Building China’s Regional Municipal Healthcare Performance Evaluation System: A Tuscan Perspective

Regional healthcare performance evaluation system (PES) can help optimize healthcare resources on regional basis and to improve the performance of healthcare services provided. The Tuscany region in Italy is a good example in meeting these requirements. China is yet to build such a system based on international experience. In this paper, based on comparative studies between Tuscany and China we propose that the Chinese managing institutions can select and commission a third party agency to respectively evaluate the performance of their affiliated hospitals and community health service centers. Following some features of the Tuscan experience, the Chinese municipal PES can be built by focusing on the selection of an appropriate performance evaluation agency, the design of an adequate performance evaluation mechanism, and the formulation of a complete set of laws, rules and regulations. When a PES system at city level is formed, the provincial government can extend the successful experience to other cities.