China's smart health care industry accelerates development, technology empowers the silver economy
The China Association of Aging Industry recently released the "China Smart Health Care Industry Development Report", stating that relying on modern information technologies such as the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence, the smart elderly care model is providing real-time, efficient and low-cost services to the elderly and institutions.
When "old age care" meets "technology empowerment", China's smart health care industry is accelerating its development, attracting widespread attention from foreign media.
“Technology products are becoming partners in the lives of the elderly”
"In China, technological products are becoming a partner in the lives of the elderly," the French newspaper Le Telegraph reported recently. Against the backdrop of China's aging population, technological innovation is helping more and more elderly Chinese people. The newspaper focused on the 2024 Shanghai International Elderly Care, Assistive Devices and Rehabilitation Medical Expo, reporting that the inventions on the booth that make daily life more convenient amazed the retired elderly who came to visit the exhibition.
At this year's Shanghai Senior Living Expo, from exoskeleton robots to smartphones for the elderly, more and more intelligent and user-friendly technology products are beginning to empower the elderly care industry, a trend that has attracted the attention of many foreign media. Many foreign media have noted that personal technology products such as smart wearable devices, anti-fall monitoring systems, and personal health management systems are constantly emerging to help the elderly better experience smart life.
Agence France-Presse reported that at this year's Shanghai Old Age Expo, different from the traditional elderly care model, many exhibitors demonstrated solutions to the aging problem through technology. For example, a Shanghai elderly canteen operator displayed a meal plate that is actually a monitor: the plate is embedded with a chip that can identify the food on it; when checking out, the cashier will read the chip and immediately provide a nutrition report, including the calorie count and main nutrients of the food, thereby reducing the workload of service staff and health care workers. In addition, the booths of various smart elderly care products such as physiotherapy robots and automatic stair climbing machines were also surrounded by the elderly. A 73-year-old man said that he has mastered many new technologies, including the use of smartphones, "If the elderly can use smart technology, life will be more convenient."
In recent years, in China, there have been more and more technological innovations in "artificial intelligence for elderly care" and the application scenarios have become increasingly extensive.
The Guardian pointed out that technology has been a major highlight of China's elderly care in recent years. Technology-driven elderly care is a beneficial supplement to existing nursing security resources.
In January this year, the General Office of the State Council of China issued the "Opinions on Developing the Silver Economy to Improve the Well-being of the Elderly", which is China's first policy document named "Silver Economy". The "Opinions" put forward 26 measures in four aspects. In this regard, foreign media believe that in the future, China will focus on cultivating high-tech products and high-quality service models to allow the elderly to share the fruits of development and enjoy a happy old age.
Latin America News Agency reported that China is the country with the largest elderly population in the world, with nearly 300 million people aged 60 and above, which is a challenge for China. However, China has seen opportunities to develop the silver economy in the aging population. The report said that the silver economy is an industry that aims to enable the elderly to enjoy their later years and provide professional services, products and environment. Official data show that the current scale of China's silver economy is about 7 trillion yuan, accounting for about 6% of GDP. It is expected that by 2035, the scale of the silver economy will reach about 30 trillion yuan.
Some analysts believe that as more and more people accustomed to digital life enter old age, the new smart health care industry will usher in broad development space. Intelligent nursing robots, household service robots, etc. will have the opportunity to be promoted and applied in more ordinary people's homes. The smart economy will become an important part of China's silver economy.
Many foreign media have noticed that while China is working hard to meet the basic home-based care needs of the elderly, it is also actively creating new smart and healthy elderly care business models to improve the quality of life of the elderly.
According to EFE, the "Opinions" proposed to strengthen the innovation of elderly products, promote the application of intelligent nursing robots and household service robots, vigorously develop the rehabilitation assistive device industry, and develop the anti-aging industry.
Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao quoted the head of the Social Development Department of the National Development and Reform Commission of China as saying that the silver economy covers a wide range, but at this stage, related industries are mainly concentrated in basic elderly care services such as catering, nursing, and health care. However, the diversified, differentiated, and personalized needs of the elderly are becoming more and more vigorous and urgent, but have not yet been effectively met. In response to such shortcomings and weaknesses in some industries, the Opinions, based on the development foundation of the supply side and the demand characteristics of the elderly and the elderly population, focus on planning seven potential industries from the elderly products, smart health elderly care products, and rehabilitation assistive devices needed by the elderly themselves, to high-quality services such as anti-aging, elderly care finance, and elderly tourism, and then to the transformation of the whole society to suit the elderly. For example, creating a new format for smart and healthy elderly care, that is, mainly using new-generation information technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data, and smart hardware, to provide intelligent products and services around the needs of the elderly in terms of daily life, security, health care, rehabilitation, and medical care.
"The rapid development of artificial intelligence has triggered changes in all walks of life, and elderly care will be one of the industries that will benefit significantly." According to Forbes magazine in the United States, as population aging has become a global trend, more and more companies have begun to integrate artificial intelligence into elderly care-related industries.
Nowadays, with the advancement of science and technology, elderly care has entered the "fast lane" of development with the empowerment of artificial intelligence technology. China has taken many measures to promote "smart elderly care".
The "Robot Application Action Plan" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China and 17 other departments last year proposed to deepen the application of "robots" in key areas. Among them, in the field of elderly care services, develop robot products that assist the elderly and the disabled, such as disability assistance, bathing assistance, defecation and urination care, rehabilitation training, housework, emotional care, entertainment and leisure, and security monitoring. Accelerate the application of new technologies such as multimodal quantitative evaluation, multi-information fusion emotion recognition, flexible and adaptive human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence assistance in the field of elderly care services, and actively promote the application and verification of exoskeleton robots, elderly care robots, etc. in elderly care service scenarios.
The consulting firm Accenture pointed out in its research report "2024 Home Care Platform Ecosystem Empowers New Opportunities for the Insurance Industry" that the new generation of silver-haired people has obvious generational characteristics and more diversified aging needs. Among them, about half of those born in the 1960s are parents of only children, with a significantly improved level of education, a high degree of acceptance of digitalization and new technologies, and more concern for the quality of life, and more diversified needs. Therefore, how to better help the elderly meet their social needs, respect needs, and self-realization needs in addition to meeting their basic survival and safety needs has also become a rigid demand for achieving "high-quality elderly care."
China's silver economy is becoming more and more "intelligent", and its good development momentum has attracted the attention of many foreign institutions. Since the beginning of this year, some foreign institutions have successively invested in Chinese professional pension companies. For example, recently, Allianz Investment, an asset management institution under the German Allianz Group, acquired a stake in a Chinese emerging professional pension insurance company. In this regard, foreign media believe that foreign institutions continue to increase their investment in China's pension financial market, showing their optimism about the long-term growth potential of the Chinese economy.
Russia's Independent newspaper believes that China's development of the silver economy is an important measure to actively respond to population aging and promote high-quality development, which will benefit both the present and the long-term.
The Financial Times website published an article saying that China's population problem is a major issue of concern to the world, and the Chinese government's active adaptation to the changing population structure and consumption trends will create a new wave of investment opportunities.
