Current situation and countermeasures for integration of public health and medical services in China

The integration of public health and medical services (the integration of prevention and treatment for short) was proposed to solve the problem of separated services of disease prevention and treatment in the construction of China′s health system. Public health service system and medical service system are important parts of health care service system and their effective integration and mutual support could contribute to the implementation of disease prevention and treatment task. In the study, we analyzed the current situation and problems in the development of service integration of disease prevention and treatment in China. The main problems of China′s service integration of disease prevention and treatment include: the lack of cooperation between institutions providing public health service, and lagging personnel training mode, insufficient mechanism of financing and motivation, restricted service capabilities, low service enthusiasm, lagging-behind public health information system. Regarding those problems above, the study puts forward some suggestions on promoting the integration of public health service and medical service, such as defining institutions′ functions by law, establishing coordinated mechanism of cross-department and cross-region administration, optimizing personnel training mode, improving supporting of financial investment, medical payment and salary system, constructing talent teams, increasing personal treatment, strengthening top--level design, and building shared mass data platform.