Lotus Eldercare attended IAHSA-China and U.S Commercial Service Event in Shanghai on the 23rd April 2015. This event features Ms Ying Guo, General manager from United Family Home Health service. Her presentation is on "An Overview of United Family's Home Healthcare Initiative"
A China’s home healthcare service is at its infancy stages and home services are mainly catered to a small percentage of those who can afford these premium services. United Family Home Healtcare services can be considered one of the pioneering ones. One striking difference from us is they offer home services to post partum ladies which is popular in Chinese tradition to "zuo yue" or a 1 month period of highly supervised recuperation. The services are more on home primary care and subacute care with phone consults and visits by physicians and nurses sold as a package. Clients can be those older persons whose children are overseas and want professionals to keep an eye on their loved ones back home in China. They are also setting up palliative care with the support if their oncology department in their hospital. Patients are often referred out from their parent hospital (United Family Hospital). Main concern will be the cost and all patient pays out of pocket. There is none or limited insurance policies to support such services at this point of time. Someone in the audience also pointed out that even if such insurance policies are in place, there is not much take up by the Chinese as well.
This event is mainly attended by private healthcare organizations and there is not a huge number of such organizations here in proportion to their population.
With 1 in 3 resident in China over age of 60 in 2050, there will be a huge demand for such services in future with an aging and increasingly affluent population.
The Chinese Government will have be step in and support initiatives such as United Family's Home Healthcare services in the near future as chronic sick patients load increases. Hospitals and eldercare facilities will not be able to cope with the demand. New policies such as advance care planning, aging in place initiatives and compression of morbidity measures must be implemented. Policies as such to improve care and manage resources as well as people's expectations as the residents are increasingly educated.
We are actively implementation such policies in Singapore and can possibly be a model for China's cities in future. Right now, it is still a long torturous road ahead and the private and NGO's in China must step up and start processes to ease the growing healthcare issues for the dependent sick group.
