Self-service registration and online payment, while these measures make it convenient for people to seek medical treatment, they also constitute a "digital wall" for some elderly people to seek medical treatment, creating a huge "demand for accompanying doctors." For a period of time, patients looking for accompanying doctors are like "opening a blind box". Who can do it? What can be done? Lack of unified standards and service boundaries.
In order to better standardize the development of the industry, my country's first national standard for the medical accompanying industry, "Basic Requirements for Socialized Medical Accompanying Services", will be officially implemented from November 1. What matters are regulated by the new national standard? Let’s find out together.
“Establishing rules” for the industry
Please accompany the doctor and stop "opening blind boxes"
As my country's first national standard in the field of medical accompanying, the "Basic Requirements for Socialized Medical Accompanying Services" stipulates the threshold for the industry, clearly limits service providers to "institutions", and requires them to complete industrial and commercial registration in accordance with the law, establish a service management system and accept social supervision.
Guojier, deputy director of the National Institute of Science and Technology of the National Health Commission: Currently, those who provide accompanying medical services include registered institutions and individual practitioners who take orders through social software. The former has a registered place, a fixed business location, and clear supervision; the latter is large in number and highly mobile, and most of them have no registration, fixed location, or service contract, and are free from supervision. In response to this current situation, this standard takes service organizations as the normative object, and mainly puts forward the practical considerations of having subjects to pursue and objects to manage.
For medical attendants, the new national standard requires that they must participate in pre-job training and pass the assessment, and hold a valid health certificate. The standards also require the establishment of an information disclosure mechanism for medical attendants. The validity period of health certificates, years of service, scenes of expertise, and service evaluations should all be available for inspection.
Our country has entered a moderately aging society, with more than 320 million people over the age of 60. For many elderly people, every step of medical treatment is a hurdle because they do not know how to operate self-service machines, cannot find the department for treatment, and cannot remember medical orders.
Guojier: In addition to the elderly, pregnant women, disabled people, people who have difficulty seeking medical treatment in other places, and other people who have difficulty seeking medical treatment independently, objectively need accompanying medical services. However, this industry has not had unified standards for a long time. Problems such as uneven quality of employees, confusing fees, and lack of privacy protection have been prominent. On the one hand, there is the rapid growth of rigid demand, and on the other hand, the continued spread of chaos in the industry. Therefore, the introduction of this national standard is to establish rules for the industry.
Delineate service list
Clinic attendants are strictly prohibited from intervening in medical decision-making
The core service content of the national standard specification for the medical escort industry adopts a delineated list model to clarify 12 available services and 7 prohibited service contents. The core sentence is: the medical escort can help the patient through the entire medical treatment process, but cannot make decisions for the patient.
The new national standard lists twelve services that medical attendants can provide: covering the entire medical process from receiving an appointment number, to guiding the doctor, to making an appointment for an examination, collecting medicines, obtaining examination results, and recording medical orders. In addition, patients can also ask their medical attendants to handle admission and admission procedures, payment, car and meal reservations and other assisted living services.
While delineating the list of service contents, the new national standard also lists seven prohibited "red lines":
Medical attendants are not allowed to interpret test results;
Not allowed to participate in medical procedures;
Not to provide medical advice;
Do not choose or agree to treatment plans on behalf of clients or family members;
Do not adjust the medication regimen;
Key medical information must not be concealed, tampered with or selectively transmitted;
Do not sign legally binding medical documents.
Standardization experts said that the core of accompanying medical services is "accompanying", and seven red lines prohibit accompanying personnel from intervening in medical decisions that should be made by doctors.
Guojier, deputy director of the National Institute of Science and Technology of the National Health Commission: The core reason for adopting "list-style" management is the particularity of accompanying medical services. It is neither a medical service nor equivalent to general life care, and the service boundaries are relatively blurred. By adopting a checklist approach, "what can be done" and "what cannot be done" can be clearly distinguished, making it clear to both practitioners and consumers.
In addition, it is worth noting that the new national standard clearly requires that before providing treatment services, the accompanying agency should enter into a service contract with the customer, and specify in the contract the service plan, service fees and details; the rights and obligations of both parties, patient privacy protection; and risk warnings and other matters.
Experts remind that when patients and their families receive medical escort services, they should ensure that their legitimate rights and interests and potential risks are clearly written into the contract.
Service process traceable
Completing industry safety and security shortcomings
In addition to clarifying the service content of accompanying patients, the new national standard also proposes to establish a risk assessment system, an emergency plan system, and realize the traceability of the service process. Through a safety guarantee mechanism covering the entire service chain, the loopholes in the systemic lack of patient safety protection during the accompanying process will be filled.
The target of accompanying medical services is patients, mainly the elderly, pregnant women, people with disabilities and other groups. Experts say that patients themselves are in a period of physical or psychological vulnerability, and the medical process involves a large amount of personal health information, diagnosis and treatment behaviors and other highly sensitive content, which makes accompanying medical services much more risky than general life services. In this high-risk scenario, the core pain point is the systemic lack of safety protection.
Guojier, deputy director of the Institute of Science and Technology of the National Health Commission: In the past, from risk assessment to process traces, from responsibility sharing to privacy protection, a complete system closed loop was not formed. In the event of an unexpected illness, fall, or other unexpected situation, the ownership of responsibilities is not clear and the channels for rights protection are not smooth, and both patients and service personnel are exposed to risks.
The new national standard regulates the entire process of accompanying medical services, clearly proposing requirements for establishing risk assessments, emergency plans, and protecting sensitive information of service recipients. The implementation of this standard will help guide the development of industry standards. Experts also pointed out that in order for the standards to be truly effective, relevant regulatory authorities need to establish a normalized regulatory mechanism.
