Huazhou, a county-level city in Maoming, recently released its Action Plan for Promoting the Inheritance, Innovation and Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, including its goals for each stage of TCM development in 2021 and 2022.

According to the action plan, Huazhou will further promote the development of Huazhou TCM Hospital into a third-grade hospital, strengthen the ability of TCM hospitals to respond to public health emergencies, and standardize the construction of the infectious disease departments, fever clinics and infectious disease buildings in TCM hospitals in the city.

The city will continue to advance the establishment of a medical union led by the Huazhou TCM Hospital and build a regional hierarchical diagnosis and treatment model with TCM characteristics; this will further improve the TCM medical service system and achieve full coverage of TCM services in all townships and villages in the city by 2022.

Construction of a health information platform for TCM hospitals and an online video platform for the promotion of TCM technologies will be promoted in the city, along with the exploration of new service models like "internet + TCM" and "artificial intelligence + TCM".

The exocarpium pharmaceutical production line in Huazhou, a county-level city in Maoming. [Photo by Li Xiong/mm111.net]

The inheritance and development of TCM technologies and therapies will be boosted in Huazhou, as will the cultivation of high-tier TCM talents. The city will also carry out TCM training programs for rural doctors and TCM training courses for western medicine doctors.

Huazhou will further promote the standardized planting of TCM herbs through an industrialized management model integrating enterprises, industrial bases, and farming cooperatives. It will also build a modern logistics system for TCM herbs and explore the construction of a modern storage and logistics center for the products.

The action plan also suggests the cultivation of one or two major TCM herb production enterprises, with annual sales revenues of more than 100 million yuan ($15.47 million), and to increase the research and development of exocarpium to promote the transformation of exocarpium from traditional processing to deep processing.

In addition, tourism products and tourist routes with TCM characteristics will be developed and launched in Huazhou. An exocarpium characteristic town and an exocarpium cultural park will also be built in the city.