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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1552590
Analysis of the Application of Policy Instruments for Close-knit County Medical Communities Based on Hood's Classification
Provisionally accepted
Xianlu Huang 1
Lei Feng 2*- 1 College of Public Health, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, Chongqing Municipality, China
- 2 School of Marxism, Chongqing Medical and Pharmaceutical College, Chongqing, Chongqing Municipality, China
Objective By analyzing the selection and application of policy instruments in the construction of close-knit county medical communities in Dazu District, Chongqing Municipality, it is expected that the countermeasures to optimize the policy instruments will provide lessons for the construction of close-knit county medical communities. Methods Based on Hood's classification, Construct an analytical framework with basic policy instruments selection (X dimension) and different phases in the progress of the construction(Y dimension), Using Nvivo to analyze the policy documents(2015-2023) related to close-knit county medical communities construction in Dazu District. Results In the X dimension, nodality-based instruments accounted for 14.3%, authority-based instruments accounted for 34.2%, treasure-based instruments accounted for 16.4%, and organization-based instruments accounted for 35.2%. In the Y dimension, the total number of policy instruments used in Dazu District in the three phases of policy initiation, piloting, and promotion showed an increasing trend, aligning with the number of policies. These statistics indicate some problems: less use of nodality-based and treasure-based instruments, incompleteness of the policy assessment indicator system, insufficient policy synergy and incentives, and a lack of operationalization of strategic measures. Conclusion The government should increase the use of nodality-based and treasurebased instruments, improve the assessment indicator system, strengthen the policy synergy mechanism and incentives, and optimize the structure of talent resources to improve the operability of the policies.County health in China's medical and healthcare development is in the position of bridges, and promoting the hierarchical medical system within counties has been given high priority. The close-knit county medical communities are one of the main organizational models for exploring the hierarchical medical system, which means the rural medical consortium, led by county-level hospitals and comprising township and village medical institutions as well as other healthcare organizations, aims to achieve commonality in service, interests, responsibilities, and development across all levels of medical institutions. This structure is designed to foster cooperation among healthcare providers, enhance the in-county consultation rate and patient satisfaction, and ensure the control of medical costs and improvement of medical quality.China's Chongqing Municipality launched the pilot construction of medical communities in September
Keywords: close-knit county medical communities1, policy instruments2, content analysis3, Hood's classification4, Chongqing Municipality5
Received: 28 Dec 2024; Accepted: 18 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Lei Feng, School of Marxism, Chongqing Medical and Pharmaceutical College, Chongqing, Chongqing Municipality, China
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