Introduction

Early in March 2014, Ding Yitao, the honorary president of Nanjing Gulou Hospital, an
affiliated hospital of Nanjing University Medical School (hereinafter referred to as Gulou
Hospital), was visiting the outpatient building. Founded in 1892, Gulou Hospital is one of the
earliest western medical hospitals constructed in China. Although morning peak hour, Ding saw
a largely quiet crowd in the outpatient building. In the central part of the hall, a volunteer was
playing the piano to soothe patients with music. Ding looked around and felt comfortable with
the light blue and turquoise interior decoration. An outdoor water square directly extended into
the hall, bringing a hint of calm. Above, he saw balconies protruding between floors, like small
courtyard houses. Not far away, the enticing smell of coffee wafted up from Starbucks.

In 2004, Gulou Hospital had embarked on a transformation to build the best patient centered care
hospital in China. Delivering quality care with a human touch was its objective. Subsequently,
the hospital had built China's first memorial museum for a Western Medical Hospital. A new
hospital facility had been constructed that fully reflected the hospital's historical concern with
care. The hospital has reinvented its internal management and operations to align with this
mission. At the end of 2014, Han Guangshu, former vice president of the hospital, took over the
post as the new president. His vision was to turn Gulou Hospital into the country's best
comprehensive hospital which also offered the best patient-centric care.

Chinese Hospital Culture

China's health care system has been dominated by public hospitals. As of the end of March 2013,
China had a total of 23,551 hospitals, including 13,385 public hospitals.1 Since the Reform and
Opening Up, development of public hospitals has gone through four phases. In the 1980s, public
hospitals expanded in scale to remove the obstacles to get to see doctors, getting admitted to the
hospital and scheduling operations for the public. In the early 1990s, public hospitals focused on
internal operation, aiming to improve the quality of health care, reduce costs and improve
efficiency. In the early 2000s, public hospitals were involved in upgrading the management of
medical institutions. In recent years, hospital operations have increasingly been decentralized in
local operations.2

Hospitals focusing on patient centered care is a new innovation in China. It is a major step
forward from the previous graduated scale for Chinese hospitals. The categories of “Grade
hospital”, “Civilized hospital”, “Safe hospital”, “Modern hospital”, and “High-quality hospital”
had been previously used to classify the development of Chinese public hospitals. “Grade
hospitals” were constructed to increase the number of hospital beds and size of hospital;
“Civilized hospital” refers to improving the quality of the hospital's total units; “Safe hospital”
emphasizes creating a good practice environment and improvement of doctor-patient relations;
“Modern hospital” encompasses modernization of technology, management, services,
equipment, personnel and other aspects; “High-quality hospital” attaches great importance to
safety, quality, service, and efficiency. These different concepts emerged sequentially. 3

The healthcare industry is a special service industry, whose human touch should be truly
important. In recent years, doctor-patient conflicts, however, have become increasingly frequent
and vicious in China, putting the issue under the spotlight. In March 2012, a young man armed
with a knife broke into a doctor's office in the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical
University, killing a doctor and seriously injured other three others. 65% of Internet users
reported that they felt “joyful” when they heard the news. “Medical mobs” have emerged one
after another. In extreme cases, doctors have had to wear steel helmets at work, and medical
institutions have hired part-time police officers. Data from the Chinese Hospital Association
shows that violent attack incidents occurred in 73.3% of Class Three hospitals, 59% of hospital
presidents have been threatened with attack. Doctor-patient conflict was listed as the second
greatest health hazard in 2013 in China, ranking second only to environmental haze.

Research on the reasons for deteriorating doctor-patient relations based on 2003 to 2012 survey
data suggests the following causes.4 The primary reason is the lack of warm personable care by
medical personnel in the course of treatment. Lack of communication between doctors and
patients and poor communication skills account for 15% of reported problems. This is followed
by lack of trust and understanding between doctors and patients, which account for 9%. Others
factors, include degradation of professional ethics of medical staff, medical staff's ignoring of the
feelings of patients, lack of responsibility and compassion of medical staff etc. In aggregate these
items account for 59% of reported problems. In short, the lack of a care focus by medical
personnel is an important factor in causing conflict between doctors and patients. “Doctors” and
“patients” have become two conflicting groups that no longer have unconditional trust between
each other.

Consequently, building hospitals with a care focus is an important initiative to further reform and
develop public hospitals. In the Guidance on the Reform of Public Hospitals jointly issued by the
Ministry of Health and other five ministries, a section in Article 6 “Strengthening Management
of Public Hospitals” is dedicated to improving hospital services. Since then the Ministry of
Health has issued more documents; carried out various activities and raised the requirements for
hospital services, all of which attach great importance to improving the patients' medical
experience.

However, Chinese public hospitals face ever growing challenges in implementing patient-
centered care. A large population with increasing healthcare demands makes it difficult for
hospitals to provide adequate personal attention to an individual patient. In Beijing alone, there
are 12 hospitals having more than 1,000 beds, 9 hospitals having 750–1000 beds, and 16
hospitals having 500–749 beds, whereas in the US, only 27 hospitals have over 1000
beds.5 However, despite these numbers, the number of hospitals and medical supplies still fall
short of demand. What is equally troublesome is the uneven distribution of medical resources
across the country and uneven distribution of healthcare demand between hospitals. In large
hospitals, doctors are often overloaded. It is estimated that a doctor treats approximately 100
patients on a daily basis. The long waiting times aggravate patients. In addition, given the
crowdedness, patient's personal privacy is not well protected, as some have to stay in hallways
and public areas for treatment. In China's large children's hospitals, intravenous rooms are often
overcrowded. As a result many parents have to stay in the aisles carrying intravenous bottles, or
even hanging the bottles on trees outside. In contrast to the overloaded situation in large
hospitals, small hospitals and community hospitals have few patients, in part because these
hospitals are so handicapped by limited financial and human capital resources and support that
patients do not want to go there.

History and Heritage of Gulou Hospital

Gulou Hospital was one of the earliest western medical hospitals in China. It was founded by Dr.
William Edward Macklin, M.D., Disciples (Canada) Mission to China, with the assistance of
Prof. Frank Eugene Meigs, the Church of Christ (USA), and the local Nanjing community.
Macklin first arrived in Nanjing on April 16, 1886 and established quarters in the Southgate
district of Nanking where he founded his first dispensary. In 1890, new mission homes were
constructed in the Gulou District of Nanjing where Macklin also established a new medical
clinic. In 1892, Macklin founded Gulou Hospital. The hospital was original named Nanjing
Christian Hospital, but was widely known as “Ma Lin Hospital” after the Chinese name of the
founder (Macklin was translated into Chinese as “Ma Lin”). After 1902, with rising costs, and an
urgent need for qualified medical staff, the American Presbyterian Missions to China, and the
American Methodist Missions to China, provided funding and staff for the hospital, as well as
for the University of Nanjing. The hospital was renamed Gulou Hospital in honor of the adjacent
1382 A.D. Drum Tower (Gu Lou), heart of the Ming Dynasty's first capital city, where the
hospital was founded (see Appendix 1 for Macklin's photo and the original compound of Gulou
Hospital). In 1913, Gulou Hospital was formally united with the University of Nanjing to form
the University of Nanjing Medical College, and the Hospital served as the teaching hospital of
the University. In 1952, Gulou Hospital became an independent, municipal hospital of Nanjing.
In 1987, the Hospital became an Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School.
Gulou Hospital is now a large-scale, Class-III general hospital that combines medical services,
teaching, and scientific research. As of 2013, the hospital maintains 2,500 beds and 3,345
employees, 8 national key clinical disciplines, 35 provincial projects (key laboratories, key
medical centres, key medical disciplines, and key clinical specialists), 5 provincial quality
control centres, and 8 provincial special disease treatment centres. In 2012, the hospital received
2.15 million outpatient and emergency visits and admitted more than 58,000 inpatients.

Unlike other public hospitals in China, Gulou Hospital enjoys a long and unique cultural
heritage. Macklin not only introduced advanced medical technology, such as lobectomy
operation into China, but also infused the idea of “no harm to patients as the first priority” as the
core value for Gulou hospital. The hospital built “love, kindness, and public service” into its
philosophy. During the many historical upheavals of the past 115 years, and the horrific trauma
and sufferings of war, the hospital has remained a center of hope and healing. The Christian
concept of love has been passed on from generation to generation in the hospital.

Reforming Gulou Hospital

Since the mid-1980s – with the collapse of the era's commune-based health system – the main
impetus for hospital reform in China has been to reduce the financial burden that hospital care
places on government budgets. In 1992, the Ministry of Health granted substantial financial
autonomy to hospitals, allowing them to charge for their services. They are permitted to keep the
surpluses that they generate, but they are now responsible for their debts and operating losses.
Competition has become fierce as private hospitals and foreign hospitals enter the market. In the
wake of gradual tightening of government investment, increasingly fierce competition in the
health care market and rapid growth in demand for health services, public hospitals have been
under tremendous pressure to reform. Class-III hospitals have changed management concepts
and models laying increasing emphasis on strategic planning and management to respond to
changes in the internal and external environment.6 Public hospitals, through the provision of
diversified services, vertical integration, market development, service (product) development,
have begun to actively expand market coverage and increase market penetration. 7

Gulou Hospital has also felt the pressure to identify and strengthen its core competency to stay
competitive in the market. Instead, however, of building competitive edge in advanced
technology and hiring more high-quality professionals, as most other hospitals have done, senior
administrators of Gulou Hospital have aspired to become “the best patient care centered hospital
in China.” Ding Yitao commented, “The overriding priority for China's healthcare reform is to
motivate the medical staff. That does not mean, however, that spending more money will make a
better hospital. When we paid a visit to the Mayo Clinic in the United States, we were surprised
to find a key focus on improving the doctors' outlook on providing humane service. In China, a
doctor's professional competence is largely decided by how many papers he or she has published
in prestigious journals and how many times their papers were cited by others. We feel a doctor
should harbor humanistic feelings. We hope patients not only get cured at our hospital, but also
receive emotional comfort and consolation which help the cure. Many people believe this will be
critical in the future, and that hospital construction must demonstrate the importance of patient-
oriented care. Therefore, it is our goal to build the best care-oriented hospital in China.” 8 The
goal is to fundamentally change the passive situation of the existing health care system and
create a cultural system based on common values between health care providers and patients
promoting care as the key value. Care-oriented hospitals aim to establish a patient-centered
environment where a main management tool is improved care and the highest purpose of service
is to relieve the suffering of patients. These hospitals will create an environment of
understanding and respect, allowing the development of people who inspire employees' to give
better patient-oriented care.

Gulou Hospital enjoys several natural advantages in adopting a patient care oriented approach:

 (1)

Gulou Hospital is one of the few medical institutions in China with a Christian cultural
origin. The founder Macklin shaped the idea of “no prejudice to patients as the first
 priority” as the hospital's core value. The long history and rich cultural heritage of Gulou
Hospital inspires and strengthens its mission to be the best care-oriented hospital in
China.

 (2)

Ding Yitao himself is a firm believer in patient-centric care. Born into a family of
doctors, Ding Yitao was trained in the PLA Institute of Hepatobiliary Surgery and
Australian National Liver Transplant Center in his early years. Ding Yitao is an expert in
liver transplantation and a stickler for human-oriented care himself. Once, he went to a
primary hospital a few hundred miles away to fetch liver supplies with several
physicians. In a hurry, he fell on the ground trying to load liver supplies on a truck. Since
the liver supplies were urgently needed, Ding Yitao, despite bleeding on the back of his
head, asked his colleagues to simply bandage the wound so he could get the supplies
minutes earlier to the patient on the operating table, thus increasing the chances of
survival. When the driver proposed slowing down a bit for safety reasons, he rejected the
suggestion.

 (3)

Gulou Hospital has been a pioneer of continuous reform and improvement. In 1996,
Gulou Hospital established the first domestic hospital group, expanded its operation scale
and modernized its management system, as a result of which the Group now has 12
hospitals. In 2003, Gulou Hospital Group became an independent legal entity and
acquired the People's Hospital in Suqian City. It became the first domestic shareholding
hospital and pioneered “market-oriented” hospital restructuring. Much of the reform
measures, some controversial at the time, turned out to be a success.

Implementation of the Reform

Once the mission was determined, Ding Yitao did an extensive research on the best practice for
building care-oriented hospitals in and outside of China. In December 2005, he completed an
investigation report and Gulou Hospital's senior administrators formally proposed a roadmap that
laid out the three stages of development as well as the objectives for each stage (see Appendix
2). At a high level, the strategic transformation would be implemented by: building a memorial
hall to honor the heritage of humanity at Gulou Hospital; launching an expansion project for the
hospital that improves availability and quality of health care; transforming hospital management,
operation and performance evaluation processes in a way that would stimulate the cultural
consciousness of all employees and create a human-oriented hospital.
Discover and honor the heritage: the memorial museum

A memorial museum of Gulou Hospital was built in 2006 (see Appendix 3 for picture). Locating
on the historical site of Macklin Hospital, the memorial museum was the first memorial of a
western medical institution in China. It remembers and honors the founder Dr. William Edward
Macklin, records the history of the hospital, and holds on to the heritage of caring that Macklin
brought to the hospital. Inside the two-floor museum are displays of historical photographs,
medical equipment, medical instruments and other physical archives.

The memorial museum is now a training facility for the hospital. Every new staff is required to
visit the museum and learn the history of Gulou Hospital as part of their training. As Ding Yitao
commented, “A doctor must first have love, he can then become a talent after he learns how to
behave himself.”9 The memorial is listed as a “patriotic education base in Nanjing” and made
available to the public for free.

State-of-the-art hospital building that reflects a caring vision

The hospital expansion project aims at designing and building a state-of-the-art medical facility
that fully reflects Gulou Hospital's vision of improving patients' treatment experience and
healing process, supported by stimulating architecture (see Appendix 4 for picture). The new
facility is an integrated space for research, education and patient care, and increases the number
of hospital beds by an additional 1,600. Vice president of Gulou Hospital, Ma Rong, in charge of
the project noted, “My job is to make sure the new building balances between functionality and
caring concerns.”

To ensure the designer, a leading Swiss design firm, fully understood the mission and the
requirements, Ma Rong insisted on meeting the designer at the hospital on a Monday morning,
the busiest and most chaotic time for Gulou Hospital. He also asked the designer to sit in a
doctor's office for an hour to observe how Chinese doctors work, and experience the treatment
process. These activities helped the foreign designers better understand the uniqueness and
subtlety of Chinese hospital operation and patient needs, and tailor the design to meet these
special demands. For example, compared to western hospitals, Chinese hospitals demand a more
spacious waiting area. This is because Chinese patients are usually accompanied by several
family members for hospital visits. While the patient is with the doctor or in surgery, family
members must wait in the waiting area, making it overly crowded. To ease anxious family
members and provide inpatients a higher quality life, the new building contains a coffee shop,
several food-courts with Chinese and foreign style cuisines, and supermarkets. In the central hall,
there is a piano, donated by an older ex-employee of Gulou Hospital, frequently played by
volunteers.

The design principle of healing architecture was introduced and the notion of a “healing garden”
proposed. In Spanish, “hospital” and “hotel” share the same origin, and refer to a welcome to
gather for treatment. However in Chinese, “hospital” refers to a medical courtyard, which
emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between patients and space. “Healing garden” is more in
line with the desire of easterners to be loved and the desire for warmth in medical care. The new
medical building was just like the Chinese traditional quadrangle and the open courtyard,
enclosed atrium and open water square were set up in succession. The five-floor outpatient
department forms an open atrium covering 1600 m2. The lawn on the first floor of the bottom of
the atrium brings green, sunshine and fresh air to the patients and visitors. There are eight light
wells in the atrium, and ten-meter-high bamboo comes out from the first layer to contrast with
the greenbelt. The 14th floor of the inpatient department is square and the sixth floor is installed
with glass roof, forming a closed atrium.

The caring and patient-centric philosophy embedded in the new hospital design was also
reflected in facilities that greatly simplify the treatment process and enhance the patient
experience. In most public hospitals in China, registration, cashier, pharmacy, dispensary, are not
located on the same floor. Patients have to run up and down stairs frequently. To streamline the
process, the new medical building was equipped with 78 self-service registration and payment
machines, through which, the patient can complete the “over-counter services” of card
application, registration and payment. Each floor has a pharmacy and a robotic prescription
dispensary system (see Appendix 5). Such arrangement requires more upfront investment and
demands more space, but significantly reduces the patient's queuing and round-trip time.
Registration, fee collection, dispensary, and blood drawing windows are set up on each floor of
the outpatient department. Thus, the outpatient and emergency patients can complete the entire
process of medical examination in one area.

The joint emergency room is another innovation of the new medical building. Instead of having
the out-patients in need of emergency treatment sent from department to department, the so-
called joint emergency room accommodates doctors from various departments and enables joint
treatment of the incoming patient. Gulou Hospital also created a “medical emergency street”,
under which, the rescue recovery room, intensive care unit, observation ward, joint emergency
room, infusion room and other sections have their own system and are closely related. This
enables joint diagnosis and treatment among multiple disciplines such as internal medicine,
surgery, obstetrics, gynecology and otolaryngology.10

The new medical building is equipped with a thermostat for the operating room. In the winter,
liquid is imported to surgery patients after being heated, which greatly reduces the discomfort of
the patient. The Gastroscopy washing room covers hundreds of square metres. The hospital has
introduced Asian first-class modern cleaning equipment, which digitizes all cleaning processes,
with every cleaning operation recorded. This ensures greater safety of the patient and avoids
infectious diseases. However, the high costs for introducing these facilities are not transferred to
the patients. Gulou Hospital still performs standardised Nanjing charging principles in terms of
endoscopy cleaning. “Modern hospitals must make such an investment,” Ding Yitao said, “We
should seek benefits for the patient and the interests of the hospital should be taken care of by the
improvement of health care efficiency and processes. Gulou Hospital will firstly save life rather
than asking for money, from either farmers or beggars. We will absolutely adhere to our
direction, which has been publicised for a long time and has been recognised by all.”
At the end of 2012, daily outpatient visits approached 10,000 during the first month the new
medical building operated. Unlike other public hospitals that are usually crowded and even
chaotic, Gulou Hospital operates in an orderly fashion. The Nanjing citizens voted in 2012 that
Gulou Hospital be listed as the first of ten landmark buildings in Nanjing. In 2013, Gulou
Hospital project won the British World Architecture News (WAN) Award.

Internal management and operation

In addition to improving physical infrastructure that enables the delivery of patient-centric care,
the senior administrators of Gulou Hospital also initiated a series of changes to the hospital's
internal operations adding new measures that promote the caring core value. Selected changes
include:

(1) Performance evaluation and incentive systems

Since 2004, Gulou Hospital has carried out each year a theme annual activity such as service
year, management and efficiency year, and culture year (see Appendix 6). Each year,
departments across the hospital engage in a competition for honour titles, such as “Department of
caring”, “Unit of caring”, and “Employee of caring”, etc. Gulou Hospital also aligns the mission
of constructing a caring hospital with employee performance evaluation that incorporates non-
financial metrics related to care quality and patient satisfaction level. To maintain objectivity,
patient satisfaction level was assessed by a third party institution through surveys, interviews and
questionnaires. Within one month after a patient's discharge, the patient receives a telephone
follow-up survey, including questions, such as doctor and nurse's attitude, whether bribes or
kickbacks were involved, and any other violations or dissatisfaction. Survey results are fed back
to the hospital and the relevant departments. If problems occur, the key department(s) make
immediate rectifications.
In 2013, Gulou Hospital initiated a new provision for its telephone follow-up system. The first
telephone call after a patient is discharged must be made by the deputy director. “The patient
feels grateful when he receives a call from the deputy director,” Zhou Changjiang, vice president
and deputy party secretary of Gulou Hospital, said.

To ensure quality care and reduce the chance of making mistakes, Gulou Hospital does not
encourage doctors or nurses to work overtime. The hospital emphasizes work efficiency over
hours worked.

(2) Staff training

“When I first joined Gulou Hospital, the director led us in making the rounds of the wards. He
told us to walk and speak lightly, be gentle and kind to patients and to change shirts and shave
every day. He thought that a doctor, when standing in front of the patient, should have a clean
and dignified image to win the patient's trust,” Ding Yitao said. He hopes to convey the caring
philosophy of Gulou Hospital from generation to generation by example. Ding Yitao personally
teaches a three-hour orientation class to new staff. The title of his presentation is “Hospital
Culture Heritage and Innovation”. The most important aspect of new staff training is to instill
cultural consciousness and a caring philosophy into their minds.

Senior administrators of Gulou Hospital also understand that the hospital staff must be treated
with dignity and support first so that they would deliver the same quality care to their patients.
The hospital provides a comfortable working, learning and living environment. In the new
medical building, there are advanced multimedia classrooms to facilitate learning discussions
and academic exchanges among the departments and sections. The hospital has developed a new
library site in cooperation with the largest medical sites in China, and created an advanced one-
stop search platform, which allows employees to enjoy comfortable reading time in the library,
and complete a variety of retrieval processes at home. An electronic bookstore has also been
established. The hospital has also established a modern and international conference center,
which offers full HD video system that can simultaneously broadcast the HD signals of eight
surgeries. It is rare for domestic hospitals. This facility allows audio and video interaction with
the operating room to meet teaching needs and support various international academic
conferences.

(3) Supporting infrastructure

Gulou Hospital also takes advantage of its IT system and advanced technologies to standardize
the medical practice and treatment processes. For example, the consumption of antibacterial
drugs was previously large because it was being used to sterilize incisions. This was because
doctors thought that the air and overall environment is highly polluted and thus post-surgery
infection probability is high. Consequently, even although an incision wound is already sterile,
doctors tended to use antibiotics on the patient. To standardize the medical practice and prevent
excess drug use, Gulou Hospital has designed a computer system for antibiotics management.
The system monitors administration of antibacterial drugs. In case of potential over-dose, a
warning is triggered.

Results of the Reform

Since Gulou Hospital embarked on the journey to build the best caring hospital in China, it has
generated positive results both in terms of patient attraction and satisfaction level. In 2013, the
outpatient emergency visits rose by 19.56% and the number of inpatient stays increased by
22.32%. The largest number of emergency visit in a day was 12,263 while inpatients reached a
level of 2,453. The patient satisfaction survey noted the patient satisfaction level increased from
84.97% in 2006 to 95.66% in 2013 (see Appendix 7). Gulou Hospital has also conducted
comprehensive surveys of employee satisfaction, happiness and loyalty assessment. The results
of these surveys also increased year by year (see Appendix 8). In a patient satisfaction
assessment conducted by Jiangsu Health and Family Planning Commission of 101 tertiary
hospitals in Jiangsu province, Gulou Hospital topped other participating hospitals for five
consecutive years. The technical satisfaction degree for doctors was 100%, and there were no
circumstances of accepting “red pockets”.

Gulou Hospital has become an exemplar of a modern, patient-centric care-oriented hospital in

China. The hospital won the award of outstanding hospital in 2010 for outstanding quality care
given by the Ministry of Health. It has also won the hospital reform innovation award of the
Ministry of Health as well as 100 national, provincial and municipal awards. Gulou Hospital's
project, Theory and Practice of Building a Patient-Centric Care-Oriented Hospital, won the
highest award the Award of Chinese Hospital Association. In 2014, Gulou Hospital participated
in the preparing hospital cultural standards for the National Health and Family Planning
Commission.

Going Forward

Despite the achievements, Ding Yitao still feels that “the task is arduous and there is still a long
way to go.” For example, how can we ensure that every employee fully understands and shares
the vision of building the best patient-central care hospital? “There are certainly some technical
difficulties and problems in designing and constructing a patient-care-centric hospital, but I think
the most important and challenging aspect is engaging the understanding and participation of
employees,” Ding Yitao said. To build a patient-care-oriented hospital, step by step guidance and
education are required to cultivate the staff's cohesion and self-consciousness. This requires
perseverance and takes time. How to further deepen the reform and engage all employees is a
challenge. To this end, the senior administrators have developed a new future development
roadmap (See Appendix 9).

Gulou Hospital is also subject to criticism and external pressure. For example, the introduction of
the joint emergency room was highly controversial. Some criticized this practice of “mixing
internal medicine and surgery”. The installment of coffee shops and piano in the hospital
building also raised criticism. Some believe these arrangements are a waste of hospital resources
and are unnecessary. These spaces should instead be utilized to build more wards and hospital
beds.

In addition, the building of patient-oriented-care hospital requires significant expenditure. While

patient and employee satisfaction level has been on the rise, Gulou Hospital also must carefully
balance its patient-centric care core value with financial performance, which becomes an
increasing challenge given government's scaling back of financial support to public hospitals.
Can Gulou Hospital's core competency be able to sustain itself into the future and continue to
enable the hospital to gain a strong foothold in the increasingly crowded healthcare market?

Study Questions

 1.

Why did Gulou Hospital choose the transformation strategy of “building the best
humanistic hospital”?

 2.

How did Gulou Hospital implement the transformation? What steps were
involved?

 3.

What benefits did Gulou Hospital obtain by focusing on patient care concerns?

 4.

Taking the construction of Gulou Hospital's new building as an example, how did
it reflect the concept of “patient-centered and care” philosophy?

References

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5. Source: Statistics from Huameikang Hospital Management Consulting Company.

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