The online health consultations that could ease pressure on China's hospitals

 20-Apr-15, South China Morning Post 

A health project in Shanghai in which patients receive medical advice over the internet from regional specialists could hold the key to relieving an imbalance in the mainland's health system that sees big hospitals crowded with patients, but grass-roots health centres almost deserted.

Image: South China Morning Post

Peng Qian, the director of information technology at the district health authority, said the government was keen to promote long-distance consulting so that grass-roots hospitals could attract more people by providing input from leading doctors at major hospitals.

"We want to build a 'tier-treatment system' and realise a scenario in which most patients are treated at low-level hospitals, rather than crowding them all into big ones," he told the South China Morning Post.

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