Enable home-based elderly care to enjoy professional care services (People's Daily Review)
Promote the extension of professional institutional services to communities and families, in line with social development trends, and in line with the living needs and psychological expectations of the elderly
Chinese people tend to prefer home-based elderly care, and the reality of most elderly people's choices is also the same. How to improve the level of care for these elderly people has been actively explored in various regions. In recent years, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have explored the launch of family elderly care bed services, relying on nearby elderly care service institutions to provide professional care services to elderly people, especially disabled, semi disabled, and elderly households, which are welcomed by the elderly and their families.
Compared with ordinary home-based elderly care, home care beds not only meet the psychological needs of family companionship, but also significantly improve the professionalism of care. A family elderly care bed is not only a physical bed, but also includes necessary aging friendly and intelligent transformation of the elderly's living space, such as equipped with a 24-hour remote care system, installing one click call intelligent devices, etc., to improve the quality and level of care through professional management.
Compared to hiring a caregiver to provide door-to-door services, the advantage of a family nursing bed lies in the stability of care services and a stronger support system behind it. The frontend service is provided by a resident caregiver, but the business support is provided by a team composed of medical staff, elderly care managers, service personnel, etc. This can not only enhance the professionalism of care services, but also better provide personalized services to cater to the various needs of the elderly. Some regions also encourage service institutions that support family elderly care beds and grassroots medical and health institutions to provide synchronous life care, home care, and medical services to service recipients, promoting the deep integration of medical care and rehabilitation services in the home environment.
The emergence of family elderly care beds reflects the continuous improvement of China's basic elderly care service system. In recent years, China has focused on building an elderly care service system based on home care, supported by communities, supplemented by institutions, and combined with medical care, exploring more new ways of elderly care. The 14th Five Year Plan for the Development of Civil Affairs proposes to improve construction, operation, and management policies, and develop "family elderly care beds". Policy support, coupled with more basic public resources sinking to the public, has created conditions for the rise of family elderly care beds. The development of family elderly care beds has innovated the way home-based elderly care services are provided, which not only helps to alleviate the shortage of elderly care resources in institutions, but also allows medical and health service resources that go down to the grassroots to play a greater role.
Currently, family elderly care beds are still in their early stages, and there is still a lot of room for development and improvement. For example, how to ensure service quality, how to divide responsibility and risk, and so on. To solve these problems, further efforts need to be made in institutionalization and standardization, strengthening the quality and standard construction of family elderly care beds, regulating service content, frequency, fees, rights and obligations of all parties, risk sharing mechanisms, and strengthening supervision. For example, Shanghai proposes that elderly care service institutions that provide family care beds generally need to form a "15 minute service radius" to ensure timely response to the needs of service recipients.
As a new phenomenon, the development of family nursing beds still faces many challenges. For example, for some families, this service is not cost-effective enough; Elderly care service institutions that carry out related businesses face difficulties such as insufficient profitability and a shortage of professional nursing staff. Improving the new service model of family elderly care beds requires the joint efforts of government departments, elderly care service institutions, and families, as well as the participation of more social forces. By making good use of various resources and strengthening targeted support, we can promote this beneficial exploration to become increasingly mature.
Home care is the most important form of elderly care in China. In the context of limited institutional elderly care resources, promoting the extension of professional institutional services to communities and families is in line with social development trends, meets the living needs and psychological expectations of the elderly, and allows more elderly people to enjoy professional and personalized care services at home. As the aging population continues to deepen, focusing closely on the needs of the elderly, actively innovating elderly care service models, and strengthening the construction of elderly care service capabilities can continuously improve the level of home-based elderly care and enable the majority of elderly people to live a better quality of life in their later years.