Empirical analysis of the main input and output of healthcare reform in China from 2009 to 2013

Objective To analyze the main input and output of healthcare reform in China, and to provide references for improving the policies and measures of healthcare reform in China in future. Methods Data from the National Health Services Survey, and the China Statistical Yearbook etc. was collected to compare and analyze the allocation of health resources, health status of residents, health service utilization, and medical burden before and after healthcare reform. Results During the reform from 2009 to 2013, hospital health and technical personnel increased year by year. In 2013, the proportion of health and technical personnel in hospitals was up to 61.4% of the total national health technical personnel. In 2013, 65.19% of government expenditure on healthcare was used for disease treatment, and only 14.59% was used for disease prevention. Compared with the year of 2008, the two-week prevalence rate of residents increased by 5.2%, the chronic disease prevalence rate increased by 9% in 2013. Compared with the year of 2009, the annually diagnosed and treated patients increased 18.2 billion person-time, the annually discharged patients increased 59.65 million person-time in 2013. The individual residents paid 52.49% of total medical expenses. Conclusion Since the healthcare reform, China’s central and local governments have imputed a large number of health resources into hospitals for “disease treatment”. That partly improved the utilization of residents’ health service, but the two-week prevalence rate and chronic disease prevalence rate are rapidly growing. There is still high burden of medical expenses for the residents. China’s healthcare model should be changed from “treatment-centered” to “prevention-centered” in future.