China is planning to establish national medical centers across the country and set up one regional center for comprehensive medical treatment in every province by 2020.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission announced its plan for medical centers during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020).

As China continues to face a shortage and uneven distribution of medical resources in the process of urbanization, the move is to promote the supply-side structural reform for medical care and form an orderly medical layout for patients to seek treatment.

According to the plan, these national medical centers will play a leading role in the diagnosis and treatment of critical illness, cultivate high-level medical personnel and basic medical research.

Over the next five years, regional medical treatment centers will be set up in hospitals with advanced medical skills in six major regions including the north and northeast of China, according to the plan.

By 2020, relying on the existing three-tier medical care system, national and regional medical centers should be functioning to improve the allocation and sharing of medical resources between different regions, and create proper conditions for the development of stratified medical care system.