"How can grassroots hospitals manage patients' pain? After a lot of investigation, we found that only by building a very exquisite, realistic and visible 'model room' can doctors know how to operate it." On April 9, the "Painless China Action-Critical Pain Management Center Construction Pilot Work Exchange Meeting" was held in Beijing. At the exchange meeting, 24 first batch of pilot hospitals in the six major regions of the country reached a consensus on working together to promote the construction of chronic pain management centers and signed a memorandum of cooperation. Fan Bifa, president of the Pain Physicians Branch of the Chinese Medical Association and director of the Pain Department of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital, said that the construction task of the county's pain medical center is urgent, "Please let everyone do this well."

The first batch of pilot hospitals in the six major regions of the country reached a consensus on working together to promote the construction of chronic pain management centers and jointly signed a photo provided by the organizer of the memorandum of cooperation.

According to the data of the "China Pain Medicine Development Report (2020)", there are more than 300 million chronic pain patients in my country, and they are growing at a rate of 10 million to 20 million per year, and are gradually aggravating with the trend of population aging. At the same time, there are "four lows" in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic pain in my country, namely low awareness rate, low medical treatment rate, low complete remission rate, and low satisfaction. It is necessary to provide scientific and feasible diagnosis and treatment paths for chronic pain patients from the perspective of health science popularization, disease prevention, systematic diagnosis, comprehensive treatment, and management services.

Photo provided by Fan Bifa, the president of the Pain Physicians Branch of the Chinese Medical Association and director of the Pain Department of China-Japan Friendship Hospital, the organizer of the speech

Against this background, in June 2024, the "Research on the Construction of Chronic Pain Management Network in China" project was launched. Huang Erdan, director of the Health Strategy and Service System Research Department of the National Health Commission Health Development Research Center, said at this meeting that he hopes to promote the expansion and sinking of high-quality medical resources through this project and deepen the construction of a painless China.

Photo provided by Huang Erdan, Director of the Health Strategy and Service System Research Department of the National Health Commission Health Development Research Center

"Building a county-level chronic pain management center and allowing more grassroots patients to solve pain problems at their doorstep is a major event for doing a good job in tiered diagnosis and treatment." Zhang Daying, chairman of the Pain Branch of the Chinese Medical Association and director of the Pain Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, said.

"Pain patients are mainly at the grassroots level. County hospitals need more and better pain departments, and use treatment technologies of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine to provide assistance to patients." Professor Xiong Donglin, chairman of the Pain Professional Committee of the Chinese Society of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine and director of the Pain Department of Union Hospital of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said at the meeting, "This project is timely, which is in line with the country's policy of strengthening the grassroots level, and also in line with the people's desire to pursue a painless life."

The chronic pain management network consists of three-level nodes: the first level is the provincial chronic pain management center, the second level is the county chronic pain management center, and the third level is the pain clinics of various community hospitals and township health centers. "The construction of a chronic pain management network can not only promote the development of pain departments, but also drive the common development and incremental development of related disciplines." Fan Bifa encouraged grassroots hospitals to be pioneers in the construction of chronic pain management centers.

Qi Peilin, the public welfare supporter of this project, said that Heliang has been deeply rooted in China for more than 30 years and has spared no effort to support and implement the healthy China strategy, and continues to build with the government, medical and academic circles in multiple health fields such as chronic pain, bone health, and oral health. We look forward to contributing to the improvement of the chronic pain management level of Chinese residents through cooperation with this project.

[Editor in charge: Wu Qilong]