Circular of the National Health Commission and the Ministry of Justice on Seeking Public Comments on the Administrative Measures for the Identification of Medical Injuries (Draft for Comment)

Circular of the National Health Commission and the Ministry of Justice on Seeking Public Comments on the Administrative Measures for the Identification of Medical Injuries (Draft for Comment)

October 11, 2018

The National Health Commission and the Ministry of Justice have drawn up the Administrative Measures for the Identification of Medical Injuries (Draft for Comment), in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Regulations on the Prevention and Handling of Healthcare Disputes, with a view to regulating activities to identify medical injuries, ensuring the orderly conduct of the identification of medical injuries and safeguarding the lawful rights and interests of doctors and patients. This legislation is hereby promulgated for public comment in accordance with the Regulations on Procedures for the Formulation of Rules and requirements on the legislative work. The general public may give their opinions through the following ways and methods.

1. Visiting the official website of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council (address: http://www.chinalaw.gov.cn) to give opinions through the Column "Comments Sought on the Legislation" under the main menu on the first page.

2. Visiting the official website of the National Health Commission (address: http://www.nhfpc. Gov.cn) and clicking "Comments Sought on the Administrative Measures for the Identification of Medical Injuries (Draft for Comment)" through the Column "Collection of Public Comments" on the right-hand side of the first page to give opinions.

3. E-mail: xyc@nhfpc.gov.cn.

4. Address: Bureau of Health Policies and Administration of the National Health Commission, at No.38 Jia Beilishi Road, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100044. Please specify the note "Comments for the Administrative Measures for the Identification of Medical Injuries (Draft for Comment)" on the envelope.

The deadline for public comment falls on November 12, 2018.

Administrative Measures on Real-name Registration for Insurance (Draft for Comment)

Chapter 1 General Provisions

Article 1 These Measures are formulated in accordance with such laws and regulations as the Regulations on the Prevention and Handling of Healthcare Disputes, for the purpose of regulating activities to identify medical injuries, ensure the orderly conduct of the identification of medical injuries and safeguard the lawful rights and interests of doctors and patients.

Article 2 For the purpose of these Measures, the term "identification of medical injuries" means an activity where a medical injury identification agency arranges for relevant experts to assess from a specialized perspective some specialized issues, including whether there exists any medical error, what injuries are suffered by a patient, whether there is a causal relationship between the medical error and medical injuries, and to what extent the medical error contributes to the medical injuries, which are proposed by a principal in respect of the dispute between the patient and the hospital over medical diagnosis and treatment, and to issue their identification conclusions to the principal.

Article 3 Medical injuries shall be identified in a scientific and fair manner, and the identification shall be subject to peer reviews.

Article 4 The National Health Commission and the Ministry of Justice are competent authorities for the identification of medical injuries, and take charge of enacting standards and normative documents concerning the identification of medical injuries, developing a national expert database for the identification of medical injuries, and guiding and supervising the administration of the nationwide identification of medical injuries.
Administrative departments of health and administrative departments of justice, at the provincial level and of cities with districts, shall take charge of managing medical injury identification agencies and identifiers with their respective administrative region, developing the expert database for the identification of medical injuries within the local administrative region, and governing, supervising and guiding the identification of medical injuries conducted within the local administrative region.

Article 5 Medical injury identification agencies shall be commissioned to conduct activities to identify medical injuries, in compliance with these Measures.

Article 6 The identification of medical injuries is aimed at serving justice and society, and the fee standard adopted by a medical injury identification agency shall give consideration to the commonweal nature of these identification activities. The patient side may apply for the relevant help or assistance in accordance with relevant provisions, if it truly cannot afford the identification fee due to financial hardship.
The identification fee will be charged from both sides in advance and shall be eventually borne by each side to the extent of its liability.
Medical injury identification fees shall be determined and administered by the provincial price department in consultation with the administrative departments of health and justice at the same level.

Chapter II Identification Agencies and Identifiers

Article 7 A medical association allowed to engage in the identification of medical injuries, shall be a provincial-level medical association or a medical association of a city with districts.
To engage in the identification of medical injuries, a forensic testing institution shall fulfill the following requirements,
1. It has been examined by and registered with the provincial judicial administrative organ, and its business scope shall cover the identification business employing clinical forensic science and forensic pathology;
2. Three or more of its forensic identifiers are included in the expert database for the identification of medical injuries, among whom there is at least one identifier specialized in clinical forensic science with the title of senior professional and at least one identifier specialized in forensic pathology with the title of senior professional; and
3. Other requirements specified in relevant laws, regulations and rules are met.
A qualified medical association or forensic testing institution may engage in the identification of medical injuries, and shall file a record with both the provincial administrative department of health and the provincial administrative department of justice at its locality within five days from its first-time identification of medical injuries, by providing record-filing materials listed as below,
1. Basic information about the medical injury identification agency, including its name, address, contact information, head, etc.;
2. Relevant conditions it has for conducting the identification of medical injuries, and relevant supporting materials.
The record-filing authority shall complete the record-filing process within 15 working days of receipt of all necessary record-filing materials. Administrative departments of health and justice shall punish the list of institutions within the local administrative region that are allowed to engage in the identification of medical injuries on a biennial basis, and make dynamic adjustments to the list.

Article 8 To participate in the identification of medical injuries, a forensic identifier shall fulfill the following requirements,
1. Have sound business qualities and good professional ethics;
2. Be employed by a medical or health institution, a medical teaching organization, a medical scientific research institute, or a medical injury identification agency, and have been serving as a relevant senior professional in a particular specialty for over three years;
3. Be healthy enough to be qualified for the identification of medical injuries.
A forensic expert who has gained relatively strong skills in the identification of medical injuries and the qualification as a senior professional, or a forensic expert who has served in this capacity for over ten years and gained the qualification as an intermediate professional for over five years, may also engage in the identification, provided that the requirements specified in the first and third items under the preceding paragraph are met.

Article 9 The administrative department of health (or the competent authority for traditional Chinese medicine, the same below) and the administrative department of justice, of a city with districts, shall jointly develop the municipal expert database for the identification of medical injuries.
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