Reshaping the Regional Order of Health Care Resources in China: The Institutional Participants in an Inter-City Integrated Delivery System

Over the past decades, pro-growth policies in China led to rapid economic development but overlooked the provision of health care services. Recently, increasing attention is paid to the emergence of integrated delivery systems (IDS) in China, which is envisioned to consolidate regional health care resources more effectively by facilitating patient referral among hospitals. IDS at an inter-city scale is particularly interesting because it involves both the local governments and the hospitals. Incentives among them will affect the development of an inter-city IDS. This paper thereby builds an economic model to examine both the inter-local government and inter-hospital incentives when participating in an inter-city IDS in China. The findings suggest that while inter-hospital incentives matter, inter-local government incentives should also be considered because the missing incentives at the local government level may oppose the development of inter-city IDSs.

Influence of the Integrated Delivery System on the Medical Serviceability of Primary Hospitals

Objective. To explore the change in the medical serviceability of primary hospitals since the establishment of the Huzhou No. 1 People’s Hospital medical care group incorporating the integrated delivery system. Methods. With reference to the “Grade Evaluation Standard of General Hospitals in Zhejiang Province” and the “Guidelines for Service Capacity Evaluation of Township Hospitals (2019 Edition),” we analyzed the influence of the integrated delivery system on the capacity of primary medical services and selected the targeted core indicators. From the four dimensions of diagnosis and treatment breadth, diagnosis and treatment efficiency, surgical ability, and patient satisfaction, an index evaluation system was established to explore the changes in the medical serviceability in primary hospitals. Results. The measurements were aimed at four specific issues, that is, the low medical technology level of grassroots personnel, the poor information communication among medical institutions, the difficulty in recruiting people, and the imperfect training mechanism in primary hospitals. After establishing a series of measurements related to the problems faced by the primary healthcare sector in China, the score of breadth of diagnosis and treatment, efficiency of diagnosis and treatment ability, surgical ability, and patient satisfaction of the primary hospitals in our medical group have greatly increased. Conclusion. The integrated delivery system improved the primary hospitals’ medical health ability obviously. Our study also provides various useful and operable suggestions for primary healthcare.

Factors Influencing Healthcare Experience of Patients with Self-Declared Diabetes: A Cross-Sectional Population-Based Study in the Basque Country

Background: Diabetes affects more than 400 million people around the world. Few published studies incorporate questionnaires that comprehensively cover every aspect of a patient’s experience of healthcare. This study analyzes potential differences in the healthcare experience for patients with diabetes based on their sociodemographic, economic, and health-related characteristics from a comprehensive viewpoint in an integrated delivery system. Methods: We used data from the 2018 Basque Health Survey, which includes a questionnaire for the measurement of the experiences of patients with chronic problems. We present descriptive and regression analyses to explore differences by sociodemographic, economic, and health-related characteristics of patients’ experiences with different healthcare services. Results: Having diabetes plus other comorbidities significantly decreases the quality of the experience with all healthcare services and decreases the global healthcare experience score. When comorbidities are present, the elderly seem to report better experiences than younger patients. Some differences in experience can be explained by sociodemographic and economic factors. No differences exist between conditions co-occurring with diabetes. Conclusion: Patients with diabetes who also suffer from other conditions report worse experiences than individuals who suffer from diabetes only. No specific conditions explain the differences in care experience.