China Establishes Its National Telemedicine Center

On May 28, 2018, China’s National Telemedicine Center was established in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, making the provincial Telemedicine Center in Henan province to be a national one. This first national telemedicine center is a firm stride in implementing the national strategy on developing “Internet+ healthcare”.

40,000 patients enjoyed telemedicine service annually in this center.

Since its establishment in 2010, Henan Telemedicine Center has taken the lead in building up a five-level “province-city-county-town-village” telemedicine network and a comprehensive open & sharing telemedicine service platform with a full coverage of Henan. The network and platform provides such services as telemedicine, telemedicine education, telemedicine R&D, data and resource sharing, and health management.

It has set up cooperation relations with more than 500 primary hospitals in Shanxi, Sichuan, Shandong and Guizhou provinces and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Meanwhile, international cooperation on telemedicine has been carried out between the center and the United States, Russia, and some European and African countries.

Each year, more than 40,000 general cases and 500,000 special cases are conducted by telemedicine; over 300 further education training courses on telemedicine are carried out, with more than 400,000 medical staff being trained.

Till now, the center has become the country’s largest demonstrative telemedicine base and regional collaborative hub that offers state-of-the-art medical technologies and the most comprehensive medical services with the fullest coverage.

Telemedicine is a necessary step for China to introduce advanced technologies into healthcare sector, considering the status quo of the country’s medical and health service.

Professor Zhao Jie, director of the National Telemedicine Center, said that by accelerating the development of “Internet+ Healthcare”, medical service efficiency will be improved and excellent medical resources will be shared by more people with greater conveniences.

Located in the central part of China which is also an important geographic node of the Belt and Road Initiative, the center will play a crucial role in speeding up the development of China’s telemedicine industry, contributing to the construction of a tiered diagnosis and treatment system, and pushing forward the formulation of healthcare big data strategy and medical system reform.