The Exploration And Practice Of Reducing The Burden On Patients For Public Hospitals Under The Background Of Health System Reform

After nearly three-year’s incubation, Health System Reform in China finallycame into implementation on April6,2009, the essence of which is to solve theproblems of difficult and high cost to access medical care for common people.Therefore,“to boost the reform of public hospitals” is one of the five key projectsidentified by Health System Reform Policy. The Ministry of Health has made thefollowing three requirements on the reform of public hospitals. First of all, it isnecessary to shorten the patients’ average length of stay, so as to improve theefficiency of hospital resource utilization. Secondly, strengthen the management ofrational drug use, especially antibacterial management, and strictly control the cost ofmedicine. The third one is to actively carry out the disease entities managementthrough clinical pathway, promoting single disease payment. By continuouslyreducing the burden of patients, the public welfare of public hospitals is reflected.In order to reflect the public interest and ensure the "patient-centered" idea,public hospitals should practice a lot according to the requirements of the HealthSystem Reform Policy and Ministry of Health, so that the burden on patients can bereduced continuously. This paper aims to make summative evaluations on whetherpublic hospital reform can achieve the desired effect. Firstly, it introduces the policybackground for Health System Reform to resolve the problems of difficult and highcost to access medical care for common people. Then it elaborates the theoreticalbasis for Public Management to analyze the reform of public hospitals, andsummarizes the causes of above problems. Taking Tianjin Huanhu Hospital as anexample, this paper makes summaries and analysis on the concrete practice ofreducing the burden on patients in recent three years, providing solid evidence forproblem solving in the reform of public hospitals. In addition, the reference andinspiration of U.S. managed care for China’s medical reform is analyzed. Finally, itmakes a conclusion on the practice of reducing burdens on patients for publichospitals, and puts forward to personal opinions on further easing the problem ofdifficult and high cost to access medical care for reference.