China establishes national working group to standardize healthcare security

BEIJING -- China on Thursday established a national working group to coordinate the formulation of healthcare security standards to increase convenience for people seeking medical treatment.

The group will create a working mechanism that will be led by the National Healthcare Security Administration and coordinated by local authorities, forming a standards system compatible with healthcare security reform. In time, this will lead to the formation of a list of national healthcare security standards, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Qu Hao, an expert on standards in the services sector at the State Administration for Market Regulation, said that the establishment of the working group will provide a technical platform for the standardization of healthcare security management services and treatments, pharmaceutical procurement, and fund supervision.

This will effectively support the standardization and informatization of healthcare security, meeting the people's medical services needs in an improved manner, he said.

Since its inception in 2018, the National Healthcare Security Administration has formulated and released 18 information coding standards, including those for medical consumables, medical services, and medicines covered by medical insurance. This has laid a solid foundation for the cross-regional direct settlement of medical expenses, payment method reform and the provision of convenient, beneficial medical insurance services.

Huang Huabo, deputy director of the National Healthcare Security Administration, said that the next steps will be focusing on the cross-departmental sharing and mutual recognition of standardized data, and standardizing and improving the supervision and evaluation mechanism.