Analysis of the pilot implementation of medical assistance for children in illness-caused poverty families / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the basic information and implementation of medical assistance for children of illness-caused poverty families.Methods:From March through September 2019, a customized questionnaire was used to collect by means of both field survey and on-site verification, the information of the sick children from such families registered on file from 17 counties in 6 provinces. These counties were the first to carry out the assistance pilot work under " Chinese Children Poverty Alleviation by Healthcare Program" . The data so acquired were subject to descriptive analysis.Results:A total of 312 questionnaires were recovered, and the median age of these child patients was 8.54 years. Diseases causing family poverty were mostly those in the circulatory system, nervous system, neoplastic disease of childhood and hematological disease, while unaffordability of medical bills ranked the top challenge when they seek medical services. Hierarchical diagnosis and treatment was made for 251 children 193(76.89%)of them could be admitted to provincial or lower medical institutions, 43 children needed chronic disease management, and 15 children needed to be admitted by the National Children′s Medical Center for further diagnosis.Conclusions:The assistance for such families in poverty-stricken areas can be upgraded, by such means as disease prevention publicity and education, publicity of healthcare poverty alleviation policy awareness, improvement of medical competency of primary medical institutions and rational application of medical resources.