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The May 7, 2009, release of Opinion of the State Council on the Support and Acceleration of the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine culminated recent statements from China’s Ministry of Health and nationwide activities to promote traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The position paper offers insights into the current standing of TCM in China and its expanding role in China’s healthcare.

Contrary to most Westerners’ perception, TCM plays a relatively minor role in the average Chinese citizen’s life today. Just as in the West, there is some level of recognition of its potential value, but when it comes to medicine, most Chinese people look to the West. In fact, in recent years, there has been vigorous debate about its future in China.

The fact that the position paper originated from the State Council underscores how important TCM is to the government. The policy recommendations reflect the fundamental principle that TCM and Western medicine are of equal importance.

Updated pricing and government subsidy to support the transition. The government plans to evaluate and update fee schedules for TCM services (e.g., patient consultation, prescription, pharmacy compounding) by qualified personnel, with the goal of bringing prices to a level that adequately reflects the value of TCM. TCM will systematically be included in formularies. Furthermore, the government plans to step in with subsidies while the market adjusts to the new (and higher) prices.

Maximizing the value of TCM in preventive medicine. Conventional wisdom in China is that TCM is most valuable in systemic adjustments that can improve health. Toward that end, the paper recommends establishing the Chinese Medicine Preventive Medicine Services Organization, which will mandate qualification and certification of professionals and service standards as well as provide leadership and management focused on the use of TCM in health maintenance.

Incorporating TCM in expansion plans for healthcare facilities. The policy paper calls for financial support to encourage the inclusion of TCM in more than 20,000 new healthcare facilities in rural, urban and suburban communities. Specifically, one fifth of healthcare facilities being constructed this year will be allocated to TCM.

Investing in training and development. According to Vice Minister of Health Wang Guo Qiang, the bottleneck in the development of TCM lies in the scarcity of trained professionals. The plan will address three areas in education: (1) recruitment of students and improving the quality of incoming students; (2) reviewing and revising the curriculum to better match real-world healthcare needs by emphasizing clinical practice rather than theory; (3) ensuring that TCM students have a rich fund of knowledge that can be drawn upon in clinical practice.

This interest in TCM is not new in China. The push toward improving manufacturing quality and applying a level of regulatory rigor and demand for efficacy and safety data comparable to Western medicine has been going on for some time. With the position paper from the State Council, however, there is now a mandate to advance TCM. Let’s hope this translates into innovations that the whole world can benefit from, particularly in preventive medicine.

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