China’s National Healthcare Security Administration piloted the unified healthcare security system code standards on June 27. Unified healthcare system codification lowers communication and transaction costs.
A doctor uses laptop. Photo credit to Free-Photos on Pixabay
Source from People’s Daily (人民日报), China’s National Healthcare Security Administration (CNHSA) piloted the unified healthcare security system code standards on June 27. The new standards are compatible with regional existing code standards and simplify intersystem and inter-provincial healthcare security data sharing.
The national healthcare security code standards build a codification system to link varied code standards from different regions and provide a set of uniform criteria for drug and medical equipment’s regulation.
The digitalization process in the Chinese healthcare industry has been widely implemented along with the Internet era. However, the development differentials from region to region resulted in varied magnitude in the digitalization process and hence led to different healthcare security code standards. The disconnection in code standards from city to city prevented citizens from settling healthcare payments outside of their residency and burdened the drug and equipment regulatory works.
For drug and medical facility regulations, sets of code standards increase their operational costs. For instance, the same drug will have a code designated for a certain municipal region in its healthcare security management system. In a return, a drug that sold nationwide might have several codes and there is no universal system to convert the information into a general one. The newly piloted code standards strive to solve the disconnection from side to side.
Citizens and healthcare institutes nationwide can access drug or equipment in the healthcare security system using the national unified codes. The lowered conversion costs can assist with the drug review process and data analysis. All drugs in the market will have a unique identification code in the healthcare security system. Plus, codes under the same category are initiated with the same category code, which streamlines the code identification process.
In the past, the disparities among different healthcare security databases contributed to the wave of healthcare information digitalization startups. These companies strive to integrate data from multiple portals into a platform to simplify the working process for clinics, hospitals, and other healthcare institutes. The differentials in databases from different regions still exist even though the inner hospital discrepancy among databases eliminated.
With the implementation of new code standards, provincial healthcare security administrations can use, search, download, report, and submit changes in the system; state healthcare security administration has the right to add or change information. Provincial databases are compatible with the national database. Hence, it helps to solve the settlement conflicts among cities regarding the same type of drug or equipment.
The national healthcare security code standards are part of national healthcare digital reform. Structural data not only helps to lower the administrative costs in both time and expenses but also have a positive influence on China’s economy. In China, healthcare security significantly influences the circulation of labor forces since the breakdown in the healthcare security data communication from places to places. With national standardized code system, the link between healthcare security and residency is weakened, which might yield chances for labors to reconsider workplaces and finally stimulate the workforce circulation among regions.