Effect of Hierarchical Diagnosis and Treatment Reform on the Equity of Medical Resources: A New Evaluation Framework

ABSTRACT Evaluating the equity of medical resources is essential to promote the sustainable development of healthcare services and advance the Healthy China Strategy. However, existing studies have extensively focused on the equity of access to medical resources; the equity of medical resource allocation has been largely overlooked. This paper proposed a new comprehensive assessment framework for equity, evaluating the impact of the transformation of the diagnosis and treatment system on the equity of medical resources from two dimensions: resource allocation and resource access. The results show that, in terms of medical resource allocation, both the quantity and quality exhibit an overall trend of being higher in eastern and central China compared with the western region. The hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system offers advantages in improving residents' accessibility to high‐level hospitals and enhancing overall medical equity. However, its effect on narrowing internal regional disparities is not significant. Under both models, medical equity is notably better for populations with high medical demand in most regions. Nevertheless, compared with the eastern region, it remains challenging for the western region to address medical inequalities faced by low‐income groups solely through the reform of the diagnosis and treatment system.