Singapore, Nov 30, 2009: The 3rd Annual China Healthcare Congress (part of Noppen’s Healthcare event series) was held earlier this month in Shanghai, China and brought together the largest panel of experts across China’s healthcare industry including healthcare authorities, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, insurance companies, and consultants to discuss opportunities and challenges for stake-holders in China’s healthcare industry.

The Chinese government is expected to spend $124 billion on healthcare reform between 2009 and 2011, including $48.6 billion from the central government, according to a report. The funds will be used in five primary areas: to expand coverage of medical insurance; to build a basic medicine system that includes a catalog of drugs primarily needed by the public; to improve the community-level medical and health service system; to promote equal access to basic public health services; and to initiate reform in public hospitals.

Mr Cai Renhua, former Director General of the Department of Policies and Regulations in the Ministry of Health and current the President of National Association of Health Industry and Enterprise Management, delivered the opening address. Other keynote speakers included Ms Hong Mi, Deputy Director General of National Institute of Hospital Administration at Ministry of Health, demonstrating her experience on hospital management. Bai Zhipeng, Secretary General of China Association of Medical Equipment, covered issues in regards to equipment deployment and application technology of community-level medical establishments. Mr Li Weiping, Director of the Hospital Reform and Management Office of China Health Economics Institute of the Ministry of Health, shared perspectives on reform and governance of public hospitals.

Other topics for discussion included digital hospital construction, purchase safety and quality control of medical consumables, clinical trials data management, management of service for medical equipment, and customer satisfaction index (CSI) of after service.

Attendees noted that the summit was informative, valuable, well-organized and that the question and answer sessions were highly stimulating.