Introduction

Moving from a Planned to Market Oriented Health Care System: Understanding the Dynamics

The key criteria for a national health care system are accessibility, affordability and sustainability. China's early successes in extending access to health care have failed to keep pace with the demand fuelled by economic development. This has been exacerbated by structural deficiencies in the health care delivery system.

Changing demographics and growing wealth are driving the demand for quality health care among urban dwellers, at the same time as SOE reform is leaving many with reduced access and higher personal costs. Systemic problems have left many rural dwellers with significantly diminished access to affordable basic health care.

Reform of the national health care system has been underway for some time, but given the size and complexity of China, the growing demands of increasingly prosperous urban dwellers, the changing age profile of its population and the overlapping of government ministry responsibilities, a clear set of national priorities has yet to emerge.

The CEIBS 2005 China Health Care Management Forum will bring together leading policy makers and players from government and the health care industry to explore the speed and direction of reform, and discuss how to develop strategies that create opportunities to both contribute to and benefit from the reforms.