Lisa Han, a partner at Jones Day, one of the largest law firms worldwide, provides legal services for hospitals, governments, and facilitators in the global healthcare space, as well as a variety of other legal issues. During the 9th World Medical Tourism & Global Healthcare Congress, Medical Tourism Magazine had the chance to sit down with Ms. Han to hear about her take on medical tourism and healthcare development in China.
China recently began reforming their healthcare system with the goal of innovating China’s healthcare space by 2020. These reforms will encourage direct investment and merger acquisition activities. There are also many proactive efforts to update medical facilities to reduce the overcrowding of public hospitals. All steps are being instituted to provide basic healthcare needs to more of the general population.
Presently, joint ventures between Chinese hospitals and U.S. or other foreign hospitals are the main focus. Additionally, the Chinese government is working towards improving the quality of their healthcare providers through education in order to elevate the overall quality of healthcare services. One of the main challenges for these joint ventures is the present shortage of quality healthcare providers in China.
“Just because it is a U.S. brand doesn’t make the Chinese hospital joint venture or investment a success,” said Han. She believes that the most important elements need to come together in order to have a successful model.
“It is critical for U.S. hospitals to collaborate with Chinese doctors and hospitals so that they can develop a modern design, modern hospital system and offer quality healthcare services,” she added.
Concerning medical tourism in China, Han listed two of the most common misconceptions:
- People believe that Chinese technology might not be as advanced as is available in the U.S.
- For U.S. healthcare systems that seek to recruit Chinese patients, management needs to understand the culture of the Chinese population in order to make this a reality.
“The goal is to provide that high-quality care in a culturally sensible and efficient manner,” said Han.
