By Yuling Chen, EDITOR

Are you worrying about balancing your tight schedule and ailments? If so, it will not be a real worry the next year in Chongqing, Southwest China's Municipality.

There will be no need for face-to-face diagnose, online doctors can prescribe for common and chronic diseases. Moreover, patients can purchase medicines according to electronic prescriptions (e-prescriptions) from physical retail pharmacies.

Recently, the Chongqing Municipal People’s Government has released the Development Action Plan of Chongqing to Accelerate the “Internet plus Health Care” (2018-2020) (the Plan for short) on its official website.

In 2020, all hospitals at Grade Three, the highest level according to China's healthcare system, in Chongqing will carry out the “Internet plus” medical services in an all-around way. Medical and health institutions will be allowed to use the “Internet hospital” as the second name since the next year. Meanwhile these institutions can adopt Internet technologies to provide safe and appropriate medical services. Furthermore, Chongqing city will explore the establishment of the sharing and circulation mechanism about e-prescription information. At the same time, retail pharmacies will try out to sell medicines only available on prescription according to these e-prescriptions. The next year will witness the official online operation of the first Internet hospital in Chongqing.

Supported by physical hospitals

The Plan stipulates that the establishment of Internet hospitals shall be promoted by medical and health institutions. Furthermore, these institutions are also permitted to take the “Internet hospital” as the second name. And supported by physical hospitals, Internet hospitals shall adopt Internet technologies to provide safe and appropriate medical services on the premise that medical quality and information security are both ensured. Medical practitioners are also permitted to conduct subsequent visits to parts of patients with common and chronic diseases and enabled to make up prescriptions referring to the medical records online. Meanwhile, the medical practitioners are encouraged to carry out diagnosis and treatment services, and the relevant document will be issued in 2020.

These Internet hospitals are different from the current traditional network interrogation and diagnose. They are based on physical hospitals instead of purely virtual “network doctors”. So the relevant departments will be facilitated to standardize and manage their medical treatments. At the same time, their online e-prescriptions share the same effects with those prescribed by physical counterparts. Additionally, all medical procedures provided online are recorded and monitored.  

Health insurance card payment will be involved in due course

In 2019, Chongqing city will explore the establishment of the sharing and circulation mechanism about electronic prescription information. On the other hand, retail pharmacies will try out to sell prescription medicines according to these e-prescriptions. In 2020, a new model for online medicine sales and distribution based on e-prescriptions will be promoted. For the e-prescriptions for common and chronic diseases made up online, medical and health institutions and pharmaceutical trading enterprises can entrust qualified third-party organizations to distribute after the pharmacists’ examination.

In addition, Chongqing will expand the coverage of the designated Internet medical and health institutions. Meanwhile, the municipality is to involve more basic-level medical and health institutions in the direct settlement scope for long-distance medical treatment. All aims to realize direct health insurance settlement across provinces. By sharing information like patient treatment and settlement channels for medical healthcare insurance fund, the convenient payment combining out-of-pocket payment and medical reimbursement will be realized. Chongqing will further improve the medical insurance payment policy. At the same time, the city will involve qualified Internet medical services in the medical insurance payment coverage and optimize the cost-sharing mechanism. In that way, it will facilitate the people to seek medical treatment nearby.

Source: CQCB