Beijing's piloting “responsible system for attending physicians”

By the end of this year, hospitals in cities in Beijing will use at least three departments as pilots for carrying out the “responsibility system for the chief physician.” This means that the patient will be responsible for the “medical team” headed by the same attending physician whether he is attending an outpatient clinic or is hospitalized.

Yesterday, the reporter learned from the Beijing Municipal Medical Management Bureau that in 2011, the Municipal Health Bureau carried out the chief physician's responsibility for the pilot system in 7 cities including the Xuanwu Hospital. This year, the pilot will be promoted to the whole city.

Medical Team Replaces "Segmented" Treatment

At present, the hospital's diagnosis and treatment of patients is "segmented". Clinics and hospitalization are not the same doctors. The person in charge of the health department also pointed out earlier that this model is not conducive to the hospital's full control of patient treatment.

According to the introduction of the Municipal Health Bureau, the “responsible system for the attending physicians” is a new attempt in the reform of Beijing public hospitals, dividing the department doctors into “medical teams”. Among them, an attending physician will lead the "medical team" and take full responsibility for the patient's diagnosis and treatment process, including outpatient, hospitalization and surgery. At the time of referral to the patient, the patient is still treated by the team of the attending physician at the time of the previous visit or hospitalization to ensure continuity of diagnosis and treatment.

Pre-trial hospitals need to be implemented in more than 30% of departments
According to the schedule of the Beijing Municipal Hospital Authority, by the end of 2013, pilot clinics will be conducted in all municipal hospitals, and each hospital will conduct trials for the chief physicians in at least three departments.

At the same time, the seven hospitals that have already started pilots in advance will come up with more than 30% of the hospital's departments to implement the chief physician responsibility system.

According to reports, the number of clinics can be set by the hospitals according to the number of beds in the ward or department. The Hospital Authority recommends that each clinic group in a general hospital manage about 10 patients.

At the end of this year, each pilot hospital will also conduct a summary of the pilot work, find out the problems and propose perfect measures. The Municipal Hospital Authority will assess the implementation of the pilot hospitals and incorporate them into the hospital performance appraisal system at an appropriate time.

The relevant person in charge of the Municipal Medical Reform Office stated that the introduction of the responsible doctor's responsibility system is conducive to the rational use of expert resources and guides the patient to the level of treatment.

The person in charge said that when a patient visits the hospital, he or she must first be consulted by a doctor. For some patients "do not trust the clinician doctor", the advantage of the attending physician responsibility system is to incorporate the "team" concept. If the patient is in need of a condition, go directly to the team's expert.