Spring arrives early in Lingnan, and it's the perfect time to start sailing.

In 2024, Guangzhou achieved multiple firsts in the field of healthcare, becoming the first city in the province to establish a national demonstration county (district) for grassroots traditional Chinese medicine work and the first provincial capital city to form a research-oriented hospital alliance. For two consecutive years, the high-quality development index of healthcare has ranked first in the province

Guangzhou has made new breakthroughs in the field of health and hygiene - the health literacy level of Guangzhou residents has reached 41.92%; Add 11 designated medical institutions for the "Hong Kong Macau Medical Device Connect" program; 191 intellectual property rights will be converted in 2024; 300 medical and health institutions in the city are connected to the mutual recognition platform for inspection and testing results

On February 5th, the first session of the Chinese New Year, the Provincial Conference on High Quality Development, was held in Guangzhou, with a focus on accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system. The Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission said that in the new year, it will continue to deepen the reform of the medical and health system, focus on improving the public health service system, improve the population development support and service system, promote the two-way enabling development of health care and industry, and shoulder the responsibility of health care in Chinese path to modernization and contribute to health care in the new journey of Chinese modernization.

01 Breaking through the impasse: bridging the gap between medical resources and industrial development

In March 2024, Guangzhou took the lead in establishing the Guangzhou Research Hospital Alliance (hereinafter referred to as the "Alliance") nationwide, attracting 18 medical institutions to join, including the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat sen University and the Southern Hospital of Southern Medical University. By seizing key links such as clinical research, achievement transformation, and clinical application, the Alliance aims to bridge the gap between high-quality medical resources and the development of the biopharmaceutical industry, and enhance the overall capacity of biopharmaceutical industry services in Guangzhou.

Since the establishment of the alliance, Guangzhou has established a deep cooperation mechanism between medical enterprises, established a "hospital+enterprise" communication and docking mechanism, and strengthened the "one-on-one" cooperation between hospitals, research institutions, and pharmaceutical enterprises; On the other hand, establish a unified working model for the alliance, coordinate the specialized advantages of each hospital in the alliance, establish professional clinical research groups, improve the multi center clinical trial mechanism, and build a research platform.

On December 28th last year, the Guangzhou Research Hospital Alliance Hospital Enterprise Cooperation Conference was held in Guangzhou, which not only attracted local, non local, and multinational biopharmaceutical companies, but also more than 150 institutions such as government departments, industry associations, and think tanks. In addition, two sub venues were specially set up for "one-on-one negotiations between hospitals and enterprises" and "closed door roundtable exchanges for hospital enterprise cooperation".

Some attending companies expressed that Guangzhou's emphasis and deployment on high-quality development in the medical and pharmaceutical fields are impressive, fully reflecting the integrated development concept of "government industry university research medical". Especially in the ten directions of hospital enterprise cooperation, it well interprets the guiding ideology of "government guidance, market leadership", and is full of expectations for the Guangzhou Research Hospital Alliance to carry out hospital enterprise cooperation.

In fact, in order to cross the "valley of death" from basic research to achievement transformation, Guangzhou has taken intensive measures, not only clarifying the basic rules and review methods of ethical review and mutual recognition, but also establishing the Guangzhou Clinical Research Quality Control Center; We will also vigorously recruit talents, optimize the incentive mechanism for clinical innovation talents, and build Guangzhou into a highland for the manufacturing of biopharmaceutical talents.

In 2024, Guangzhou will rely on the research-oriented hospital alliance to further activate local medical and clinical research resources, accelerate the implementation of achievement transformation projects, complete the transformation of 97 intellectual property rights, and contract amounts exceeding 122 million yuan. In the next stage, we will continue to enhance the brand of Guangzhou Clinical Research Theme Exhibition and better promote the positive interaction between the industry and the business.

Guangzhou is a hub of high-quality medical resources, with over 7000 medical and health institutions in Guangzhou providing a total of 156 million medical treatments in the first 10 months of 2024 alone. In order to further explore the value of health data, Guangzhou has issued a local standard "Health Data Collection Specification", which will unify the city's health data standards, comprehensively promote the application of health data circulation and trading platforms, strengthen the integration of data from government, industry, academia, research, and application, provide compliant, safe, and reliable support carriers for the aggregation, circulation, development, and trading of health industry data, and better empower the development of the biopharmaceutical industry.

02 Benefiting the People: Guangzhou Practice of Sanming Medical Reform

There is no ready-made template or paradigm for reform, only the courage and responsibility to dare to explore and try. Over the past year, Guangzhou has deeply promoted the experience of Sanming's medical reform, implemented the national public hospital reform and high-quality development demonstration project, deepened the reform of public hospitals guided by public welfare, broken the existing interest pattern, and provided better quality medical services for the people.

Since the pilot implementation of mutual recognition of inspection and testing results in 2007, Guangzhou has explored for about 20 years. It has not only promoted 300 medical and health institutions to access the mutual recognition platform, including 109 tertiary and secondary hospitals, 166 community health service centers (stations), and 25 social medical institutions, but also taken the lead in achieving mutual recognition and sharing with all 20 other cities in the province. The annual number of mutual recognition reached 2.2 million, saving more than 470 million yuan in costs, an increase of over 40% year-on-year, effectively reducing the burden of medical treatment on patients.

The concept of 'one old, one young' is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and every branch and leaf is closely related to their emotions. Taking the opportunity of being selected as a national demonstration project for inclusive childcare services, Guangzhou added 27000 new childcare facilities throughout the year, reaching 5.51 per 1000 population. It also continued to develop elderly friendly medical institutions, taking the lead in formulating classified service standards according to institutions and scenarios nationwide. The number of hospice care institutions increased from 48 at the beginning of the year to 88. Guangzhou has fully launched the Maternal Peripheral Blood Fetal Free DNA Prenatal Screening (NIPT) project. Through centralized procurement and government subsidies, the out of pocket cost of prenatal screening for maternal peripheral blood fetal free DNA has been reduced from 1568 yuan to 300 yuan, a decrease of more than 80%. This has explored Guangzhou's experience for high-quality population development.

As the central city of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou has made greater breakthroughs in promoting the integration of rules in the Greater Bay Area. On the one hand, it has accelerated the construction of high-level hospitals in Nansha, such as the Nansha Branch of the Municipal Women and Children's Center, and promoted the expansion of high-quality medical resources to Nansha; On the other hand, there are 11 newly designated medical institutions under the "Hong Kong Macau Medical Device Connect" program, bringing the total number to 20 and maintaining the top position in the province.

In order to better meet the demand of the people for innovative drugs, after the official release of the "Guangzhou Innovative Drug and Equipment Product Catalog" in October 2024, Guangzhou accurately promoted it to medical institutions at all levels. Within two months, the total amount of products in the catalog of 18 hospitals and other hospitals in the Guangzhou Research Hospital Alliance has reached 43.8299 million yuan, of which the amount of innovative drugs is 42.7029 million yuan, achieving 100% variety coverage.

03 Expansion: There is at least one tertiary hospital in each district of the city

Guangzhou, as a mega city with high-quality medical resources nationwide, is at the forefront of climbing the "medical peak" in the country.

In 2024, Guangzhou issued and implemented the "Guangzhou Medical and Health Facility Layout Plan". Projects such as the Huangpu Campus of the 12th People's Hospital and the Comprehensive Inpatient Building of the Municipal Chest Hospital were completed and put into use. Breakthroughs were made in the third phase of the Municipal Eighth Hospital, the overall renovation and expansion of the Municipal Chest Hospital, and the upgrading and renovation of the Fangcun Campus of the Guangzhou Brain Hospital. High quality medical resources have been fully expanded and balanced. Currently, there is at least one tertiary hospital in each district of the city.

In order to attract patients from all over the world to seek medical treatment, the Guangzhou Major Difficult (Rare) Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Center project was officially launched on January 9, 2025. It includes 20 projects from medical institutions such as the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat sen University, Southern Hospital of Southern Medical University, and the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University. The construction of 20 major difficult and rare disease diagnosis and treatment centers will continue to enhance the clinical research and comprehensive diagnosis and treatment capabilities of major difficult and rare diseases in Guangzhou, gradually building Guangzhou into a domestic major difficult and rare disease diagnosis and treatment demonstration zone with regional characteristics, and promoting the high-quality development of medical services.

Medical technology is an important competitive advantage for medical institutions and a hard indicator for measuring the level of medical care in a region. Guangzhou has organized and implemented the first batch of 100 major high-tech social service projects in Guangzhou, and established 23 major high-tech social service promotion bases. It has been promoted and applied in 522 grassroots hospitals (152 in this city) both inside and outside the city, serving 359900 people, effectively promoting the improvement of weaknesses and strengths at the grassroots level, providing safer, more effective, economical, and convenient medical technology services for urban and rural residents, and building Guangzhou into a gathering place for clinical medical technology.

Guangzhou people have a tradition of believing in, using, and loving traditional Chinese medicine. In 2024, Guangzhou will be the first city in the province to pass the provincial-level evaluation of national grassroots traditional Chinese medicine work demonstration cities, becoming the first city in the province to create a national grassroots traditional Chinese medicine work demonstration county (district) across the entire region. Its total number of demonstration counties (districts) accounts for one fourth of the province's total. Strengthen the ability of traditional Chinese medicine to prevent diseases and improve traditional Chinese medicine rehabilitation, and establish 60 third level famous traditional Chinese medicine studios and 20 flagship traditional Chinese medicine clinics.

04 Efficiency Enhancement: Weaving and Strengthening the "Healthy Bottom" of Grassroots Services

Starting from 2022, Guangdong will implement the "Hundred Counties, Thousand Towns, and Ten Thousand Villages High Quality Development Project" (hereinafter referred to as the "Hundred Thousand Thousand Thousand Project"), playing a resonance song for coordinated urban-rural development.

In 2024, the Guangzhou healthcare system will comprehensively promote the "Hundred, Thousand, and Ten Thousand Project", with a focus on promoting urban-rural integration and regional balanced development at the grassroots level. Nearly 70% (132) of grassroots medical and health institutions have reached the national recommended standard for "high-quality service at the grassroots level", and 57 community hospitals have been established, both in terms of quality and quantity, ranking among the top in the province. In 2024, the city's grassroots diagnosis and treatment volume will increase by more than 20% year-on-year. The coverage rate of the "one yuan medical treatment" village health station has reached 100%, and it has won the first place in the provincial performance evaluation of the national basic public health service project.

In order to enable the people to enjoy high-quality services at their doorstep, Guangzhou has also launched the "Thousand People, Hundred Homes" family doctor training project, promoting Hong Kong style family doctor services to 11 districts throughout the city. Currently, a total of 786 Hong Kong style family doctors have been trained, and 92 Hong Kong style family doctor clinics have been built and put into use.

In November 2024, Guangzhou introduced the operation status of the Public Health Commission at a press conference held by the National Health Commission. Since June 2021, Guangzhou has innovatively established four levels of public health commissions: city, district, town (street), and village (residential). The Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee and the Mayor respectively serve as the first director and director of the Municipal Public Health Commission. In the past three years of operation, the Public Health Commission has focused on providing disease prevention and control services around public health safety, leveraging the platform role of grassroots public health commissions, such as establishing a collaborative mechanism between the government, hospitals, and enterprises, and jointly carrying out livelihood projects such as disease screening and chronic disease prevention and control; On the other hand, providing convenient and beneficial services around residents' health, closely following residents' needs, and promoting the implementation and refinement of basic public health service projects.

In 2024, Guangzhou will complete the institutional reform of integrating the Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Supervision Institute, strengthen the functions of disease prevention and control and health administrative law enforcement, ensure full coverage and no blind spots of disease control and health supervision work, steadily and orderly promote the reshaping of the disease control system, and solidly carry out the "second half of the article" of disease control reform.

The patriotic health movement is being carried out more effectively. Guangzhou has solidly carried out the patriotic health campaign, and has successively launched special actions such as summer and autumn vector control, mosquito control, and "100 day campaign" to fully reduce the risk of transmission of vector borne infectious diseases such as dengue fever. Consolidating the achievements of national health cities, all 34 established towns in the city have been designated as provincial health towns, and 19 have been named national health towns.

Chen Bin, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission, stated that in the new year, we will make three good moves and focus on three "highlights" - highlighting local conditions and exploring the "key" to deepening medical reform with Guangzhou's characteristics at a deeper level; Highlighting technological empowerment and building a "bridge" for the integrated development of medical and health services and industrial innovation; Highlighting high-quality balance and building a "path" for the construction of a medical service system at a higher level, so that the people have a stronger sense of gain and security.