Government News
Shanghai expands accessible healthcare with neighborhood centers and seamless hospital transfers 2025-11-13
An operation room at a local neighborhood health center.
Local residents are able to enjoy basic health care, rehabilitation, nursing and basic surgery just in the neighborhood health centers, which also can achieve a quick patient transfer to senior hospitals if necessary.
So far, over 150 community health centers in the city have established neighborhood-based rehabilitation and nursing centers, offering convenient, high-quality and cheap service to local residents, who needn't go all the way to crowded district- or city-based hospitals for basic services. It is in line with the city's policy of serving chronic and simple disease in the neighborhood while senior hospitals mainly target complicated cases.
Officials from Shanghai Health Commission said the city is to transform the service model in the neighborhood from disease-treatment to health care and offer more high-quality service in line with residents' demand.
For rehabilitation, the community-based health centers are equipped with a professional team with physicians, therapists and nurses plus robots, intelligent devices and the combination of Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine to give rehabilitation on common disease, injury and trauma, children rehab, after-stroke rehab, disabled people rehab, and special service for heart, respiration and pelvic base to meet different demands.
Apart from offering 26 basic nursing services like skin care, nutrition care and excretion care, the centers also offer nursing on wound, diabetes, mother-and-baby care, mental care, TCM care, hospice care and peritoneal dialysis service.
A nursing center at the neighborhood health center.
"Expatriate residents are also welcome to visit the neighborhood health centers, whose medical staff are equipped with bilingual ability," said Jin Ying, director of Dapuqiao Neighborhood Health Center.
Another highlight of the neighborhood health centers' service is its close cooperation with senior hospitals, which have green channels for patients being transferred from the neighborhood.
"Neighborhood health centers serve as a goalkeepers of local categorized system and we encourage people to visit the neighborhood in the first hospital visit. If there is serious condition, we will transfer such patients to city-level hospitals immediately. A trial of emergency care-based model has been kicked off in Huangpu District since late 2023 and our health center reaches cooperation with Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital through one-year preparation and started such patient transfer early this year," said Zhang Yang, director of Yuyuan Neighborhood Health Center.
An elderly woman receives rehabilitation service at a neighborhood health center in Xuhui District.
"So far this year, we have achieved 86 cases of patient transfer and have established a system that serious patients are transferred to senior hospitals and sent back to the neighborhood for follow-up rehabilitation and management," she told a livestreaming health program at the China International Import Expo to introduce Shanghai's healthcare system to visitors home and abroad.
To better coordinate with the nearby neighborhood health centers, the Ninth People's Hospital has established a 24-hour patient arrangement mechanism to improve efficiency and better patient management.
"For elderly patients needing long-term management, we will transfer them back to the neighborhood health centers after our emergency treatment. We also dispatch our specialists to check patients at the neighborhood and carry out training to improve the medical ability in grassroots facilities," said Liu Jun, head of the outpatient and emergency service management department of Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, whose efficiency has been greatly improved under the patient transfer trial.
A doctor at the newly-opened Xuhui West Bank Digital Hub Health Service Center in Xuhui District guides two female office workers to make sachet.
Since the regular visitors of neighborhood health centers are elderly people, the centers are also changing their service model and establishing more branches in office buildings and business zones, allowing office workers to receive convenient services without influencing their schedule.
At the newly-opened Xuhui West Bank Digital Hub Health Service Center, services for common diseases and TCM services targeting sub-health conditions like insomnia and neck pain and mental stress are offered. Acupuncture, tuina, physical care, herbal soup, TCM physical exercise are extremely welcome.
Chen Li, head of the center, said the center has attracted over 1,000 visits since being opened on September 28.
"We special consulted about their demand and offer service and lecture in line with their demand. Many office workers come to our center at noon or after work for health guidance, disease treatment and chronic disease prevention and control. We also have the ability to serve expatriates," she said.
Zhang Yang (right), director of Yuyuan Neighborhood Health Center, introduces about a trial that boosts patient transfer between neighborhood and city-level hospital in a health talk program.
Source: City News Service
Application Status
| 04-16 | 21315227 | Processing |
| 03-12 | 21315226 | Processing |
| 09-26 | 21315225 | Processing |
Inquiry Status
| 02-29 | 02131558 | Received |
| 03-06 | 02131557 | Received |
| 11-14 | 02131556 | Received |
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