The second Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia will be held in Qingdao from June 1 to 4, and consists of "1 opening ceremony", "2 plenary sessions", "33 sub-forums" and "15 important events". The conference consists of "1 opening ceremony", "2 plenary sessions", "33 sub-forums" and "15 important activities", covering a range of topics from the global public health governance system, international cooperation against epidemics, to the integration of health care.

Leading enterprises in the world's health care industry and big health have come to attend the expo in Qingdao to build an efficient communication and deepen cooperation platform; top industry experts share insights, discuss the prospects and opportunities of the Chinese medicine industry, and explore the path to international cooperation and high-quality industrial development ......

On June 1, the second Global Health Expo of Boao Forum for Asia and a number of important forums kicked off first and received wide attention from the industry. During this period, a signing ceremony of Qingdao health industry cooperation projects will be held, and a series of new projects will be launched to bring new opportunities for Qingdao, and Qingdao's health industry will step into a new stage.

Qingdao now is playing a leading role in the global discussion on the future industry.

01 The health industry in Qingdao is developing steadily.

National health is an important issue with a high degree of consensus in the international community, and a global issue facing serious challenges at all times. To promote the development of global health and the health industry, the Boao Forum for Asia announced the launch of the Global Health Forum in Beijing in July 2018.

A global health expo, 16 important events, 25 health industry cooperation projects signed and launched in Qingdao, and 28 sub-forums ......

In early summer of 2019, the first Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia held in Qingdao attracted more than 2,600 guests from 55 countries and regions around the world to discuss topics on health and human future, draw up the blueprint of the whole industry chain of big health industry, and make Qingdao's voice for the health and well-being of all mankind.

"A good forum chooses a good city." This was the comment given to Qingdao by Han Seung-soo, former Prime Minister of South Korea, at the first conference. Li Baodong, Secretary General of Boao Forum for Asia, also said, "The hospitality Qingdao people, the beautiful scenery, and its rapid development have left a deep impression on the guests from all over the world. The logistics of Qingdao is great, the staff and volunteers are very professional. We’re impressed by their first-class service and first-class venue facilities." ......

Guests spoke highly of Qingdao after attending the first Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia. The success of BFA Global Health Forum has greatly enhanced Qingdao's international popularity and reputation, and this beautiful seaside city has become famous in the world again because of this event in health. The positive international image of Qingdao not only reflects the charm and attractiveness of the city, but also shows the strong influentiality and long-lasting attraction. This is why the conference chose Qingdao "for the second forum".

Over the past year or so, the New Coronavirus has been spreading around the world, seriously affecting people's lives and health, and giving a severe blow to all industries and the global economy. But this does not mean that society has to stop and development has to stagnate. Many companies have survived the epidemic and found a new way of development despite the complex situation, one of which is the health industry. As the host of the Global Health Forum, Qingdao has always attached great importance to the development of the big health industry, and has been providing favorable policies for the future development and cooperation of the industry in terms of external environment, internal dynamics and market space. Against this background, it is timely for the Global Health Forum to use the Global Health Expo as a platform to promote the transformation, integration and upgrading of the big health industry in Qingdao.

During the conference, an inauguration ceremony of the University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences was also held. The University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, which was approved to be opened in Qingdao, will be a new type of university based on research and led by rehabilitation applications to cultivate more rehabilitation professionals.

At the same time, 25 health industry cooperation projects were signed in Qingdao, including the China-Korea Medical and Health Care Cooperation Demonstration Park, the Intelligent Health Industry Park with a total investment of 6 billion yuan, and Qingdao International General Practitioner Training Base and Research Institute, with a total investment of 36.9 billion yuan, involving high-end medical services, biomedicine, medical devices, recreation and health care, Chinese medicine and other fields.

The conference not only set up an international exchange platform for the global health field combining politics, business, industry, academia and research, high-end dialogue and practical cooperation, but also paved up the way of Qingdao's big health cause, and brought an opportunity to accelerate the development of Qingdao's big health industry.

The success of the first Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia has brought Qingdao new understanding on big health, and set a new starting point for Qingdao to develop big health industry.

Since the first Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia, Qingdao has been devoted to establishing a national regional medical center and a famous international healthcare city, promoting the opening up of health industry to the world, optimizing the business environment, introducing the leading technologies and professional talents at home and abroad, accelerating the cultivation of health care, fitness and leisure, health tourism and other special potential industries, guiding and encouraging social capital to invest in the field of health, and build an open and win-win industrial ecology.

In 2019, the added value of Qingdao's medical and health care industry will reach 57.531 billion yuan. At present, there are 21 new large hospital projects introduced and under construction in the city, with a total investment of 29.8 billion yuan. 51 disciplines in the city have been on the list of the top 100 disciplines in the country, ranking first in the listed cities. The average life expectancy of citizens is 81.16 years, and the main health indicators have reached the average level of developed countries in the world.

Not long ago, the People's Hospital of Peking University signed a contract to settle in Qingdao. The People's Hospital of Peking University in Qingdao will take the Chengyang Campus of Qingdao Women's and Children's Hospital as the main site, adopt the chief president's responsibility system and two directors’ system management mode, and build a regional medical center with influence in East China and Northeast Asia.

Two sets of data can show the change of Qingdao's health service supply capacity: in 2017, Qingdao has 7,927 health institutions, including 19 tertiary hospitals, 6.01 beds, 3.32 licensed (assistant) physicians and 3.66 registered nurses per 1,000 resident population. At present, there are 8,317 health institutions in the city, including 29 tertiary hospitals; 6.37 medical beds, 3.98 licensed (assistant) physicians and 4.30 registered nurses per 1,000 resident population. The progress makes the public have more confidence in Qingdao's health service capacity.

02 Grasp the opportunity and play a good "first move" in recreation and health industry

To break the ice, policy is the first step. The health consensus reached at the BFA Global Health Forum was quickly applied to the integrated planning, and the policy helped foster the health industry development.

In December 2019, Qingdao Municipal Government issued the Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a First-class Medical Center City, aiming to build a comprehensive national medical center by 2022.

In 2020, the "Three-Year Action Plan for the Development of Qingdao Health and Elderly Healthcare Industry (2020-2022)" was issued, focusing on modern medical services, health management and promotion, elderly healthcare and other fields, putting forward the industrial development goals, main tasks and special actions for the next three years; the "Healthy Qingdao Initiative Action Plan" and the "16 Healthy Qingdao Initiative Three-Year Plan" to accelerate the cultivation of health care, fitness and leisure, health tourism and other special potential industries.

In addition, Qingdao has also issued policy documents to promote social medical services, health care services, and elderly services, to guide and encourage social capital to invest in health industry-related fields. Qingdao also plans to complete 20 key tasks in the next three years, including the focus on cultivating nine leading enterprises in the province's medical and health care industry.

With the continuous improvement of the top-level design, Qingdao makes full use of the valuable resources from the first Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia, and tries to "organize a good conference and revitalize a city". The University of Rehabilitation is one of the valuable assets left by the conference for Qingdao.

As the world's first university dedicated to training high-level rehabilitation personnel, the development of the University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences has attracted much attention. Today, the first high-rise monolith of the University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences has been successfully topped out and the university will be fully completed by the end of this year. It has recruited high-level talents in rehabilitation therapy and other areas at home and abroad, and has interviewed nearly 100 high-level talents, including the team led by academicians, and has invited the rehabilitation engineering team of Professor Zhou Ping from the Health Science Center of University of Texas at Houston to work full time. In addition, the Shandong Provincial Committee approved Dong Erdan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, as the deputy head of the leading group of the University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (in preparation), and formed an expert committee consisting of 56 academicians of the two academies and overseas experts to provide advisory guidance for campus planning, talent recruitment and discipline construction.

Taking full advantage of Qingdao's unique openness and international characteristics, the University is actively negotiating with famous universities at home and abroad, such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Cambridge University, University of Chicago, New York University and Fujita Medical University in Japan, as well as famous enterprises in the field of health, such as Haier Medical, Huada Gene and CITIC Medical, focusing on the frontiers of science and technology in the field of rehabilitation, comprehensive rehabilitation for people with disabilities, full rehabilitation during the disease period, active health and aging response, and prevention and control of disabling diseases, and sets up the Institute of Modern Rehabilitation, aiming to build a national-level innovation platform in the field of rehabilitation.

It is not uncommon for clinicians at the city hospital to have remote consultations, regular online exchanges and studies, and to work together on papers with the RUSK Rehabilitation Institute of New York University, one of the earliest and most influential rehabilitation medicine centers in the world. At the first Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia in Qingdao, City Hospital and the NYU RUSK Institute of Rehabilitation signed a contract to establish the "Qingdao City Hospital International Rehabilitation Institute", which will make rehabilitation as part of the treatment plan in the overall treatment process. Today, the hospital has established a rehabilitation platform covering all clinical disciplines and promoted an integrated "clinical-rehabilitation" model, covering the whole cycle of treatment from admission to discharge.

Mobile emergency AI Chinese medicine room. (Photo by Han Xing)

"Surgery cures the half, and rehabilitation cures the other half." The famous orthopaedical specialist, Academician Dai Kerong, has expressed the importance of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation medicine, as an important part in the national "prevention, treatment, recreation and health care" life-cycle health service chain, can alleviate and eliminate the dysfunctions of people through improvement, compensation and substitution, so that patients can get rid of the effects of diseases and improve their quality of life. Rehabilitation is an opportunity that must be seized in the next ten years, and Qingdao is already started the layout of the rehabilitation industry.

The health industry is a complex industry spanning the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. The integration of the three industries of health agriculture, biomedicine and medical and recreational services to form an industrial closed loop can greatly promote the development and prosperity of the health industry. The "Boao" forum has opened a window for Qingdao, outside which is a reference model and a guiding light for the construction of a large health industry cluster.

At present, Qingdao's medical and health care industry has developed steadily. According to statistics in 2019, the city's biomedical output value increased by 14.8% year-on-year, becoming the national marine biotechnology and marine drug research center alongside Shanghai, Xiamen and Guangzhou. In 2020, there are 6 health care and health enterprises on the list of 42 new-generation "Qingdao Golden Flower" cultivation enterprises. Among 58 listed A-share companies, there are five medical and health enterprises, including Huaren Pharmaceutical, Hailil Pharmaceutical, Vlang Biotech, Haier Biomedical and Inkon Life, and Haier Biomedical is the first company on the city's sci-tech innovation board.

03 The second conference is coming again in Qingdao

The second session of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Global Health Forum will be held from June 1 to June 4, 2021, at International Conference Center, Qingdao Cosmopolitan Exposition.

With the theme of "Health Beyond Health - In the Year of Sustainable Development 2030" and the slogan of "Health for All", this year's conference will continue to set three sub-topics on “Health for All", "Innovation for Health", "Health in All Policies", and adopt "1+2+33+15". " model, consisting of "1 opening ceremony", "2 plenary sessions", "33 sub-forums" and "15 important events”.

The second conference is closely related to the needs of global public health cooperation and promotes the construction of a global public health cooperation platform, focusing on improving the global public health governance system, strengthening international cooperation against epidemics, as well as scientific and technological innovation, security development, climate change, health care integration, health poverty alleviation and other important issues.

Although the theme, slogan and sub-topics are all adopted from the first conference, the second Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia follows the changes in the global health situation, in which the global new coronavirus epidemic has become the "main topic".

Chinese Medicine Health Forum

For example, some sub-forums will focus on "The Role of Vaccines in Human Development" and explore topics on "New Vaccine Development", "Policy and Strategy Support", "Equitable Access to Services" to ensure the accessibility of quality vaccines and remove barriers to "Immunization and Prevention for All". Other sub-forums will discuss how to plan the construction of emergency makeshift hospitals for the next disaster, and contribute to the development of global public health cooperation through the collision and convergence of ideas of industry experts and scholars.    

The conference still invites well-known guests to participate in the opening ceremony, thematic sub-forums and other event of the conference. So far, Princess Sirindhorn of Thailand, Nikai Toshihiro, Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, Ban Ki-moon, Chairman of Boao Forum for Asia, Zhou Xiaochuan, Vice Chairman of Boao Forum for Asia, Li Baodong, Secretary-General of Boao Forum for Asia, Margaret Chan, president of Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of World Health Organization, Zhang Haidi, Chairwoman of China Disabled Person’s Federation, Wang Chen, Vice President of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Gao Fu, Director of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Li Lanjuan, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Zhang Wenhong, Director of the Department of Infection Diseases of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, Meng Dongping, Secretary of the Party Committee of China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products, representatives of domestic and foreign government leaders, ministries, international organizations, embassies and consulates, experts and scholars, representatives of multinational enterprises, representatives of Fortune 500 companies and representatives of domestic and foreign media will participate in the conference and expo.