Public hospitals 'on the buses' to improve care
The hospital bus service.
Local public hospitals are developing various ways to assist patients and boost health-care quality.
The first cross-district tailor-made bus line service transporting patients from the Metro station to the Fengxian branch of Shanghai International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital has been launched, the hospital said over the weekend.
The 14-kilometer bus route runs directly from the Metro station to the hospital, solving patients' difficulty of "last kilometer" travel.
As the first city-level specialized hospital located in the five "new cities," the hospital's Fengxian branch has operated for nearly two years. During this time it has offered 520,000 emergency and outpatient services, delivered nearly 8,000 babies and conducted nearly 16,000 surgeries, allowing rural residents to enjoy high-quality health service near their home.
Along with the rising medical demand, the district transport authority teamed up with the hospital to discuss how to assist patients get to the hospital from the Metro. The existing bus service has a 30 to 40-minute interval and 10 stops along the route.
"I have to spend 1 to 1.5 hours on the route between the Metro station and the hospital, let alone days with rain, big wind or extremely low and high temperature," said a 69-year-old woman, who should visit hospital for regular check and take drugs.
"Now the time on the route is shortened by two thirds and it just stops in front of the hospital. It is very convenient."
The bus runs between Yongde Road Station of Metro Line 15 to the hospital. It has a fixed timetable and the price is 2 yuan.
In addition, the district transportation is expanding the road in front of the hospital to boost traffic flow, and more patient-centered projects are underway.
Officials from local health authorities said they are encouraging public hospitals to build their brands through better management and patient-centered services to boost their high-quality development.
A total of 36 projects streamlining process, innovating operation models and bettering patients' experiences were honored by the Pudong New Area Health Commission in a competition over the weekend.
Official from Shanghai Pudong Hospital, which won the prize, said it focuses on patients' major complaints to better its management and set up a unified office to receive patients' complaints, suggestions and look for solutions as soon as possible.
A special office to receive patients' complaint and streamline the problem-solving at Shanghai Pudong Hospital.
A special office enhancing communication between patients and medical staff has been established to follow different departments to solve relevant issues by a closed-loop management. Patients' complaints will receive responses in a short period of time, hospital officials said.
"Building a hospital's brand and enhancing quality management can eventually improve medical quality and improve patients' satisfaction," said Dr Yu Bo, president of Shanghai Pudong Hospital.
"Our hospital started to introduce quality control into hospital management since 2009 and achieve a whole-process quality management."
Shanghai Pudong Hospital's stroke screening, prevention and control system.
"Take the management on stroke for instance, we launch a community-based education and screening system to offer education and intervention to highly risk population, streamline a in-hospital stroke patient rescue and treatment network as well as discharged patient health management system to help stroke prevention and control in Pudong," he said.
The hospital's stroke screening, and prevention and control system was honored by the government and won a top prize of the national hospital quality management competition.
