On the morning of July 28, 2022, the twelfth press conference of the NHC series “All for People’s Health – Work Done over the Decade” was held in Beijing. PUMCH President Zhang Shuyang attended the conference and presented the effectiveness of medical reform at PUMCH since the 18th National Congress of the CPC.
Journalist of the CCTV Channel 12: PUMCH has always excelled at the treatment of intractable, critical and rare diseases. For all these years, what measures has PUMCH taken in improving its diagnosis and treatment and in bringing into play its role as a national medical center?
Zhang Shuyang: PUMCH has been promoting the multidisciplinary approach, which is the MDT model that you are familiar with. The MDT and grand rounds, among a series of core mechanisms, are like the heirlooms of PUMCH that have been preserved since its birth. In 2010, we established the Outpatient Consultation Center for Intractable Diseases, extending the MDT model from wards to outpatient clinics. Over the past 12 years, we have opened 34 specialized teams for pancreatic, pituitary, metabolic bone diseases, etc., treating nearly 12,000 patients with intractable diseases. Given the characteristics of intractable diseases that make registration a headache for patients, PUMCH actively adopts various methods such as intra-departmental referral to a higher level, inter-departmental referral and joint outpatient clinic, which reduces the number of appointments patients need to make and thus visits they need to pay to the hospital.
Dedicated to patient-focused care, we keep improving the service process. In recent years, PUMCH has been actively pushing forward the diagnosis, treatment, and research of rare diseases. We have co-established the China Alliance for Rare Diseases to join hands with all sectors of society. Meanwhile, PUMCH is leading the national collaborative network for the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases, which has led to the establishment and operation of a three-tier prevention and control system. We have also founded the first national multidisciplinary consultation center for rare diseases, where senior experts from more than 20 departments meet up every Thursday at noon to provide consultations for a rare disease patient and his/her family, which has reduced the diagnosis time. With this consultation platform, patients will be offered a “one-stop diagnosis and treatment plan”, and the cost of treatment is further reduced. PUMCH is also leading the national rare disease registration platform, the State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases and the National Infrastructures for Translational Medicine as an all-out effort to provide a supportive system that will improve clinical diagnosis and drive clinical application through scientific research and clinical translation. The enshrinement of rare disease diagnosis, treatment and safeguard in the major national policies has significantly improved the accessibility and affordability of rare disease drugs and solves the “last mile” issue for rare disease patients. Although it is unusual to have a single rare disease, patients are usually surrounded by love as the focus of government attention and public concern.
Journalist of Southern Metropolis Daily: PUMCH is a pilot hospital of modern management system. What is the pilot scheme mainly about? Specifically speaking, what groundbreaking measures have been made by PUMCH to improve patient satisfaction, motivate staff and grow the hospital?
Zhang Shuyang: to promote the implementation of the modern hospital management system, NHC and the other five ministries have rolled out pilot projects which aim at establishing and improving this system. As a pilot hospital, PUMCH has set up an operational mechanism to protect public welfare, motivate staff and guarantee sustainability, with coordinated, balanced and mutually beneficial efforts throughout decision-making, execution, and supervision. With an ongoing endeavor to deepen the reform of this mechanism, it will also promote the application of modern hospital management theories in practice to deliver true benefits to people.
To start with, we will adhere to the rule of law, and pioneer the development and continuous improvement of the hospital charter. The hospital has conscientiously implemented the presidential responsibility system under the leadership of the Party Committee and improved the discussion procedures of the Party Committee and the President’s Office. We have systematically summarized the core systems of medical care, nursing, education, scientific research and finance of PUMCH over the past 100 years, and formed a relatively complete and continuously optimized internal management system by integrating the external governance requirements of the comprehensive reform of public hospitals into the internal governance system of the hospital, which provides institutional guarantee for standardizing and improving medical services and hospital management.
Second, we will keep improving the efficiency of management and enhancing refined management. We have stepped up effort in reforming salary and performance assessment with the focus on the internal control and management. A working mechanism which features a separation of decision-making, execution, and supervision has been put in place, involving both administrative and technical management policies. We initiated the study and establishment of a public welfare oriented incentive mechanism and implemented an assessment model which measures “comprehensive performance + single areas+ KPI” in line with the principle that “assessment metrics should be based on what patients need”. The assessment of clinical service focuses on medical quality, patient safety and patient satisfaction, and the weight of these indicators has increased. In contrast, the assessment of management places emphasis on service effectiveness, where work performance and departmental satisfaction are the major indicators, designed to transform administrative management into clinic-focused innovative services.
Third, we will stay rooted in PUMCH’s legacy and innovation by inheriting and carrying forward its culture. Under the leadership of the CPC, the PUMCH Spirit of “rigorousness, precision, diligence and contribution” has taken shape in the long-term medical practice, supported by the educational philosophy and medical practice philosophy built on “three fundamentals and three strict standards” which have inculcated an attitude of “running the hospital for the country, practicing medicine for people and promoting research for truth”. Facing the new mission, requirements and challenges posed on the high-quality development of public hospitals, this generation of PUMCHers need to keep forging ahead and inject new life into the PUMCH spirit. We will continue to put PUMCH’s vision into action and gather an inexhaustible strength to drive the high-quality growth of the hospital by enriching and improving the culture system, strengthening the leadership of the CPC, satisfying the patients’ needs and making the staff happy.
Journalist from Health News: the mission and objective of medical reform is to enhance the accessibility of medical services for a stronger sense of happiness and security by allocating good medical resources to less developed areas, unleashing the catalytic effect, and driving reform and improvement at the same time. To this end, what measures has PUMCH made and what results have been achieved?
Zhang Shuyang: “Centennial PUMCH, all for the people” is the vision we adhere to.
To begin with, we always work for social good. PUMCH is consciously playing an exemplary role in implementing reform measures such as the separation of dispensing from prescription, medical and consumables linkage, and the development of medical alliance. Committed to meeting patients’ needs, we have established a patient service center to actively promote time slot treatment scheduling, one-stop appointment, inter-visit billing and mutual confirmation of test results, to provide patients with warmer, more convenient and safer medical services.
Continuous efforts have also been poured into digital transformation. In March 2021, PUMCH was approved as the first Internet hospital in Beijing; in July, we released the first national technical specification for Internet hospital management. Up to the present, there are more than 1,300 doctors from 41 specialties providing online consultation and treatment, supported by the doorstep drug delivery service. We are also actively pushing forward the pilot project of “5G+Medical Health”, delivering integrated online and offline services such as intelligent triage and appointment of subsequent visits at the fingertips of patients through self-developed mobile apps and in-hospital self-service machines, which will facilitate the shift in PUMCH’s role from being a center of on-site visits to a hub of online consultations.
Moreover, we will strengthen the catalytic effect of PUMCH. We have completed various medical support tasks with great success. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, we have sent more than 3,000 healthcare workers to 29 provinces. In 2015, we initiated the Tibet-aiding medical team and contributed to the realization of “treating major diseases without leaving Tibet”. Meanwhile, we have built a national quality control collaboration network based on the hospital’s 17 national and municipality-level specialty quality control centers to improve the overall standardization of diagnosis and treatment. Facing the big challenge of pandemic prevention and control, we have continuously improved the emergency management system of the hospital in response to public health events and given full play to our role as a leading public hospital with the goal of “zero nosocomial infection and no shutdown”.
In 2021, the hospital was also approved as a pilot hospital for high-quality development and a national medical center. During the hospital’s 14th Five-Year Plan period, we have formed a development strategy of “one hospital, multiple sites and the whole network” under the goal of building a world-class hospital and a national medical center. We have also doubled effort in research on key areas and cutting-edge technologies to address major unsolved clinical issues, better serve China’s medical sector and protect people’s lives and health.
Picture courtesy: China.com.cn
Translator: Liu Haiyan
Editor: Wang Yao