U.S. Health Reform Expert Shares Experiences

World-renowned leader in health care philosophy, Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, advocated expanding health care in communities and adopting telemedicine approaches as China works to reform its publicly-funded hospital system. Kizer made the remarks at the High-level Forum on the Reform of China's Public Hospitals, which was held Friday in Beijing and was organized by the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Kizer formerly served as under-secretary for health in the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) and was the chief executive officer of the nation's largest health care system. While at the VA, Kizer engineered the most successful reform of the VA's health care delivery system. The internationally-acclaimed transformation of the VA health care system is often cited as a model for health care reform.

"If more care is provided in the community or at home, and more care is provided by telemedicine, patients' waiting times go down and distances go down, besides, community hospitals are more sensitive to patients' particular needs," he said. "I think those lessons are very replicable to China."