In order to thoroughly implement the decision and deployment of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on implementing the Healthy China strategy, and provide comprehensive and full cycle health services for the people, a sound legal framework and a good legal environment should be formed in the field of medical institution governance, and the rule of law thinking and methods should be consciously applied to plan and promote the high-quality development of various health work. On November 17, 2024, the seminar on Collaborative Construction of Chinese Characteristics in Medical Institution Governance System jointly organized by the Law School of Southeast University and the Jiangsu Health Law Society was held in the East Hall of Liuyuan Hotel in Nanjing. This conference is one of the academic activities in the Modernization of National Governance System and Governance Capacity series organized by the Jiangsu Philosophy and Social Sciences Association. Leaders from the Jiangsu Federation of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Health Commission, and Jiangsu Health Law Society, as well as research institutions from universities across the country such as Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, East China University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Southeast University, and representatives from practical departments such as Jiangsu Provincial People's Hospital and Nanjing Hospital Association, participated in this meeting.
The opening ceremony and keynote speech of the conference were presided over by Professor Liu Qichuan, Secretary of the Party Committee of Southeast University Law School. Professor Liu Qichuan introduced the important guests at this seminar one by one and expressed warm welcome and sincere gratitude to the experts and scholars who participated in the conference. Liu Qichuan said that since its establishment, the School of Law of Southeast University has innovated the training mode of compound talents, formed the school running characteristics of cross cutting, team based, and practical, set up interdisciplinary professional directions such as medical law, big data and Internet law, engineering law, and traffic law among law and law masters, and explored a distinctive road to the construction of new liberal arts in the new era of higher education.
Yu Xueping, Director of the Society Department of Jiangsu Philosophy and Social Sciences Association, and He Xinyang, Director of the Regulations Department of Jiangsu Health Commission, jointly delivered speeches at the opening ceremony. Director Yu Xueping stated that the provincial health law community has achieved many fruitful results. She sincerely thanks the workers in the provincial health law community and wishes the conference a complete success. Director He Xinyang pointed out that the governance system of medical institutions, especially public hospitals, is an important component of the national health governance system, and it is crucial to comprehensively promote the construction of high-quality and efficient medical and health institutions with Chinese characteristics. He proposed that the Jiangsu Health Law Society needs to continue to strengthen the exploration of the health law community, enhance legal thinking, and improve legal literacy. He expressed sincere gratitude to the Jiangsu Provincial Federation of Social Sciences for their continuous support and assistance to the Jiangsu Health Law Society, the Southeast University Law School for co hosting this conference, and the experts and scholars present.
The keynote speeches were presided over by Professor Xiong Zhanglin, Vice Dean of the Law School of Southeast University. Wang Chengguang, Executive Vice President of the China Health Law Society and Professor of the Law School of Tsinghua University, and Sun Muyi, Honorary President of the Jiangsu Health Law Society and Professor of Southeast University, respectively delivered keynote speeches.
Wang Chengguang, Executive Vice President of the China Health Law Society and Professor at the Law School of Tsinghua University, delivered a keynote speech on The Enlightenment of Sanming Medical Reform Experience, pointing out that Sanming Medical Reform has always adhered to the principle of putting the people first, daring to be the first, problem oriented, focusing on institutional and mechanism reform and innovation, continuously deepening the linkage between the three medical institutions, and accumulating many useful experiences for the whole country to learn from. The reason why Sanming's medical reform direction is correct lies in its unwavering implementation of the development concept of putting the people at the center, establishing the medical reform concept of putting people's health at the center, and most importantly, being able to realize, concretize, and institutionalize the concept, implement it into the practice of medical reform, establish the correct concept of reform guidance, and be brave in reform and innovation. The direction of Sanming's medical reform is correct and the results are significant. Compared with Sanming's medical reform, when formulating medical reform plans, the competent departments at all levels should firmly learn from Sanming's determination and courage to reform; Adapt to local conditions, formulate and implement the Sanming Development Checklist; Breaking down departmental barriers, strengthening the leadership mechanism of medical reform, and promoting medical reform to cross deep waters; Establish a holistic perspective and develop top-level design plans; Liberate the mind, find the breakthrough point and bull's nose, and explore the space for self-created reform.
Sun Muyi, Honorary President of Jiangsu Health Law Society and Professor of Southeast University, delivered a report entitled Logical Philosophy of Order, Law and Compliance. He emphasized that the establishment and generation of rule systems are not entirely designed by humans but are constructed by the logic of countless links and factors in the process of cultural evolution. Rationality, knowledge, tradition, economic investment, aesthetic planning, moral law and politics, health management decision-making, social psychology, medical technology, lifestyle, cultural trends, natural ecology, education, etc. will all affect or intervene in its generation and operation. Before or during the formulation of regulations or compliance provisions, special attention must be paid to the collection and organization of information. Information production is an important prerequisite for regulatory makers and institutions. This legislative research may determine the effectiveness of rules, regulations, and the legality of compliance.
Forum 1 was hosted by Liu Jianli, Director of the Institute of Medical Law at Southeast University. Professor Liu Changqiu from Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Professor Zhao Xijiu from Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Professor Man Hongjie from East China University of Political Science and Law, and Professor Cao Yanlin from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences delivered keynote speeches one after another.
Professor Liu Changqiu gave a keynote speech on the topic of On the criminal regulation of commercial surrogacy. He believed that in order to better curb the increasing prevalence of surrogacy in China and ensure the healthy development of human assisted reproductive technology and the stability of reproductive ethics in China, China should consider further revising and improving the current criminal law, adding special provisions on surrogacy crime and its criminal responsibility in the criminal law, at least regulating commercial surrogacy as a crime, gradually correcting the legislative mistakes and failures of previous surrogacy regulation in China with the help of criminal law, so as to control the negative effects of the application of human assisted reproductive technology within the level that society can bear.
Professor Zhao Xijiu introduced the relationship between basic medical security and the allocation of medical resources in the public medical service system structure from the perspectives of administrative law and civil law, with the theme of Medical Resource Allocation and Its Responsibilities. He also explored the allocation pattern of medical resources between doctors and patients from multiple angles, including macro, micro, and individual perspectives. Based on a comparative analysis of the allocation patterns of medical resources such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals in countries such as the UK, New Zealand, and the US, suggestions for improving legislation on medical resource allocation in China are proposed.
Professor Man Hongjie expressed his views on the theme of Building a Medical Institution Management Rule of Law with Patient Safety as the Core. He pointed out that due to the existing legislative design not accurately grasping the risks of medical activities, the generalization of responsibility application, and the legal system being established on the basis of adversarial doctor-patient relationships, the doctor-patient relationship has formed a confrontational relationship. The lack of mutual trust mechanism between doctors and patients has led to the waste of many medical resources on defensive medical and other doctor-patient defense mechanisms. To build a medical institution management rule of law centered on patient safety, it is necessary to establish a fault liability mechanism with the organization as the core rather than the individual as the core; Reduce the responsibility mechanism for individual medical personnel; Adopt a non accountability based damage liability investigation mechanism and pay attention to the non ethical nature of the accountability mechanism.
Professor Cao Yanlin gave a report titled Exploring the Research Path of Health Law: Integrating Normative Analysis and Empirical Research. He first introduced the main research methods of law and the legislative process of the Health Law, reviewed the major events of the reform of the medical and health system, and emphasized the important position of the opinions on deepening the reform of the medical and health system in 2009. This deeply discusses the urgency of combining normative analysis with empirical research in the field of health law, and provides a detailed introduction to the empirical research methods and difficulties in health law. Professor Cao also shared a series of legislative research results based on empirical research, which provide crucial data support for practical legislation such as the revision of the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Law and the Practicing Physician Law, revealing key pain points in different fields. Finally, he expressed that as an interdisciplinary field of medicine and law, medical law requires data and factual support, and can only be more accurate through the combination of evidence and discourse.
Forum 2 is hosted by Cheng Guobin, the head of the School of Humanities and the Department of Medical Humanities at Southeast University. Zhu Binhai, Director of Audit and Legal Affairs Department of Jiangsu Provincial People's Hospital, Qiu Yonggui, Director of Legal Affairs Department of Nantong University Affiliated Hospital, Hu Xiaoxiang, Secretary General of Nanjing Hospital Association, and Wang Qihui, Vice President of Jiangsu Health Law Society, delivered keynote speeches respectively.
Director Zhu Binhai gave a report on Understanding and Practice of Rule of Law Construction in Public Hospitals. He pointed out that the rule of law is not only a way of governing a country and society, but also a way of thinking and living. The construction of the rule of law in public hospitals is the intersection and connection between the two strategic interactions of Healthy China and Rule of Law China. Director Zhu believes that the construction of the rule of law in public hospitals should start from four perspectives: why according to law, what is according to law, what law is relied upon, and how to comply with law. In the implementation process, there are four main problems: the lack of a strong cultural atmosphere for the construction of the rule of law, the lack of sound institutions for the construction of the rule of law, the imperfect responsibility mechanism for the construction of the rule of law, and the lack of a sound legal risk prevention system. In response to these issues, Director Zhu further proposed various detailed measures, such as holding lectures on legal knowledge, establishing and improving legal work departments, ensuring personnel allocation and division of responsibilities, establishing a leadership group for legal construction, and establishing a mechanism for reviewing major decisions. Subsequently, Director Zhu demonstrated the effective implementation and application of these measures, providing strong support and driving force for promoting the high-quality development of the rule of law in public hospitals.
Director Qiu Yonggui delivered a speech on the theme of Exploring the Practice of Fair Healthcare. He elaborated on the practical challenges and innovative measures faced by medical institutions in their daily operations from three dimensions: fair registration, fair examination, and fair hospitalization, in a clear and concise manner. Firstly, when it comes to fair registration, Director Qiu pointed out that in order to address the problem of registration difficulties, their hospital has innovatively introduced a medium - and long-term appointment mechanism. Based on the frequency of expert consultations, they timely use the number increase strategy to ensure that patients can obtain the necessary medical resources in a timely manner. At the same time, the hospital has also flexibly adjusted the opening hours of appointment registration to better meet the needs of patients and reflect a humanized service concept. Secondly, regarding fair examination, Director Qiu mentioned that the traditional multi window appointment mode has brought many inconveniences to patients. To this end, their hospital is actively promoting the construction of a one-stop appointment and intelligent sorting system, aiming to effectively reduce the burden of patients' examinations and achieve fairness and efficiency in the examination process through centralized appointment and intelligent sorting. Finally, regarding fair hospitalization, Director Qiu suggests making full use of the bed allocation management system, taking into account the characteristics of different hospitalization modes, and adopting flexible and diverse arrangements. This includes but is not limited to arranging hospitalizations in chronological order, prioritizing based on the severity of the condition, and following departmental or bed management center notifications to ensure the rational allocation and effective utilization of inpatient resources.
Secretary General Hu Xiaoxiang gave an in-depth speech on the theme of The cornerstone of precise governance in medical institutions - re exploring the essence of the legal attributes of doctor-patient relationships. He first emphasized the importance of the legal attributes of doctor-patient relationships and meticulously depicted the current academic landscape of this issue. Subsequently, Teacher Hu elaborated on his core viewpoint - the dominant administrative theory. This theory holds that in the national healthcare industry, the doctor-patient relationship in the legal business field should not be regarded as a civil legal relationship, but should be defined as an administrative legal relationship. On this basis, he advocates that the relevant provisions of national compensation laws should be applied to compensation for infringement damages in such relationships. With the formal incorporation of the right to health into the legal system, the attributes of doctor-patient relationships should be clearly defined as administrative legal relationships. This viewpoint not only highly aligns with General Secretary Xi Jinping's grand vision of a Healthy China and a human health community, but also lays a solid theoretical foundation for the promotion of health rule of law during the 14th Five Year Plan period.
President Wang Qihui delivered a report titled Improving the Internal Autonomy System of Public Hospitals Based on the Workers' Congress. Based on Article 86 of the Basic Medical and Health Promotion Law, he deeply analyzed the common model of internal autonomy structure in public hospitals, which includes party committee leadership, administrative department management, management decision-making, and specialized business operations. He particularly emphasized the important roles of disciplinary inspection and supervision departments and audit and legal departments in the supervision system. President Wang further proposed that as an important platform for democratic management, the Workers' Congress also contains the potential and space for supervision within its functional scope. He pointed out that there are already ten local regulations nationwide that have issued the Regulations on the Workers' Congress. These regulations not only clarify the basic responsibilities of the Workers' Congress in safeguarding the rights and interests of employees, but also creatively endow it with new functions of supervising the daily governance and operation of public hospitals, which helps to ensure the transparency and effectiveness of supervision work and promote the further improvement and development of the internal autonomy system of public hospitals.
At the closing ceremony, Shao Yongsheng, the president of Jiangsu Health Law Association, gave a wonderful summary. He first expressed warm congratulations on the successful holding of this seminar and sincerely thanked all the units involved in the hosting work. At the same time, Chairman Shao also expressed sincere gratitude to all the speakers, hosts, and experts and scholars who actively participated in the discussion. President Shao pointed out that this seminar had in-depth and professional discussions on key issues such as healthcare institution reform and governance, doctor-patient relationships, medical disputes, and healthcare resource allocation. The speakers not only shared the latest research results and practical experience in their respective fields, but also proposed many constructive solutions to the existing problems. These discussions not only provided valuable communication platforms for attendees, but also provided useful ideas and references for promoting the improvement of the governance system of Chinese characteristic medical institutions. In addition, the free speech and interactive session stimulated extensive participation from attendees, resulting in valuable insights and fruitful outcomes. The Modernization of National Governance System and Governance Capacity series of academic activities organized by the Jiangsu Provincial Federation of Social Sciences - Seminar on Collaborative Construction of the Governance System of Chinese Characteristics Medical Institutions - came to a successful conclusion in a warm atmosphere.