Experience of health service system planning in some countries and its implications for China / 中国卫生政策研究

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews practices and features of health service system planning in some countries, and analyze its implications for China’s system planning. It is an international common practice to perform health service system planning to improve resource allocation efficiency, to meet multilevel demands of medical services, and to control dramatic growth of medical expenditures. Governments and their affiliated departments are the main body to formulate and implement the plans, and different levels of governments have different responsibilities in planning. During the procedure of formulating and implementing plans, collaborative governance network can be utilized to en-courage multi-party stakeholders to participate. The government should play an active role in planning to ensure the equity and accessibility of health services. The authority of planning can be achieved mainly through the comprehen-sive measures in legislation, political regulation, economic incentives, etc. Improved tools and methods based on multidisciplinary theories can be used to improve plan’s scientificity and delicacy. China can learn from international experience in formulating and implementing health service system plans.