Motivation
Problems in medical service
Chinese people now are facing serious problems to go to see a doctor and get medical help. There are tremendous gaps between municipal-level hospitals and grass-rooted ones. Large hospitals in cities always have clean floors, advanced medical instruments and experienced doctors, while small hospitals are lack of these, especially outstanding doctors[1]. Consequently, municipal hospitals are always crowded of people. Citizens have to queue for a long time to get medical help. Moreover, the cost of medical service and medicine remains a problem.
As a result, many people refuse to go to the hospital, unless they feel there’s something wrong with their physical condition, let alone physical test. In fact, physical examination has become a dilemma. On one hand, the public want to know whether they are healthy, on the other hand, they worry about the cost [2].
See more of this part in HP medical service.
Importance of early diagnosis
Early diagnosis plays a critical role in cancer treatment. In China, there are 1.6 billion people died from cancer every year. Cancer has become No.1 which causes most municipal patients die. But an amazing portion of 80%~90% patients can recover if they get treatment in early five years [3]. A typical example should be diabetes, which early diagnosis and protection can lower the disease rate to 45% and delay the outbreak for 3~5 years [4]
As for Pheochromocytoma, which our project aimed at, a review announced that early diagnosis is of superior significance. For patients who get malignant Pheochromocytoma which already spread, only 40% can survive for five years. But if they get confirmed diagnosis before the tumor migrants, they can survive for an average of 15 years [5].
Consequently, early diagnosis should be attached importance to.
Our hospital experience
We went to two municipal hospitals in Shanghai (Ruijin Hospital and No.9 Hospital) and one community hospital in Guizhou Province. At the registration office, we see a long queue. But for the community hospital in Guizhou Province, few people were seen there. The hall of Ruijin Hospital is clean and bright, while that of the community hospital is obviously darker.
We interviewed some patients at Ruijin Hospital. Most of them said they felt it hard to get medical help. They have to wait for a long time to see a doctor. Moreover, it’s expensive to take medical treatment. When we asked about physical test, they said they often did it.
See more at HP Hospital Experiencing.
In case of these reasons mentioned above, we came up with our project, hoping to help people get convenient early diagnosis for certain disease domestically with low cost.
Reference
[1] Zhen C., et al. Current Situation of Public Hospital at Grass-roots level and Countermeasures in Health Care Reform, Contemporary Medicine. 2016, Vol.22 No.13 Issue No.420
[2] Proposals on Deepening the Reform of Medical System. General Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (GOSSC), 2009
[3] General situation of cancer of People’s Republic of China in 2015. The people's Republic of China National Healthand Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), 2015.
[4] Fang F. et al. Paying attention to the early screening and management of diabetes. Chinese Community Doctors, 2016, Vol 32, No.12
[5] Han J. et al. Early diagnosis for malignant Pheochromocytoma. Chin J Urol, Jun 1997, Vol 18, No. 6
