On 29 November 2024, the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration of the PRC jointly released a work plan for expanding opening up pilot of wholly foreign owned hospitals, which explicitly allows the establishment of wholly foreign-owned hospitals (excluding traditional Chinese medicine hospitals and foreign acquisitions of public hospitals) in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and the entire island of Hainan, and sets out the specific conditions and requirements for establishing wholly foreign owned hospitals. The main contents are as follows:

1. Requirements for Foreign Investors
   
   The foreign investors of wholly foreign owned hospitals should be legal entities that are able to independently bear civil liabilities, have direct or indirect experience in medical and health investment and management, and meet the following conditions:
   
   

   (1)	Capable of offering internationally advanced hospital management concepts, management models and service models;
   (2)	Capable of offering internationally leading medical technologies and equipment;
   (3)	Capable of supplementing or improving local medical services, technologies and facilities, expanding the diversified service supply.

   
   
2. Categories of Wholly Foreign Owned Hospitals
   
   It is allowed to establish wholly foreign owned comprehensive hospitals, specialized hospitals, and rehabilitation hospitals, ranking as third-class hospitals, which can be for-profit or non-profit.
   
   It is not allowed to establish wholly foreign owned psychiatric hospitals, infectious disease hospitals, hematology hospitals, traditional Chinese medicine hospitals, integrated Chinese and Western medicine hospitals, or ethnic minority medicine hospitals.
   
   
3. Restrictions
   
   Wholly foreign owned hospitals are not allowed to set up hematological clinical departments, to carry out diagnosis and treatment activities with significant medical or ethical risks, including human organ transplantation technology, human assisted reproductive technology, prenatal screening and diagnosis technology, psychiatric inpatient treatment, experimental treatment of new tumor cell therapy technology, and etc.
   
   Wholly foreign owned hospitals are allowed to hire foreign doctors, doctors from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, as well as other health professionals from Hong Kong and Macao for short-term practice in accordance with regulations. However, the proportion of Chinese (mainland) personnel in the management and health professionals of the entire hospital shall not be less than 50%.
   
   The information management system of wholly foreign owned hospitals should be linked to the local medical service supervision platform, and electronic medical records, medical equipment and other information storage servers should be located within China’s mainland.
   

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