The Ministry of Health restarted its rating system for hospitals in 2011. More than 240 hospitals were classified and evaluated, says an article in China Youth Daily. Excerpts:

But the ministry said recently that the rating results are not valid anymore and that all certificates and rank symbols should be removed, because some hospitals were not evaluated according to the new standards or are not implementing the relevant standards strictly.

The hospitals took the rating system very seriously and tried their best to improve the conditions of their equipment in a short time to meet the standards of the evaluations. However, the authority's declaration indicates that the evaluation system is not working.

Classifying hospitals into different grades provides patients with more references when choosing hospitals. But the real picture is that most top-level hospitals are crowded, while lower level hospitals' business is so poor that considerable medical resources are being left unused.

Were it not for the rating system, all hospitals would have the motivation to attract more customers by improving their equipment levels.

Many foreign countries only categorize hospitals according to the patients' needs and do not evaluate their levels.

Since the rating process is not passing the test itself, the authority should reform it to motivate hospitals to provide better services for patients through competition.