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Updated: 2007-06-04 11:12

With its $10 million rural healthcare project, German industrial company Siemens AG plans a sustained effort to improve healthcare in rural areas of China.

The company began the five-year healthcare project in April, when the first Siemens rural medical center was opened in Luochuan County in Yan'an, Shaanxi Province.

The Ministry of Health will provide support for the project by offering policy guidance. China's Association of Medical Equipment will also support the project's design and implementation.

Siemens will equip the county-level hospital in Luochuan with a range of diagnostic imaging equipment, including ultrasound, X-ray machines and CT scanners. The company will also provide medical and technical training to support further education for the physicians in the hospital.

The company will also install water treatment equipment to mitigate health threats to the environment from the hospital's wastewater.

Six township health centers around the county-level hospital will also receive modern X-ray and ultrasound equipment.

Siemens will then supervise the network to provide quality healthcare services to the county population. It will also be the beginning of extensive on-site research.

According to Bernd Ohnesorge, president and CEO of Siemens China Medical Solutions, on-site research that evaluates and monitors the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery in this first and future project sites is key to developing a model system is developed for healthcare delivery in rural areas.

The knowledge gained from on-site experience will allow Siemens to develop solutions tailored to the needs of rural areas that will serve as guidelines for the future, he says.

"We want to learn from the existing equipment what the immediate needs are, especially for the short-term help of patients," he says.

"It is important to recognize that Siemens is a solution provider for the needs in China. With this project we want to provide the right solution for the underdeveloped areas in China."

Siegfried Russwurms, group vice president of Siemens Medical Solutions says "the development of healthcare solutions for rural China is of key importance for Siemens' medical solutions and water technologies".

"The outcome of this project will help us design products and services for healthcare delivery in rural China and other developing areas in Asia and around the globe."

Tailor-made services

Siemens is making efforts to provide products and solutions to local customers in China in both high-end and low-end market segments, says Siemens China president and CEO Richard Hausmann.

The company in May signed an agreement with Tongji University to jointly build the 1-billion-yuan Sino-German Friendship Hospital in Shanghai.

"While the Sino-German hospital project speaks for our capabilities and commitment to meet the needs of China's leading medical institutions, our recent $10 million investment into the development of rural healthcare solutions highlights our engagement in the development of basic and widely affordable solutions as well," says Hausmann.

Since rural healthcare improvement has become one of the top priorities of the Chinese government, Siemens wants to lend a helping hand to reach this important goal, he says.

"As a multinational company committed to further growth in China, paired with dedicated commitment to corporate citizenship on the local level, we want to support China to cope with the major challenges in social development," says Hausmann.