Shanghai invests 1.3 billion yuan for medical development

Shanghai kicked off a medical program this year and plans to invest 1.3 billion yuan (US$187 million) in the next three years on clinical health research and innovation, local health officials told the first Asian Hospital Innovation and Development Forum launched in the city on Saturday.

The program aims to bring key areas like general surgery, neurology, orthopedics and endocrinology up to speed so that Shanghai can become a medical center for the Asia region.

“Shanghai, with its leading health capability in China, has taken the place of Beijing to become the city with the largest influx of patients from other provinces since 2016,” Dr Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai Health Commission, said. “To meet the standard of a leading medical center in Asia, we should further boost clinical research and improve service as well as international cooperation. It is important to improve the ability of clinical research and ability to translate that research into technologies and products which can benefit patients.”

Dr Adrian Sandra Dobs, from the Johns Hopkins Hospital, said that undertaking research is a crucial way of discovering new drugs, new technologies and new ways of taking care of patients.

“Research doesn’t only mean laboratory work. It can involve many aspects like experimental treatment, service and administration,” she said. “We are also looking forward to doing more cooperative research with China, which has a large number of patients and has built a big data system of patients' record. With this data, we can do much research to find the best way to treat patients.”