Organized assistance improves healthcare coverage

China will continue to regularly deploy high-level medical teams to regions with limited healthcare resources in a bid to bring high-quality medical services to rural communities and strengthen the capabilities of local hospitals, according to a government notice released earlier this year.

This effort builds upon a program launched in 2011 by the National Health Commission, which mobilized major metropolitan hospitals to support less developed central and western regions.

Last year, the program expanded to engage more hospitals, and several provinces organized their own medical assistance teams.

To systematize these efforts, the commission, along with the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration, issued a joint notice in September. The document aims to establish a comprehensive and multitiered mobile medical service system with broader national coverage.

The notice specifies that each national-level medical team must comprise at least eight members holding medium to senior professional titles. Their support will be targeted at counties in central and western China with weaker medical capabilities, formerly disadvantaged areas, regions with significant ethnic minority populations, border areas and old revolutionary base areas.

Nationally organized teams will be dispatched annually, with their tours commencing before the end of October and lasting for a minimum of three weeks.

In the meantime, local authorities are tasked with organizing medical tours to counties and villages more frequently, such as once per quarter or once per month. A key objective is to ensure that all key counties with limited medical resources receive consistent support.

According to the notice, these medical teams will provide a wide array of services, from direct diagnosis, health education and promotion of healthy lifestyles to training local medical professionals and assisting with hospital management improvements.

The teams will establish long-term cooperation mechanisms with local institutions, ensuring continued support through remote consultations and virtual ward rounds after their on-site tours conclude.

"It is important to enhance the diagnosis and treatment capabilities of common and endemic diseases, key infectious diseases, as well as support the creation of county-level emergency centers for chest pain, stroke, trauma and the treatment of critically ill pregnant women and children," the notice said.

This year's campaign was launched in July, dispatching 82 national-level medical teams to 218 county-level regions across all 12 western and six central provinces.

As of early November, a cumulative total of 342 national-level teams, comprising over 2,500 medical professionals, have been deployed. These teams have provided medical services to more than 500,000 people in less developed regions, according to the commission.