Delivering People-Centered Integrated Care (PCIC)
"It’s hard to cure people with chronic diseases if they only receive a brief treatment. They need constant care throughout the course of disease in and out of hospitals,” said Dinesh Nair.
Integrated Health Care System for Continuous Disease Surveillance
"China is facing population aging and the rising incidence of non-infectious diseases. However, China’s primary care system continues to be weak and neglected. China needs a healthcare system that can not only detect chronic symptoms, but also can perform treatment and continuous surveillance.”
Dinesh Nair said:" the core of PCIC was to strengthen primary care". For example, by integrating preventive healthcare services, utilizing human resources across multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams, and providing continuous monitoring, measurement and feedbacks, we are able to learn patients’ real-time health conditions."
Dinesh Nair
Shared Medical Resources to Benefit More People
China has invested heavily in primary care and made great progress in improving health quality, but there were still significant gaps among different regions. PCIC emphasized to start health care from primary care, rather than centralizing outpatient services in large hospitals.
According to International lessons, Dinesh said: "China needed to build an alliance of suppliers with joint responsibility." This alliance would introduce the evidence-based clinical management approach to diseases and encourage the provision of integrated services for the payment status of service providers. Dinesh addressed the importance of the integrated health management information system —— gathering information by using telemedicine and information systems to support training, consultation, and decision-making.
"This is a systematic transformation: the integration from services to payment, to the integration of information system, and then to the integration of the whole medical service organization." “We can use information to make decisions with a more extensive perspective for better providing medical and health services. Eventually, the system would strengthen quality control and safety of patients."
Dinesh Nair mentioned four major shifts China needs to make to implement the PCIC:
First is from focusing on disease treatment to health maintenance;
Second, is from the pursuit of higher revenue and the higher treatment volume to cost containment and better medical quality;
Third, is from disordered service-seeking behaviors to hierarchical diagnosis;
The fourth is from moving upward to lower levels. Transferring higher level burdens healthcare system to the supports of basic levels so that each individual level could successfully perform their tasks.
Dinesh Nair hoped China could actively promote and implement the PCIC so that people can receive continuous healthcare. The systems started from health promotion, disease prevention, to diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care. Such a healthcare system was not a one-time treatment, but a focus on individuals' overall health.
