BY DIMITRA EFTHYMIADI
Health and Medicine Editor of ethnos.gr, Greece
China’s healthcare system is one of the largest and most complex in the world, serving a population of more than 1.4 billion people.
Despite the enormous size of its population and the challenges involved, the country has invested heavily in healthcare over the past several years—a commitment that became particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to international media reports, digital technologies now play a central role in the delivery of healthcare services, significantly improving both efficiency and the quality of care.
The pandemic appears to have accelerated the modernization of China’s healthcare system, enabling citizens to benefit from higher-quality medical services, making hospitals easier to manage, and allowing the system to respond rapidly to growing healthcare demands as well as public health emergencies.
While Greece has only recently begun to implement digital healthcare services on a broad scale, China has been using such technologies for many years.
As is now increasingly the case in Greece, Chinese patients can use mobile applications to schedule medical appointments, receive laboratory test results, pay for healthcare services electronically, and access their electronic medical records.
These services are made possible through the integration of healthcare data across hospitals and medical facilities. As a result, citizens can access their complete medical history on their smartphones regardless of which healthcare institution they visit.
Telemedicine has also advanced considerably in China. While Greece has long been working to connect its islands with major urban healthcare centers, China has for years enabled specialist physicians to provide remote consultations and medical advice to patients living in rural and geographically isolated areas through digital platforms.
Significant progress has also been made in the field of artificial intelligence. AI- powered tools are increasingly being integrated into China’s healthcare system to support diagnosis and clinical decision-making, although the final medical judgment remains firmly in the hands of physicians.
The speed of the Chinese government’s response was clearly demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a remarkably short period, hospitals were constructed to provide treatment for the rapidly growing number of infected patients. This remains one of the defining features that distinguishes China from many other countries. The country managed to build fully operational healthcare facilities in just a matter of days— an achievement that, in most parts of the world, would likely have taken months or even years.
China’s experience illustrates how strategic investment in healthcare infrastructure, digital innovation, and centralized coordination can dramatically strengthen a country’s ability to respond to large-scale public health crises.
*The views and opinions expressed in the articles are solely those of the individual authors and do not reflect the position of the Secretariat of the Belt and Road Journalist Network.