Shanghai issues guideline for TCM services

The city’s health commission and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) administration have issued a guideline on the innovation and development of TCM to provide improved and comprehensive TCM services to residents throughout their lives, the local government said at the Shanghai Traditional Chinese Medicine Conference on Monday.

Under the guideline, the TCM system will be improved with services for disease prevention, healthcare, treatment and rehabilitation being integrated. More TCM medical institutions will be built with more TCM medical workers allocated to community healthcare centers.

The construction of TCM departments at general hospitals and specialized medical institutions for maternity and child care, rehabilitation, nursing and infectious diseases will also be enhanced.

Basic TCM services will be expanded to local communities and TCM doctors will join teams of family doctors. TCM services can also be combined with long-term nursing and hospice care.

TCM medical institutions will be encouraged to cooperate with nursing homes to promote TCM among the elderly to meet their medical needs and improve their health. TCM will also be promoted to schools, families and residential communities.

The city will strive to build a group of national and regional TCM centers on fields such as hepatology, cancer, surgery, acupuncture and massage, and rehabilitation.

Integrated development of TCM in the Yangtze River Delta region will be pushed forward in medicine, education and scientific research and development.

The city will facilitate the joint growth of Western medicine and TCM, work out a group of therapies combining the two medicines and set up several Western medicine and TCM collaborative diagnosis and treatment centers to tackle major diseases.

The guideline also gives detailed plans on standardized herb planting and TCM drug production, a traceability system and pricing of drugs, cultivation of TCM doctors and TCM overseas development.

Shanghai has 30 TCM hospitals and each district has at least one such hospital. More than 80 percent of the city's 343 general or specialized hospitals have TCM departments and all 246 community health service centers have a TCM section.