"Bringing together the expertise, talents and resources from the corporate and health care sectors in China to address a specific health challenge, in this case chronic diseases, is what Project HOPE does best," said John P. Howe III, M.D., President and CEO of Project HOPE. "HOPE has a long and successful history of creating powerful partnerships to improve the health of the Chinese people."


According to the Report on Chronic Disease in China published by Ministry of Health in 2006, chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are major causes for death among the Chinese population. As per the Sino-MONICA-Beijing study, 1.5 million patients die of stroke per year in China, and the re-occurrence rate is much higher than in western countries. This shows the urgency and importance of secondary intervention. Chronic disease is also a major contributor to disability: health care services related to chronic diseases account for a significant portion of all health care expenditures in China.
However, the efficiency of healthcare system is yet to be enhanced and public education for risk factor reduction for most of the chronic patients in China needs to be facilitated. On average, chronic disease patients visit doctors 3 times per year; 55.3% of them choose municipal level hospitals which are relatively crowded, inconvenient and expensive, while only 25.1% choose community healthcare centers. This situation makes the development and full utilization of the secondary and community health centers to be the priority agenda of healthcare reform in order to enhance the continuity of quality care.

"By participating in the program, we hope to transfer our clinical expertise to the community healthcare centers and enhance the communications between the big hospitals, secondary hospitals, and the community healthcare centers. Under the new integrated model, chronic disease patients at selected program sites will receive better patient education for self-care and risk factor reduction, in addition to obtaining easy access to more efficient and affordablecare at the community healthcare centers." Said Professor Deng Weiwu, Chief Physician, Honorable Director, Institute of Ruijin Infectious and Respiratory Diseases, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.

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