AIMEE K. WILES BEIJING * Dr. Giu Yebing prints digital X-rays with a Kodak DryView 8700 Laser Imager as a patient gets a CT scan at Xuanwu Hospital. The 800-bed hospital is among the more technologically advanced facilities in China's enormous network of 15,000 major hospitals, 49,000 smaller ones and 700,000 clinics -- a huge potential market for Kodak products.

By Ben Rand
Democrat and Chronicle

BEIJING (June 25, 2000) -- Just a few statistics about China's health care system are enough to explain Eastman Kodak Co.'s eagerness to sell X-ray film and related medical imaging products here.

This country of 1.2 billion people has 15,000 major hospitals in heavily populated areas, plus 49,000 hospitals in smaller areas and 700,000 clinics in rural towns and villages. The hospitals maintain in excess of 29 million beds.

Chinese people last year paid 1.9 billion visits to medical providers nationwide either on an inpatient or outpatient basis -- an average of 5.2 million visits a day.

No wonder Kodak's health imaging unit is frantically expanding its staff here -- and not just in traditional film.

Because the health care system is so large, Kodak is working to market both old-line products such as film as well as new digital machines that capture, print and distribute medical images electronically.

''We believe our job is to bring the best technology to the customer and let them choose,'' said Joshua Sun, general manager of health imaging for Kodak's China region.

The newer machines are coming in slowly but already are making a difference at more advanced medical centers such as Xuanwu Hospital in Beijing. The 800-bed teaching hospital is the first in Beijing -- and one of the first in China -- to go high-tech in printing and distributing X-rays and other medical imaging procedures.

Xuanwu Hospital is building a network around its computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines that includes Kodak laser printers, chemical-free film processors, information management and related software, and other tools.

When complete, the network will make it easier and cheaper to ship copies of medical images to multiple professionals involved in a patient's care.

The Kodak machines are helping in the short term by producing X-ray images with heat rather than chemical processing, said Dr. Gao Yongian, assistant professor of radiology at Xuanwu.

Xuanwu takes about 80 CT and 20 MRI scans and about 300 traditional X-rays a day. As large as those numbers are, China and Kodak are working to increase the number of X-ray procedures. Chinese people generally do not submit to preventive X-rays, which means some fall ill needlessly, said Dr. Chi Bao Lan, president of the National Institute of Hospital Administration.

Kodak, for instance, has been running advertisements providing answers to frequently asked questions about mammography, Lee said.

Kodak also paid for mammograms for all its female employees and spouses of male workers.

Still, as with almost every market, the health imaging field is crowded in China. Kodak must compete with three other major brands of X-ray film and major companies such as General Electric and Johnson & Johnson in medical equipment.

''Every CEO in the world is saying that China is the place to go,'' Sun said. ''They're saying, 'Go get some market share.' ''