,gave a wonderful speech on the theme of Healthy China and deepening of medicalreform, progress and prospect of comprehensive medical improvement in Shanghaiand the promotion of medical technology innovation guided by health value, etc.At the end of the conference, Gao Qiang, the Dean of China Public FinanceResearch Institute, the Former Director of Budget Working Committee of theStanding Committee of the National People's Congress, the Minister of Ministryof Health, and the Vice Minister of Ministry of Finance, made a concludingspeech.

Li Ling, a professor at PekingUniversity and the Vice President of the China Health Economics Association,gave a keynote speech on “Healthy China and Deepening of Medical Reform”. Prof.Li Ling explored and sought the Chinese road to achieve the national healthbased on the reform goal that “the national health policy should be improved tomake health service that are all-round and full-cycle available to the people”.In view of the rapid growth of health expenditure and the obscure effectivenessof reform in China, she pointed out that the medical and health system had akey impact on health care costs by comparison with major OECD countriesregarding to the medical and health expenses, and proposed that it wasnecessary to keep on deepening the reform of the medical and health system and developreform policies with the characteristics of systematicness, integrality and harmoniousness,including establish a medical and health system with Chinese characteristics, amedical security system and a high-quality and efficient medical and healthservice system, and perfect modern hospital management system, etc.

Director Leng Xiliang gave adetailed introduction to the main goals and work progress of Shanghai's medicaland health system reform in recent years. Based on the 5550 framework formedical reform in Shanghai (i.e., five key reforms, five supporting reforms,and 50 specific measures), he elaborated the main work from eight aspects,like  the reinforcement of  separating management from enforcementof Shanghai’s public hospitals, promotion of the reform of separation ofmedical treatment and drug , improvement of the government investment mechanismof public hospitals, improvement of the assessment mechanism of medicalservices, improvement of the internal operation mechanism of public hospitals,and deepening of the comprehensive reform of community health services, theestablishment of the family doctor signing service system and the promotion ofthe construction of various forms of medical consortiums. On this basis, theDirector Leng expressed his outlook on reform content in several aspects,including promotion of the construction of the public health service system,improvement of the medical service system, advancement of the high-qualitydevelopment of the health service industry, enhancement of the construction ofthe medical talent team and the construction of health informatization .

Yu Wei, a professor at ShanghaiUniversity of Finance and Economics, gave a keynote speech on “promotion ofmedical technology innovation guided by health value”. Professor Yu Weiintroduced the international advanced health value concept, and discussed theeconomic interpretation of medical technology innovation in terms of the it’spromotion, and proposed feasible paths and policy strategies. In the speech,Professor Yu Wei first proposed that the achievement of the development goalsof the health service industry in Shanghai depends on the promotion of medicaltechnology innovation in medicines, devices and information. Taking the UnitedStates as an example, Professor Yu Wei simply but profoundly analyzed therelationship between medical technology innovation and medical expenses bymeans of rich and detailed data. Using cost-benefit analysis and other methods,he constructed a theoretical model that the present value of the whole lifecycle profit of medical technology innovation products need to be higher thanthe input cost required to enter the market. Professor Yu Wei suggested that first,the government should increase basic scientific research and encourage originaltype of imitation in terms of innovation encouragement; second, the governmentshould speed up the approval of new technologies for cost-effectiveness for theapproval; third, the government should strengthen the overall planning ofmedical insurance, unify the policy, and implement the effective assessment ofcost-effectiveness to achieve the goal that the medical insurance is paid basedon it’s value in the respect of application.

Gao Qiang, the General Counsel ofChina Health Economics Association, the President of China Public FinanceResearch Institute of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, the formerMinister of Ministry of Health and the Vice Minister of Ministry of Finance,made a summary of the conference. Minister Gao Qiang first affirmed thesignificance of the conference. During the conference, the participant expertsdiscussed in detail the most basic and core issues around the country's bighealth strategy and the people's health, which not only inspired everyone'sthinking, but also guided everyone to put forward suggestions for medicalreform. Minister Gao Qiang believed that in the past 10 years, there were stillsome problems in the new medical reform that needed to be discussed in depth,which included: first, the definition of basic medical and health services hasnot been clearly defined; second, the measurement standard of medical and healthypublic welfare needs to be further clarified; third, the remarkable results inthe medical insurance system reform have been achieved, but the phenomenon ofpoverty due to illness has not been completely solved; last, the budgetmanagement, doctors' compensation, hospital audits and others of publichospitals need to be further improved.

More than 30 guests, including managers andresearchers from the relevant government management departments, and investorsand practitioners of the life health industry, made keynote speeches orparticipated in the talk. Nearly 600 alumni and people from all walks of lifeparticipated in the conference. Everyone believed that this was a good start.We all wished that more similar activities could be organized to get the majordisciplines advantages of the China Health Economics Association and ShanghaiUniversity of Finance and Economics together, to enhance the research level andinfluence, to focus on the transformation of scientific research results, toenhance international scientific research cooperation, and to make positivecontributions to scientific and technological progress and social development. Itwas hoped that under the joint participation and great effort by government,the academic community, and the industry, a batch of experts, scholars and elitescould cooperate, and all kinds of resources and superiorities could becollected. Rooted in China, we developed with the world synchronously, andserved the national strategy. Moreover, we kept with the times, inherited andinnovated, gave full play to the role of think tanks regarding followingnational strategies and promoting local economic development, and promote moreexchanges and cooperation. We must make a contribution to serving botheducation and alumni development, as well as both the society and the nationalstrategy!