Ms. Su Weiping, a postgraduate student of Medicinal Administration from the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences (ICMS) of the University of Macau (UM), won Second Prize of Student Poster Session at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Drug Information Association (DIA) with her paper entitled “Policy Mapping Study of Inpatient Reimbursement Proportion of New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) in China, 2008”. This is the second time for ICMS students to attend the DIA Annual Meeting and the first time to win any prize.
The theme of this year’s DIA Annual Meeting which was held in San Diego, California, USA, from 21 June to 25 June is “ Improving Safety with Every Step: Pillars of the Pharmaceutical Landscape”. The meeting brought together representatives from around the world including officials of regulatory bodies, academic elites, medical and patient groups, as well as professionals from the pharmaceutical industry, who shared their experience and latest achievements in global pharmaceutical research and development. As a routine agenda, this year’s meeting also included the Student Forum session which gave medical students the opportunity to show their research subjects. This year’s meeting attracted over 2000 paper abstracts from 42 countries and regions. Through fierce competition 58 students were chosen to attend the meeting, among whom 20 were fully funded by DIA. Ms. Su Weiping who was one of the DIA-funded student submitted her paper entitled “Policy Mapping Study of Inpatient Reimbursement Proportion of New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) in China, 2008” which was completed under the supervision of Assistant Professor Dr. Bian Ying.
Data show that China now has a rural population of 800 million at least. These people have been denied any medical insurance over the past three decades. It was not until the Chinese Government started to institute a new cooperative medical scheme in 2003 that the medical benefits for rural residents was addressed for the first time. So far 91.5% of the rural residents have participated in this scheme. In her paper, Su Weiping cited 30 provinces’ reimbursement proportion data and analyzed the data based on GDP and rural population of each province. She found that the reimbursement proportion tends to be higher in densely-populated rural areas while standing at medium level in economically developed provinces. Her findings also show that this new cooperative medical scheme is still at its early development stage, the inpatient reimbursement proportion is relatively low, and the portion of the self-paid medical expenses is still a heavy burden for rural residents. Therefore, the government needs to increase the inpatient reimbursement proportion for rural residents.
DIA has over 22,000 members, most of whom are representatives from government health organizations, academic organizations, and pharmaceutical companies from around the world. This year’s meeting is the biggest in scale since its inception. It included 34 preconference tutorials, covered 350 subjects, and provided over 500 exhibition booths for pharmaceutical companies. The meeting also included over 1100 sessions of speeches by world-renowned scholars including representatives from the Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Evaluation Agency, as well as drug regulatory agencies from other countries. The 46th DIA Annual Meeting will be held in Washington DC in 2010. UM will strive for constant improvement in hopes of achieving better results at the next meeting.
Caption: Ms. Su Weiping won Second Prize of Student Poster Session at the 45th DIA Annual Meeting
