Specialty hospitals in China: how the official rules sort and name them

In China's national rules, a specialty hospital (专科医院) is one category of medical institution, listed alongside general hospitals, traditional Chinese medicine hospitals and others. The same rules set limits on what a specialty hospital can put in its name and say how often its licence is reviewed. This page sets out those rules and the way one city counts specialised hospitals. It names no hospital, and it does not rate, rank or recommend any institution.

Where specialty hospitals sit

The Detailed Rules for Implementing the Regulation on the Administration of Medical Institutions list the categories of medical institution. The first group of categories is:

general hospitals (综合医院)
traditional Chinese medicine hospitals (中医医院)
integrated Chinese and Western medicine hospitals (中西医结合医院)
ethnic medicine hospitals (民族医医院)
specialty hospitals (专科医院)
rehabilitation hospitals (康复医院)

The rules then list further groups, among them maternal and child health institutions, community health service centres and stations, township health centres, sanatoriums, outpatient departments, clinics, emergency centres, clinical laboratory centres, specialised disease prevention and treatment institutions, nursing homes and other kinds of institution.

Specialised disease prevention and treatment institutions (专科疾病防治院, 专科疾病防治所, 专科疾病防治站) are listed as another group in the rules.

What limits apply to a specialty hospital's name

The rules say a medical institution's name must match its category or its clinical departments. They also bar names that go beyond the clinical departments the institution has registered.

On disease names, the rules say that, except for specialised disease prevention and treatment institutions, a medical institution may not use the name of a specific disease as its identifying name. If there is a real need, the provincial health administration approves the exception.

The rules also bar words that advertise or imply treatment results. They name 疑难病 (difficult diseases), 专治 (specialised treatment), 专家 (expert) and 名医 (famous doctor) as examples, together with words of similar meaning.

Who approves a new hospital, and how often the licence is reviewed

The rules leave the division of approval powers for the setting up of general, traditional Chinese medicine, integrated, ethnic medicine and specialty hospitals with one hundred beds or more to the provincial health administration. The same applies to sanatoriums, rehabilitation hospitals and several other kinds of institution of that size. For other medical institutions, the county health administration approves the setting up.

The review of the practising licence follows a similar split. For hospitals of that size, including specialty hospitals, the review period is three years. For other medical institutions it is one year. An institution should apply for the review three months before the period ends.

How Guangzhou counts specialised hospitals

The Guangzhou Statistical Yearbook, in table 18-18, counts hospitals by type for 2022 and 2023, shown below as the earlier and the later year. The table note says the data were provided by the Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission. The hospital types in the table are:

Hospital type	Earlier year	Later year
Hospitals, all types	298	331
General hospitals	150	162
Traditional Chinese medicine hospitals	37	44
Integrated Chinese and Western medicine hospitals	4	4
Specialised hospitals	93	103
Nursing homes	14	18

The yearbook table counts institutions and does not name them. It is the only count of specialised hospitals read for this page.

What this page did not establish

The national rules read here do not define the clinical fields into which specialty hospitals are divided, so this page lists none.
No national count of specialty hospitals was found in the sources read, and none is stated here.
The rules were read as republished on the Chinese central government portal. Later changes were not checked.
Provincial rules were not collected.
No hospital's category, name or licence was checked.

Questions people ask

Are specialty hospitals a separate category in the rules?

Yes. The national rules list specialty hospitals as their own category, beside general hospitals, traditional Chinese medicine hospitals and rehabilitation hospitals.

Can a specialty hospital put a disease name in its name?

Not as an identifying name, with one exception. The rules allow disease names for specialised disease prevention and treatment institutions, and the provincial health administration can approve other cases where there is a real need.

How often is a specialty hospital's licence reviewed?

For hospitals with a hundred or more beds, the national rules set a review period of three years.

Does the category tell you how good a hospital is?

No. The rules read for this page set categories, names and review periods. They do not rank hospitals, and this page does not either.

Sources

Each source above was read on the date shown. This page is an unofficial summary of general administrative information. It is not published by the bodies named above, and it is not medical advice. If it differs from the official pages, the official pages prevail, and rules and figures may change after the check date.