key: cord-0754894-r3f7clph authors: Kang, Chuanyuan; Rohlof, Hans; Yuan, Jing; Yang, Jianzhong title: Will the COVID-19 outbreak bring the health care system and health industry to a new era in China? date: 2020-06-30 journal: Asian J Psychiatr DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102269 sha: f0e1918b73e7c83cb2b88b15e96d86305625551c doc_id: 754894 cord_uid: r3f7clph nan Please cite this article as: Kang C, Rohlof H, Yuan J, Yang J, Will the COVID-19 outbreak bring the health care system and health industry to a new era in China?, Asian Journal of Psychiatry (2020), doi: https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.ajp.2020.102269 This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Letter to Editor, COVID-19 outbreak, which is still ravaging the whole world, has already caused a significant amount of devastation. Global coordination is not enough thus far and many nations appear to have adopted a solitary and incoherent response to the challenge in which the problems of other countries are ignored with criticism, blame and aggressive competition for scarce resources such as personal protective equipment (Tandon, 2020) . In this situation, COVID-19 will have profound impact on health care and will probably lead to reform in medical systems and revolution in the health industry. Firstly, the global pandemic will lead the Chinese health administration to reassess the function and position of different health institutes in the health care system, including the centers for disease control and prevention (CDC), general hospitals, primary care units, hospitals for infectious disease and psychiatric hospitals. Along with these changes in health care structure, related disciplines in medical education system and research fields will have to be changed. At the beginning of the epidemic, the virus detection capabilities and facilities of CDC across the country were not adequate to provide rapid auxiliary diagnostic support. Subsequently, much has been done to reinforce J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f the function of the CDC in different levels. Since March, many provinces in China have allocated funds provincially or nationally to update facilities and provide training for the local CDC. For example, altogether 20 local centers of CDC in Yunnan counties bordering Myanmar, Vietnam, or Laos were reconstructed following the standards of state-level of CDC, and the reconstruction is estimated to be completed before the end of April (Yunnan Center for disease control and prevention, 2020). The role of some disciplines of internal medicine in such pandemic situation, such as infectious disease medicine, intensive care, respiratory medicine, and emergency medicine, should be re-evaluated and strengthened. On 23 th April, the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan received a vast sum of funding from the Hubei province, totally more than 10 billion RMB yuan for 10 programs, including a P3 laboratory for emergency prevention and control, a high throughput biomedical imaging center, a storage and research center for medical emergency facilities, and seven programs for hospitals reconstruction, which are all aimed at improving the capacity to respond rapidly and efficiently to major public health emergencies (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 2020). In the present outbreak, the function of China's primary health system has not been fully exerted because of limited capacity. Therefore, on 24 th February, the Chinese government announced an increase in the emergency response capacity of primary medical and health institutions, and pointed out that the government will continue to support training courses for general practitioners in medical system (CN-Healthcare, 2020). In the past ten years, the number of psychiatrists in China has increased from 24,000 to 40,000. However, mental health professionals still cannot satisfy the need for psychosocial intervention during this epidemic . Moreover, the majority of mental health workers lack professional training for psychological crisis intervention. Therefore, the mental health professional team needs to be expanded and strengthened. Secondly, protective equipment to fight against the pandemic will receive more attention. Although there are still doubts about the role of face masks, they are likely to play a vital role in mitigating disease spread (Xiaopeng Liu and Sisen Zhang, 2020). On 14 th February, the central government of China emphasized that in J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f order to comprehensively improve national bio-security governance capabilities, bio-security should be integrated into the national security system, and public health laws should be guaranteed to be strictly implemented (Defense times). With the support of these policies, the pharmaceutical companies will gain opportunities for further development, especially for the production of health protection facilities. Thirdly, the outbreak will further fuel a boom in online health services. During the pandemic, rapid response to the quarantine measure and lockdown, online consultations, lectures, training, and outreach medical services via telemedicine platforms or smart-phone applications provide convenient access to medical and mental health service for the public (Jianzhong Yang et al., 2020) . These online medical services will further change the health-seeking behavior of the general public. Therefore, it is believed that internet medical services will enter a faster stage of development. Finally, the pandemic will profoundly alter public attitude and life style towards health. Healthy behaviors such as eating healthy foods, supplementing with nutrients, maintaining exercise and fitness, and adjusting psychological stress are likely to become more incorporated into daily life. The role of mental health services during the COVID-19 outbreak in China Enhance the emergency response capacity of primary medical and health institutions Defense times. Integrate bio-security into the national security system of Science and Technology got the funding, totally more than 10 billion yuan for 10 programs Characteristics and challenges of psychological first aid in China during the COVID-19 outbreak The COVID-19 pandemic, personal reflections on editorial responsibility COVID-19: Face masks and human-to-human transmission Yunnan Center for disease control and prevention. Building up 20 local centers of CDC in counties in Yunnan province The authors declare no competing interests.