INTRODUCTION

This chapter is intended to answer part of the first main research question. Specifically, it attempts to answer how the medical profession is regulated as far as the prevention of medical malpractice or quality assurance is concerned (Sub-question (1-a)). However, in order to answer this question better, it is helpful to draw the outline of how health care services are provided and financed in China in the first place. Hence, this Chapter is organised as follows. Section 2 will provide an overview of the current health care providers in the Chinese health care system. Then, Section 3 will address the financing of the health care provision, touching upon both public and private health insurance. Thereafter, Section 4 will describe the regulation of the quality of care, including currently applicable professional standards and regulatory enforcement mechanisms.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

INTRODUCTION

The government of China has a constitutional duty to develop a system to provide health care to Chinese citizens. This duty is provided in the current Chinese Constitution as follows:

The task of directly providing health care to citizens is undertaken by various institutional and individual health care providers. Section 2.2 will give a brief account of the classification of medical and health institutions. Section 2.3 will outline the scope of individual providers.

INSTITUTIONAL PROVIDERS

In China, institutional providers are broadly described as medical and health institutions (医疗卫生机构), which generally refer to any licensed or registered undertakings that provide medical care, disease prevention or health inspection services or conduct medical research or on-the-job training.

Regarding their functions, medical and health institutions can be divided into four groups: (1) hospitals, (2) health care institutions at the grassroot level, (3) specialised public health institutions, and (4) other medical and health institutions. City-based hospitals are primarily intended to provide secondary and tertiary care to all patients. Grass-root-level care institutions are developed only to provide primary care to rural or community-based patients.