Quality of primary health care in China: challenges and recommendations.

ABSTRACT: China has substantially increased financial investment and introduced favourable policies for strengthening its primary health care system with core responsibilities in preventing and managing chronic diseases such as hypertension and emerging infectious diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, widespread gaps in the quality of primary health care still exist. In this Review, we aim to identify the causes for this poor quality, and provide policy recommendations. System challenges include: the suboptimal education and training of primary health-care practitioners, a fee-for-service payment system that incentivises testing and treatments over prevention, fragmentation of clinical care and public health service, and insufficient continuity of care throughout the entire

SUBMITTER: Li X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7272159 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature