1Because of its position at the heart of the healthcare system, the hospital is also the place that allows us to evaluate very precisely its evolution and transformation.

2So the hospital, thanks to the concentration of technical and human means, is the catalyst of the needs in healthcare of populations that are becoming more and more urban. As a result, the issue of access to care is an essential issue in the role of the hospital today. As a reference institution both for patients and for healthcare professionals, should the hospital therefore be open to every kind of demand? This is a question of the relationship between health and territory.

3Can the hospital, as a real business or at least a major player in the economy, withdraw from the global system of funding for healthcare in order to assume its own missions better? Should it expect an additional financial contribution from resources directly derived from the patients? That is the question raised by the introduction of the budget and finance reform for public hospitals.

4Furthermore, these transformations are likely to bring about radical upheavals to the relationship of care as an “additional” activity carried out by the hospital, in particular in the field of research.

5In this respect, the comparison of France, rather reticent to evolution, and China, where changes are often brutal, offers a chance to project ourselves more rapidly into a developing future and thus, if necessary, learn some lessons from this “preview”.