Beijing, Aug. 26, 2026 – China’s five-year pilot program for primary health care reform has delivered measurable improvements in rural and mountainous regions, with two national pilot zones reporting stronger specialist networks, faster emergency response, and better chronic-disease management, according to officials at a National Health Commission press conference today.

The Commission launched the “comprehensive pilot zones for primary health care” in 2021 to address infrastructure gaps, upgrade workforce capabilities, and test integrated service models. Beijing’s Miyun District and Sichuan’s Luxian County – both designated as national pilots – have introduced innovations in resource allocation, talent development, and medical-prevention integration, with results now showing in patient access and satisfaction.

Key Takeaways

Attribute	Detail
Event	National Health Commission Press Conference
Date	August 26, 2026
Theme	Reform and Innovation in Primary Health Care Pilot Zones
Featured Pilots	Miyun District (Beijing), Luxian County (Sichuan)
Key Focus Areas	Resource allocation, talent training, emergency networks, chronic-care integration
Notable Outcomes	基层 visit share rising; emergency response times shortened; chronic mortality down 3.25 pp

Miyun: Mountainous Terrain, Targeted Investment

Miyun, Beijing’s only national primary-care pilot, treats the designation as “a heavy responsibility,” said Zhang Bo, the district’s deputy party secretary. The district party committee established a leading group headed by the party secretary, and health-system performance is now incorporated into the overall party-building assessment.

Fiscal commitment is substantial: health spending has exceeded 13% of the district’s general public budget for three consecutive years, supplemented by nearly CNY 200 million from Beijing municipality to renovate old clinics and acquire new equipment. Over the same period, Miyun recruited 14 senior physicians and 82 university-trained village doctors.

To serve its scattered mountain communities, the district built a sub-regional medical center in the northern mountains, upgrading CT and dialysis units and developing four specialty departments – pain, digestion, blood dialysis, and ophthalmology. In 2025, that center’s annual outpatient visits rose 7.4%. More than 50% of appointments at secondary and tertiary hospitals are now reserved for primary-care referrals, and all grassroots facilities have stroke and chest-pain treatment units. About 30 municipal-level experts rotate weekly to remote clinics via “Internet+ health village” programs.

Luxian: Countywide Network and Digital Dispatch

Sichuan’s Luxian County, a 2021 pilot, has focused on integrating county-township-village resources through a closely knit medical community led by the county people’s hospital, said Wang Bin, party secretary of the medical community. “We unified management, pushed experts down, and linked data up,” Wang said.

The county has dispatched 149 full-time rotational experts to grassroots clinics, set up 46 joint outpatient departments – including gynecology and traditional Chinese medicine – and helped township centers add two hemodialysis rooms and four new clinical departments. More than 60 new techniques, such as laparoscopic hernia repair, are now performed at lower-level facilities.

Digital tools are central: the medical community’s shared imaging, ECG, and ultrasound platforms process remote consultations in real time. To date, nearly 71,500 remote ECG diagnoses, about 60,000 remote imaging reads, and over 1,200 remote ultrasound guidance cases have been completed, enabling mutual recognition of test results across the county.

Emergency care has been overhauled with a proprietary “Huijitong” platform – a ride-hailing-style dispatch system that automatically alerts the nearest ambulance and emergency team when a village doctor makes a one-tap call. Vital signs are transmitted en route, allowing hospital specialists to prepare treatment plans before the patient arrives. Last September, a 42-year-old heart-attack patient in Chaohe Town received emergency care within 4 minutes, reached the county hospital in 29 minutes, and underwent interventional surgery 26 minutes later – a total of 75 minutes from symptom onset to reperfusion.

Chronic-Care Reform: Tiered Management for 200,000+ Patients

Luxian’s party secretary and county magistrate, Zhang Cheng, outlined a chronic-disease management model targeting five conditions – hypertension, diabetes, COPD, lumbar disc herniation, and new strokes within six months – plus locally prioritized additions. A tiered responsibility system assigns hospital directors to geographic areas, family doctors to villages, and specialists to specific diseases. Patients are color-coded red (high-risk), orange (medium), and green (low) for differentiated management.

All 20 township health centers now run integrated chronic-disease outpatient clinics. Since 2020, the county’s premature mortality rate from four major chronic diseases has dropped by 3.25 percentage points. Luxian has invested CNY 1.6 billion to build or renovate 18 medical institutions, adding 126,500 square meters of floor space, and CNY 9 million to equip secondary centers with CT, gastroscope, and automated biochemistry analyzers. A “CT exam within one hour” service circle is now in place.

Frontline Delivery: Faster Visits, Personalized Care

At the community level, Miyun’s Guoyuan Community Health Center serves 75,000 residents. Director Wang Mingfu said the center redesigned its floor plan, placing consultation rooms and lab tests on the same floor and installing self-service kiosks, cutting average visit time by about 30 minutes. It has opened specialty clinics for hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, and COPD, and added sleep and gastroenterology clinics with expert support. A “Talk with the Director” and QR-code feedback system helps resolve patient complaints quickly.

Guoyuan also runs a weight-management and sarcopenia-prevention program. Since April 2026, more than 200 overweight residents have received personalized diet-exercise plans using body-composition analysis. Over 2,000 seniors have been screened for sarcopenia; 63 high-risk individuals completed 12-week exercise interventions, with significant improvements in lower-limb strength and balance.

For rural doctors, a training partnership with Peking University First Hospital and Miyun District Hospital has upgraded skills. Wang Rui, a general practitioner at Gaoling Township center, said the six-month program helped her handle emergencies and manage diabetes – citing a 57-year-old asthma patient stabilized and transferred, and a 67-year-old diabetic whose HbA1c dropped from 9.5% to normal with remote insulin adjustment.

Market Impact Analysis

The pilot results carry implications beyond the two demonstration zones. Miyun’s model – combining fiscal prioritization, specialist rotations, and digital referral pathways – offers a template for other mountainous regions with dispersed populations. Luxian’s integrated medical community and automated emergency dispatch system address the perennial challenge of rural-urban service gaps, potentially influencing provincial-level policies across western China.

The chronic-disease management framework, with its color-coded patient stratification and “three packages, four integrations” structure, signals a policy shift from episodic treatment to population-based preventive care. This aligns with national priorities on healthy aging and non-communicable disease control, areas where primary care systems have historically been weak.

For pharmaceutical and medical device suppliers, the expanded specialty services at township centers – including dialysis, imaging, and surgical capabilities – suggest growing procurement demand at the county level. The emphasis on remote diagnostics and data sharing also points to sustained investment in health IT infrastructure.

Forward-Looking Statement

The National Health Commission said it will hold additional press conferences in other pilot zones to share further reform experiences. Industry analysts expect the Commission to distill best practices into national guidelines for primary-care system upgrades, potentially influencing the next five-year health plan.

Miyun and Luxian’s progress in raising grass-roots unit visit shares and reducing chronic mortality offers early evidence that targeted investment and integrated management can yield measurable returns. However, replicating these results across China’s vast and diverse rural landscape – with significant inter-provincial disparities in fiscal capacity and workforce density – remains a formidable challenge. The coming 12–18 months will show whether these pilot models can scale effectively beyond their current geographies.-China Health Reform Pulse

Policy Source: https://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/c100122/202608/d4910e8ac75a474e9c86e07732fe6ae0.shtml