China's Ministry of Health (MOH) and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SATCM) say one of their main goals this year is to advocate cost-saving medical services.

At a recent national hospital management conference, MOH and SATCM representatives emphasized that in 2006, hospitals should continue to focus on their patients.

They said that hospitals should only adopt the technology that is most suitable to them instead of blindly expanding and introducing international high-tech equipment.

In order to help regulate costs, MOH will also start to supervise hospitals in handling medicine prescriptions.