With the theme “Innovations in Health System Reform and Technology", the 5th US-China Health Summit was staged at Harvard University in Boston from Sept 28-29.

The event was co-organized by China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) and the United States’ Department of Health and Human Services, attracting more than 300 government officials, experts and representatives from pharmaceutical enterprises. Sun Zhigang, vice-minister of the NHFPC attended the opening ceremony where he spoke.

Sun said that China had launched a round of healthcare reform in 2009, and vowed to achieve the goal that all people enjoy basic medical and health services by 2020.

Over past years, the Chinese government has tried to improve the basic medical insurance system; set up a system to ease people’s burden of medical costs; reconstruct the community-level medical and health service system to improve grassroots medical institutes’ service; establish equalization system of basic public health service and build new mechanism for the public hospitals’ operation.

“China’s healthcare reform has made some achievements, but still has a long way to go to the goal of 2020,” Sun said, stressing that in future, the key points of China’s healthcare improvements are public hospital reform, basic medical insurance construction, community-level medical institutes’ reform, medicine supply system improvement, private hospitals construction as well as creating a medical digital society.

“To strengthen US-China cooperation in the health sector is beneficial for us to transcend differences in history, culture and social systems and promote consensus and cooperation,” he said, adding that China will further cooperate and exchange with the international health industry.

The two-day summit focused on a comprehensive review of healthcare reforms in the United States and China, discussion of technology innovation and system innovation in medicine, and the inauguration of the Youth Leadership Forum in Health.

Since its inauguration in Sept 2011, the US-China Health Summit has been alternately held in China and in the United States at Harvard University. It is dedicated to advancing global health by promoting the exchange of knowledge, ideas and experience among healthcare leaders from China, the US and other countries through high-level talks, leadership development programs and applied research.