Taiyuan, capital of North China's Shanxi province, plans to have well-equipped community hospitals with improved service levels reasonably distributed across its counties, as well as county-level cities and districts, by 2025.

That's according to the Taiyuan health commission, which made an announcement on Sept 22.

To achieve that goal, Taiyuan will first turn grassroots medical and health care institutions into community hospitals. It will complete upgrading half of them by the end of this year.

The measure is part of the Taiyuan City's Implementation Plan for Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of Community Hospitals, released recently.

The plan outlines the efforts the city will make to optimize the allocation of medical and health resources through the construction of community hospitals. For example, it will allow primary health providers to carry out more functions, while enhancing their services and making sure those services are enjoyed by more and more residents.

The objectives are responding to the growing needs for diverse health services.

In addition, the plan requires the city to add more rooms, equipment, beds and personnel to community hospitals, as well as improving existing infrastructure with the use of information technology.

The focus should be placed on improving conditions at clinical, public health, medical technology and other departments, as well as boosting data sharing, business collaboration and integrated management.

Qualified community hospitals will be encouraged to set up fever clinics. Chinese medicine and medication will be promoted, as well as medical rehabilitation services.

Another focus is to strengthen the construction of a medical quality system, streamline and improve rules and regulations and reinforce internal management to ensure patient safety.

It is also required that community hospitals further improve their ability to detect infectious diseases during health check-ups, daily diagnosis and early treatment.