Hai'an, a county-level city in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, has been upgrading its medical service system in recent years to make high-quality medical resources available to more residents in the county.

In 2020, Hai'an started building a community of shared health services that improves the medical resources in rural areas by utilizing high-quality medical resources in urban areas.

Among those that benefited from this measure is the health center in Baidian town.

Since 2020, experts from Hai'an Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine have provided regular medical services at the health center.

Due to the introduction of shared medical resources, the number of outpatients at the health center in 2021 increased by 16.9 percent year-on-year, while the number of in-patients increased by 132 percent year-on-year.

By the end of 2022, Hai'an People's Hospital and Hai'an Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine had assigned more than 840 experts whom have treated over 4,100 patients and participated in 153 operations at basic-level health facilities.

Hai'an authorities have also spent more than 300 million yuan ($43.53 million) to build a sub-designated hospital, an emergency hospital, and four emergency buildings for health services.

The county is currently home to four public hospitals, 47 private hospitals, 10 health centers, 19 community health stations, and 207 village clinics.

In addition, the county had in 2019 launched door-to-door health services provided by experienced nursing personnel from public hospitals.

To date, 551 nursing personnel in the county have been involved in this initiative and provided services to 3,785 patients.

A docotor treats a patient in a village health center in Hai'an. [Photo/WeChat account: hafbwx]