In order to regulate patient flows to large urban hospitals during the normalized novel coronavirus epidemic prevention and control period, North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region will reassign different treatments to be performed by hospitals, the Inner Mongolia Health Commission announced on June 4.

Third-level public hospitals – the highest level of hospitals in China – will make major changes to their routines in Inner Mongolia’s cities.

Under the new system they will cease treating common diseases, frequently-occurring diseases, well-diagnosed chronic diseases and rehabilitation patients and transfer them to the second-level medical institutions and hospitals in the autonomous region’s counties and banners.

Elsewhere, in addition to emergencies, critical and severe cases, the surgery departments of urban third-level hospitals will be instructed to mainly treat patients with grade 3 and 4 surgeries.

Officials said the departments of internal medicine at these hospitals should focus on patients with difficult diseases and patients who have been referred for medical procedures from county-level hospitals.

Meanwhile, urban third-level hospitals and county-level hospitals are required to set up transitional wards, which will have 10 percent of their total beds.

The beds will be used to treat patients in urgent need of treatment and inpatients without referral procedures from primary hospitals – as well as for COVID-2019 nucleic acid testing of patients, antibody detection and clinical observation and treatment.

Third-level hospitals that have experts with a large number of outpatients are required to organize the experts to open medical studios at grassroots hospitals – or provide remote online diagnosis and treatment services to meet the needs of patients.

Officials said that hospitals at the second level or above are required to set up a standardized infectious disease department and a fever clinic.