New health cooperation in Yangtze River Delta

Shanghai and the neighboring provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui signed an agreement in Shanghai on Saturday to set up a joint health service system with a unified public network for infectious disease prevention and control.

It marks a new move in inter-provincial cooperation on health care, including serious public health case management, cross-provincial epidemiological investigation on food safety issues and regional cooperation on first aid and information-sharing.

The four regions will also share patient databases and push the establishment of digital medical records and public health data for better health care development, according to the agreement signed on the first Yangtze River Delta Health Summit.

The? Yangtze River Delta region health agreement also looks at more unified and balanced health resources allocation, cooperation in traditional Chinese medicine development, technology innovation, collaboration on a rare disease diagnosis network and cooperation on health inspection and law enforcement.

Shanghai Vice Mayor Zong Ming said the inter-provincial cooperation was important for the city as it sees a major influx of patients from other parts of the country.

“We will improve our ability to serve patients from the Yangtze River Delta region and other places,” she said.