Chinanews.com, September 8 According to the website of the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Commerce and other three departments issued the "Notice on Carrying out Pilot Work on Expanding Opening-up in the Medical Field". According to the notice, it is proposed to allow the establishment of wholly foreign-owned hospitals in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hainan Island, and the specific conditions, requirements and procedures will be notified separately.
This is not good news for medical institutions, whether they are public or private. For the general public, this is good news. The former will face more brutal competition, and if the current management model and behavior mode are maintained, they may face survival pressure; The latter will benefit from the competition, at least, and will be greatly improved and increased in terms of medical services, drug prices, and medical behavior.
Obviously, the advent of foreign-funded hospitals is by no means a foreign flattery, but has been hurt by the non-standard medical behavior of medical institutions for a long time, and it is hoped that through the entry of diplomatic hospitals, it can produce a catfish effect, so that public and private hospitals can change their concepts, truly establish a patient-centered idea, rather than economic interests as the center, and always want to get more economic benefits from patients, so that hospitals lose the heart of public welfare, and are better at making money than ordinary operating enterprises.
We say that whether it is a public medical institution or a private medical institution, it is not a complete public welfare unit, and economic interests need to be considered, especially in the case of weak financial investment capacity at all levels, hospitals also need to maintain their survival and development through income generation. The premise is that it cannot be at the expense of the patient's interests. The actual situation is that almost all hospitals have become completely operating enterprises, all of which are centered on economic benefits, with hospitals giving departments, departments to doctors, and issuing income-generating targets at all levels, resulting in doctors trying to find ways to prescribe high-priced drugs to patients, do excessive examinations, and charge indiscriminately. Recently, a private medical institution has issued a minimum consumption standard for doctors, so how can there be the spirit of "saving lives and helping the wounded"?
Originally, it was thought that through the opening up of private capital, it would be able to stir up the stagnant water of the complete nationalization and public ownership of hospitals, and enable public hospitals to continuously improve their medical standards and service quality in the competition. What I didn't expect was that for the sake of economic interests, private hospitals behaved more non-standardized, and the phenomenon of arbitrary charges, random inspections, and arbitrary prescriptions became more serious, and there were even many incidents of quacks harming people. Gradually, the majority of residents' trust in private hospitals is also getting lower and lower, and even if private hospitals attract patients by inviting experts to sit for consultation, they are far less effective than when private hospitals were first launched, resulting in public hospitals, especially tertiary hospitals, still overcrowded. The excessive number of patients in tertiary hospitals has brought about problems such as too heavy load of doctors, declining service quality, and aggravated conflicts between doctors and patients.
Because of this, foreign-funded hospitals are about to enter the Chinese market, and the majority of residents have new expectations. Although it is still in the pilot stage, and the specific pilot methods, pilot conditions, pilot requirements, pilot procedures, and pilot methods need to be further studied and analyzed, the entry of foreign-funded hospitals into the Chinese market is already an inevitable and irreversible trend. Naturally, it is a real challenge and a serious challenge for both public and private hospitals. One thing is certain: after entering the Chinese market, foreign hospitals are unlikely to commit self-destructive behavior like public and private hospitals for the sake of their own future and reputation.
At the same time, it should be noted that after foreign-funded hospitals enter the Chinese market, in order to quickly open up the market, they will definitely be more exquisite, more standardized, and easier for patients to accept than public hospitals and private hospitals in terms of service procedures, service quality and level, service efficiency, and drug prices, and even the prices of some imported drugs will be cheaper than public hospitals and private hospitals. At that time, the competitive pressure between public hospitals and private hospitals will increase rapidly. In particular, private hospitals have no reputation and brand dependence, and if the brand effect of foreign-funded hospitals is increased and the access to medical services at home and abroad is smoother, some private hospitals may be difficult to survive.
This also means that if public hospitals and private hospitals still only have economic interests in their eyes, but not patients' interests, then what awaits small and medium-sized hospitals will be a matter of survival. How to overcome the competitive pressure brought about by the entry of foreign-funded hospitals is the time for public hospitals and private hospitals to seriously analyze and think. After the entry of foreign-funded hospitals, the market will no longer be calm, and the catfish of foreign-funded hospitals will never be so peaceful, and they need to quickly make the reputation of the hospital bigger and make the brand louder. Naturally, it will also make the advantages that public hospitals and private hospitals do not have, and make the credibility and influence, which is precisely the common problem and weakness of Chinese hospitals. Therefore, public hospitals and private hospitals must face up to the reality and see the crisis.