Zhang Yang

nicolezyyy@163.com

A FORUM highlighting the topic of green health care was held at the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital (HKU-SZH) yesterday and attended by medical experts from home and abroad.

“I think it’s a very exciting forum, especially for China, but also for medical care around the world. We need to be better at managing our resources to provide health care in a sustainable way,” said Prof. Cliff Hughes, immediate past president of International Society for Quality in Health Care.

According to Prof. Hughes, the core of green health care is that people should be responsible in the way they use medical resources. “We need to look at health care and make sure we are responsible so that health care is sustainable. That’s what green health care is all about,” he said.

Prof. Hughes said the misuse of antibiotics is one example that goes against the idea of green health care, because giving unnecessary antibiotics to patients will allow the bacterium to become resistant, and when the patients really need the antibiotics, they won’t work.

According to him, a good example of green health care in China is that many outpatients are currently given oral antibiotics instead of intravenous antibiotics, which has lowered the risk of infection. “By switching from intravenous antibiotics to oral antibiotics, you can save a large amount of money and also improve the quality of health care at the same time,” Prof. Hughes said.

Lo Chung-mau, president of the HKU-SZH, said efficient use of medical resources is the way to achieve green health care at a hospital.

HKU-SZH is the only hospital in Shenzhen that hasn’t provided intravenous drips for its outpatients since the first day of its operation. Since last April, many hospitals in the city have followed suit and stopped offering intravenous drips in their outpatient departments.

“Over 10 billion infusion bottles are consumed in China each year, which is a huge waste of economic and environmental resources,” Lo said, adding that the cancellation of intravenous drips in the outpatient department also saves patients from unnecessary treatment and extra medical bills.

The hospital’s fixed-payment system for calculating medical bills is another way to discourage excessive treatment, because a patient’s medical costs won’t be calculated based on the amount of medicine prescribed or the number of tests they undergo. It’s a way to reduce the waste of medical resources and cut costs for the hospital, Lo said.

HKU-SZH passed the review process to become a top-grade hospital Saturday after a team of experts were sent by the provincial health and family planning commission to the hospital for an on-site review. Currently, there are 12 top-grade hospitals in Shenzhen, and HKU-SZH and Luohu People’s Hospital will become another two top-grade hospitals.

Lo said the hospital has taken a big step forward by becoming a top-grade hospital as it is a young hospital, established only five years ago. According to him, the hospital will continue to improve the quality of its medical services and promote personal training and medical research in order to cultivate medical professionals for Shenzhen and the rest of the country over the next five years.