Under the national strategy to promote the allocation of medical resources to grassroots levels, the grassroots medical market is vigorously releasing its development potential. With the overall recovery of the medical equipment procurement market, the grassroots equipment market has become the core engine of industry growth, attracting attention and resource investment from various parties.
1. Policy Support,Comprehensive Upgrade of the Grassroots Medical System
Recently, the National Health Commission, in conjunction with the National Development and Reform Commission and thirteen other departments, issued the “Guiding Opinions on Optimizing the Layout and Construction of Grassroots Medical and Health Institutions,” which outlines a clear blueprint for the long-term development of the grassroots medical system. This document clearly sets forth phased construction goals: by 2027, achieve full coverage of grassroots medical institutions in towns and streets, ensuring that basic medical services reach every administrative village and community, allowing residents to reach the nearest medical point within 15 minutes; by 2030, promote the popularization of telemedicine and smart healthcare to enhance service convenience; and by 2035, align the capabilities of grassroots medical services with the new urbanization and rural revitalization strategies to meet residents’ high-quality health needs.
In terms of institutional layout, the document requires each town to establish a health center, each administrative village to set up a village clinic, and each street to configure a community health service center. It emphasizes the construction of 1-2 central township health centers outside county towns, creating regional medical hubs with secondary hospital service capabilities; prioritizing the strengthening of health centers in underdeveloped and border areas, and enhancing the equipment level of village clinics. For streets that have not yet established community health service centers, it promotes the transformation of government-run primary hospitals or the establishment of new ones, while expanding the scale of remote community service stations. Additionally, it encourages the participation of diversified entities such as clinics and outpatient departments to meet personalized medical needs.
Building service capabilities is also highlighted. Relying on closely-knit medical alliances, it promotes the flow of core resources such as personnel and technology to grassroots levels, conducts outreach consultations and extended services; accelerates the construction of resource-sharing centers for medical testing and imaging diagnosis within counties, achieving an efficient model of “grassroots testing, higher-level diagnosis, and mutual recognition of results”; and implements a strong foundation project for medical and health services, improving the department settings and equipment of grassroots medical institutions, enhancing the prevention and treatment capabilities for common and chronic diseases.
The continuous reinforcement of policies demonstrates the national emphasis on grassroots healthcare. The 2025 government work report includes “promoting the expansion and sinking of high-quality medical resources” as a key task; the National Health Commission has clearly stated that by 2025, over 90% of counties should meet the construction standards for closely-knit medical communities, achieving full coverage by 2027, and will supervise the upgrading of grassroots equipment. The National Development and Reform Commission revealed that last year, 10 billion yuan was invested to support the construction of county-level medical communities, used for updating equipment such as CT and ultrasound machines and renovating 30,000 hospital rooms. Against this backdrop, a large number of grassroots hospitals will undergo transformation and renovation, with concentrated demand for equipment upgrades.
2. Explosive Demand,County-Level Medical Community Market
Intense Competition
Market data confirms the booming situation in the grassroots medical equipment sector. According to monitoring by the Cyberspace Blue Instrument, in just the past month, the Chinese government procurement website has released nearly 50 bidding projects for medical equipment in county-level medical communities, covering more than ten provinces including Zhejiang, Heilongjiang, and Sichuan. The “Medical Equipment Configuration Standards for Township Health Centers,” implemented on April 1, further clarifies that township health centers must be equipped with 22 types of general equipment and 115 types of specialized equipment, covering 16 departments including emergency, internal medicine, and laboratory, providing clear guidance for market growth. According to statistics from Yizhuang Shenshu, the procurement scale of medical equipment in county-level hospitals has accounted for 26% of the total in public hospitals, with a year-on-year growth rate continuing to rise, reaching 52.48% in the first quarter of 2025.
Faced with a huge market opportunity, domestic and foreign medical equipment giants are actively positioning themselves. Domestic equipment manufacturers are taking the lead with high cost-performance advantages: Mindray’s “Mindray Smart Inspection” system addresses efficiency and quality issues in grassroots laboratories through equipment interconnection and intelligent management; United Imaging’s uDR Aurora smart DR system utilizes AI positioning navigation and remote quality control technology to bring tertiary-level imaging services to grassroots levels; and Kai Li Medical’s X11 and E11 portable color Doppler ultrasound systems flexibly meet the diverse diagnostic needs of grassroots healthcare. Foreign companies are also accelerating their penetration, with Medtronic covering nearly 800 districts and counties and 1,300 hospitals, planning to double the number of service institutions by 2033.
The focus of competition is shifting from simple equipment supply to the collaborative upgrade of software and hardware. In response to the needs for remote diagnosis, mutual recognition of tests, and intelligent diagnosis in county-level medical communities, companies are increasing their investment in technology research and development. By optimizing image recognition through AI algorithms, building cloud-based quality control platforms, and developing multi-department adaptation functions, companies are attempting to break through the bottleneck of grassroots medical resources through technological innovation and seize the high ground in the market. As the phased mismatches brought about by industry restructuring and policy adjustments gradually diminish, the grassroots medical equipment market is transitioning from being policy-driven to a high-quality development stage driven by both market and technology, becoming the most dynamic growth pole in the medical industry.
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