Strengthen the awareness of disease prevention and improve the level of early diagnosis

Deputy to the National People’s Congress and President of West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Li Weimin

For many years, I have been concerned about the prevention and control of chronic diseases. It can be said that chronic diseases have become a type of disease that threatens the health of Chinese residents, and also a public health problem that affects the country’s economic and social development.

I found through long-term research that there are “three highs and three lows” in the prevention and control of chronic diseases in my country: “three highs” include high morbidity, high mortality, and high economic burden; “three lows” include awareness rates Low rate, low rate of early diagnosis, low rate of standardized management throughout the process.

I suggest that a three-in-one collaborative prevention and control system for chronic diseases should be established as soon as possible. The first is the synergy between medical insurance and commercial insurance, which supports the development of commercial health insurance and improves the multi-level chronic disease prevention and control guarantee system; the second is the coordination between hospitals to establish a medical consortium for chronic diseases with disease as a unit to form prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The whole-process management system for chronic diseases is integrated with rehabilitation and rehabilitation.

Currently, many patients spend their money on late-stage treatment of chronic diseases, so early intervention must be done to reduce severe illness. In terms of medical insurance and commercial insurance synergy, West China Hospital has launched a pilot project with Pacific Insurance Company. For example, if a patient finds a lung nodule during a physical examination, he buys Pacific Insurance, and West China Hospital will be responsible for systematic follow-up management for the patient. , the ultimate goal is to avoid the occurrence of advanced lung cancer and greatly reduce the cost of comprehensive treatment. This is a savings for the patient, as well as for the insurance company. At the same time, for medical staff, this is also a change, not only to pay attention to the research of disease treatment, but also to strengthen the awareness of disease prevention and improve the level of early diagnosis. (Organized by our reporter Xu Lei)

“People’s Daily Overseas Edition” (07th edition on March 11, 2022)