By 2025, a high-quality and efficient integrated medical and health service system will be basically established

In terms of construction objectives, the Plan proposes that by 2025, with the joint efforts of the central and local governments, a high-quality and efficient integrated medical and health service system will be basically established, characterized by a complete system, reasonable layout, clear division of labor, complementary functions, close collaboration, high efficiency, and resilience. The capacity for prevention and treatment of major epidemics and response to public health emergencies will be significantly improved. Significant progress will be made in the construction of major bases such as national medical centers and regional medical centers. The capacity for comprehensive and life-cycle health services and guarantees will be significantly enhanced. The traditional Chinese medicine service system will be further improved. Efforts will be made to ensure that the vast majority of people can enjoy equitable, accessible, systematic, continuous, and high-quality medical and health services nearby.

The Plan requires accelerating the construction of disease prevention and control institutions' infrastructure to meet the needs of responding to public health emergencies and preventing major diseases under the new situation. National and key regional disease prevention and control institutions will have the ability to definitively identify pathogens of newly emerging infectious diseases and health hazards and the capacity to deal with major public health emergencies.

Local governments should establish a stable funding mechanism for public health, optimize the structure of fiscal expenditures, coordinate various funding channels, and strengthen the capacity building of local disease prevention and control institutions.

For major infectious diseases such as respiratory system diseases, national major infectious disease prevention and treatment bases will be established in key areas such as megacities and national central cities, relying on high-level comprehensive medical institutions. These bases will have the capacity to treat a large number of critically ill patients during outbreaks of clustered epidemics, and they will be able to support other severely affected areas immediately according to national requirements. They will also undertake training tasks for major epidemic treatment in the region, manage or guide local infectious disease hospitals in improving their comprehensive treatment capabilities, thus raising China's major infectious disease prevention and control capabilities to a new level.

For major emergencies such as natural disasters and accidental disasters, upgrades and renovations will be carried out on medical institutions with a good working foundation. National emergency medical rescue bases will be established across the country at the provincial level, improving the comprehensive functions of emergency medical rescue training, exercises, education, and research. These bases will have the capacity for large-scale, three-dimensional transportation of injured persons, centralized treatment, rescue material guarantee, and information command interconnection, comprehensively improving China's emergency medical rescue capabilities for emergencies.

The Plan points out that several national medical centers will be constructed to form a group of peaks in medical research, high grounds for results transformation, talent training bases, and data aggregation platforms. This will concentrate efforts to conduct core technological research and development, promote the transformation of clinical research results, and accelerate the resolution of "bottleneck" problems in the fields of drugs, medical equipment, vaccines, and medical data.

Based on the implementation of the Pilot Program for the Construction of Regional Medical Centers, further analysis of the incidence and regional and population distribution of major diseases in China will be conducted to expand the areas, sending hospitals, and specialties covered by the construction of regional medical centers. High-level hospitals undertaking sending tasks will simultaneously be included in the construction of regional medical centers. By 2023, the construction of regional medical centers will cover all provinces, and national planning will be completed. By 2025, the construction of regional medical centers will be basically completed. This will promote the expansion of high-quality medical resources and balanced regional layouts, allowing critical, difficult, and complicated cases to be solved within the province.

Central budget-within investment will prioritize supporting improvements to infrastructure for women's and children's health services, improving the prevention and control of birth defects, mental health and psychiatric services, and increasing rehabilitation and nursing resources. Local governments need to focus on the health needs of key populations, accelerate the improvement of women's and children's health, occupational health, elderly health, mental health and mental health service systems, make up for the shortcomings in health education, rehabilitation medicine, long-term elderly care, and palliative care, and accelerate the improvement of supportive policies and the construction of inclusive childcare service systems to comprehensively improve the capacity for comprehensive and life-cycle health services.

The Plan emphasizes the construction of about 30 national centers for the inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese medicine. These centers will focus on improving the basic research, treatment of key diseases, high-level talent cultivation, equipment and new drug research and development, and technological achievements transformation of traditional Chinese medicine, building a high ground for the inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese medicine that closely combines medicine, industry, academia, research, and application.

Following the principle of "combining peacetime and emergency preparedness, combining specialized and non-specialized personnel and reasonable layout, coordinated action, and rapid response," about 35 national bases for the prevention and control of traditional Chinese medicine epidemics will be established, covering all provinces. These bases will enhance the capability of traditional Chinese medicine to rapidly respond to and participate in the treatment of newly emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and other major public health emergencies, and to centralize the treatment of critically ill patients, thus improving the prevention and control of epidemics within the region.

Approximately 50 integrated Chinese and Western medicine "flagship" hospitals will be established, promoting the "mechanistic, team-based, measured, and effective" model of integrated Chinese and Western medicine. The construction of the traditional Chinese medicine capabilities of clinical departments will be strengthened, inter-departmental, inter-hospital, and integrated medical consortia cooperation mechanisms will be established, integrated Chinese and Western medicine teams will be formed, and the development of multidisciplinary diagnostic and treatment systems for integrated Chinese and Western medicine will be promoted. These hospitals will become centers for the integrated Chinese and Western medicine diagnosis and treatment of major difficult diseases, talent training, and medical model promotion, playing a leading role in the integrated development of Chinese and Western medicine in their regions and across the country.

Approximately 130 municipal-level key traditional Chinese medicine hospitals that have prominent traditional Chinese medicine characteristics, significant clinical efficacy, and significant demonstration and leading roles will be selected. Focusing on advantageous diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, tumors, bone injuries, gynecology, pediatrics, and rehabilitation, these hospitals will cultivate renowned departments, physicians, and drugs, develop and strengthen traditional Chinese medicine specialty departments, train disciplinary leaders and backbone personnel, promote the development and application of traditional Chinese medicine preparations, and accelerate the expansion and balanced layout of high-quality traditional Chinese medicine medical resources within the province.