Historical roots of hospital centrism in China (1835–1949): A path dependence analysis

Stronger primary care has been associated with important contributions to health system performance, yet countries struggle to resource it adequately, given competing demands from hospitals. Although historically China has originated influential models of primary health care, it has an enduring problem with hospital dominance in health service delivery. This paper is a historical analysis of the co-evolution of hospitals and primary care providers in China from 1835 (the year when the first hospital was built in mainland China) to 1949 (the year when the People's Republic of China was founded), which aims to shed light on approaches to primary care strengthening. We develop and use a path dependence analytic framework, specifying the critical juncture, conjuncture and post-juncture development of the institutions shaping the balance between hospitals and primary care providers in China. We find that China had historically formed the hospital-centric model involving four sets of regenerating and mutually reinforcing institutions: 1) financial resources were being disproportionally distributed to hospitals; 2) high-quality medical professionals were largely concentrated in hospitals; 3) large outpatient departments were incorporated in hospitals, which functioned as a first point of care for many patients; 4) hospitals answered primarily to the demand of the more privileged social group. The early institutionalization of a hospital-centric model of Western medicine in China from 1835 became resistant to change, and efforts to strengthen primary care eventually took a divergent low-cost and de-professionalized developmental path towards 1949. As China still has a hospital-centric health system seeded in the nineteenth century, these findings can inform the framing of contemporary options for primary care strengthening. Without addressing these deep regenerating causes using a whole-system approach, China is unlikely to achieve a primary care orientation for health system development.