Top hospital of Wuhan branches out to expand TCM services

Wuhan No 1 Hospital in Hubei province is sparing no effort to improve its facilities and layout and promote the integrated development of traditional Chinese and Western medicine, to better cope with any public health emergency.

Established in 1927, the hospital is also called the Wuhan Hospital of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine. It is one of the first hospitals integrating traditional Chinese and Western medicine, which are approved by the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Facing medical facility shortages－especially during the COVID-19 pandemic－Wuhan No 1 Hospital has launched three key construction projects. They are a new branch hospital, an emergency treatment center and a traditional Chinese medicine inheritance center. These projects aim to inject power into the hospital's sustainable and high-quality development.

The new branch hospital, named after Panlongcheng, is located in Huangpi district of Wuhan, capital city of Central China's Hubei province. Once complete, the new branch hospital is expected to benefit millions of residents, according to Wuhan No 1 Hospital.

The Panlongcheng branch hospital comprises two phases, with the first having a construction area of 120,000 square meters and an investment of 1 billion yuan ($153.14 million), offering 800 beds. And the number of beds will add up to 1,200 when the second phase is complete.

As planned, the new branch will become a modern, intelligent, energy-conserving and environmentally-friendly hospital in three years.

The clinical emergency treatment center, which is under construction, focuses on the combined treatment of traditional Chinese and Western medicine.

Equipped with an acute and critical care center and departments of respiratory and critical care medicine and infection, the center will be a comprehensive clinical treatment facility meeting the needs of both peacetime and wartime use.

Covering an area of 56,000 sq m, the clinical emergence treatment center has a total investment of 600 million yuan, and is expected to substantially enhance the emergency medical treatment capacity of Wuhan No 1 Hospital.

The TCM inheritance center, with an investment of 160 million yuan, started its construction in early August. The center will be equipped with a TCM experience inheritance workshop, TCM recovery area and traditional Chinese medical technology center.

It is expected that the TCM inheritance center will help enhance the clinical research capacity of TCM, promote the TCM service level of Wuhan No 1 Hospital and boost local inheritance and innovation of TCM.

In the next three years, Wuhan No 1 Hospital will add 200,000 sq m of room space for medical treatment, more than doubling the current area.

With its current 2,474 hospital beds, the hospital will have nearly 4,000 beds in three years.

In the fight against COVID-19, the combined treatment of TCM and Western medicine is a highlight introduced by China.

Wuhan No 1 Hospital, as a designated hospital for severe COVID-19 patients, is both an explorer and a practitioner of the combined treatment of TCM and Western medicine.

In the early outbreak, the hospital established a TCM working team of 37 experts and a critical care consultation team of nine young and middle-aged TCM doctors.

In March, Wuhan No 1 Hospital shared its treatment methods and experience of COVID-19 cases with Italian medical institutions via video communication.

Adhering to its own characteristic of integrating TCM with Western medicine, the hospital has developed 92 kinds of preparations－53 TCM preparations and 39 Western medicine preparations－that have been approved by local authorities.

In addition, the hospital takes innovative measures to improve its medical service skills and technology research capability of combining TCM and Western medicine.

"We are preparing to establish a big data center that focuses on the TCM and Western medicine clinical diagnosis and treatment," said Wei Li, director of Wuhan No 1 Hospital. He cited that information technology is a key to improving the capability of emergency treatment.