China News Service, October 20. According to the website of the National Health Commission, the National Health Commission, the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the State Administration of Disease Control and Prevention recently issued the "Notice on Issuing the Service Capacity Standards for Township Health Centers and Community Health Service Centers (2026 Edition)." The notice states that the new version of the standard will come into effect from the date of issuance. The "Service Capacity Standards for Township Health Centers (2022 Edition)" and the "Service Capacity Standards for Community Health Service Centers (2022 Edition)" in the "Notice on Issuing the Service Capacity Standards for Township Health Centers (2022 Edition)" (National Health Commission Letter [2022] No. 117) issued on July 16, 2022 were simultaneously abolished.
In 2018, the National Health Commission and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine launched the "High-Quality Service to the Grassroots" activity, and successively issued the 2018 and 2022 versions of the "Service Capacity Standards for Township Health Centers" and the "Service Capacity Standards for Community Health Service Centers", which played an active role in guiding grassroots medical and health institutions to strengthen medical quality management and improve service capabilities. As my country's population ages, the development of new urbanization accelerates, and people's health needs grow rapidly, the "Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" puts forward new requirements for strengthening primary medical and health services. In order to adapt to the new situation and implement new requirements, the organization has revised the 2022 version of the service capability standards.
The first overall consideration in revising the Standards is to maintain stability. Keep the main framework, core logic, scope of application, and expression methods of the new version of the "Standards" consistent with the 2022 version to ensure a smooth transition between the old and new standards and vertical comparability of evaluation results. The second is to streamline and integrate. Delete duplicate and overlapping clauses, merge similar content, streamline the level of evaluation clauses, and effectively reduce the burden on primary medical and health institutions. The standard clauses for the service capabilities of township health centers have been optimized and adjusted from 100 to 60, and the standard clauses for the service capabilities of community health service centers have been optimized and adjusted from 90 to 56. The number of clauses has been reduced, and the terms have been optimized from three to two. The categories of clauses have been simplified, and basic clauses and recommended clauses are no longer distinguished. The third is to make overall plans and take all aspects into consideration. Taking into account regional differences and unbalanced institutional development, the content of the evaluation terms should be optimized to ensure that the "Standards" are applicable to the vast majority of primary medical and health institutions.
The "Standards" are divided into four chapters: service functions and resource allocation, basic medical and public health services, business management, and comprehensive management. It further emphasizes medical quality, optimized services, traditional Chinese medicine services, etc. The first is to strengthen medical quality management. Combined with the three-year action to improve the medical quality of primary medical and health institutions, it is emphasized to improve the medical quality management organization, improve the medical quality management system, improve the standardization and homogeneity of services, safeguard the health rights and interests of patients, and ensure patient safety. The second is to guide the expansion and optimization of services. Highlight the construction of special departments, medical and prevention integration, rehabilitation care, digital and intelligent services, etc., and lead the benchmarking and upgrading of grassroots medical and health institutions. Focusing on key groups such as "the elderly and the young", we will improve our service capabilities for the elderly, pediatrics, and emergency services. Encourage the provision of home hospital beds, long-term prescriptions, extended prescriptions and other services, as well as door-to-door services, itinerant diagnosis and treatment and other outpatient services. The third is to improve the service capabilities of traditional Chinese medicine. Promote the standardized development of appropriate technical services of traditional Chinese medicine, strengthen the deployment of traditional Chinese medicine doctors, and give full play to the unique advantages of traditional Chinese medicine in basic medical care and health protection for key groups.
