Implementation of National Health Informatization in China: Survey About the Status Quo

BACKGROUND: The National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) in China organized a nationwide survey to investigate the informatization in hospitals and regional Health and Family Planning Commissions (HFPCs) in 2017. The survey obtained valid results from 79.69% (2021/2536) of major hospitals and 81% (26/32) of provincial and 73.1% (307/420) of municipal HFPCs. The investigated topics covered hardware infrastructure, information resources, applications, systems, and organizations in health informatics. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to provide evidence collected from the survey regarding China’s health informatization and assist policy making regarding health informatics in the 13th Five-Year Plan of China. METHODS: Based on the survey, the paper presented the status quo of China’s health informatization and analyzed the progress and potential problems in terms of the country’s health information development policies. RESULTS: Related policies have helped to construct 4-level information platforms and start converging the regional data to the 3 centralized databases. The principle of informatics has been transiting from finance-centered to people-centered. Alternatively, the quality, usability, and interoperability of the data still need to be improved. CONCLUSIONS: The nationwide survey shows that China’s health informatization is rapidly developing. Current information platforms and databases technically support data exchanging between all provinces and cities. As China is continuing to improve the infrastructure, more advanced applications are being developed upon it.