The Research Of Continuum Of Elderly Care System In Shanghai

Shanghai has been the first one stepped into the population agingsociety as early as in1979nationally. During the past30years,population aging of Shanghai has been ranked highest in the country. Bythe end of2010, the total number of the city household registrationelderly aged60and above population has more than3.31million,accounting for23.4percent of the household population. The number ofelderly population over80years reached to598,300, accounting for18.1%of the household population. The number of pure old family in theelderly population was945,600. It shows many features such as a highdegree of aging, fast development of aging, pure old families, and moreelderly people living alone. It is predicted that by2030, the city residenceof the elderly population will reach a peak of5-6million. With thepopulation aging and the aging process to speed up, pension demand forservices will increase rapidly, and therefore the situation is becomingincreasingly urgent to vigorously develop the pension service. According to the situation and challenges mentioned above, Ipropose to adhere to the "people-oriented" core value, and activelyexplore the basic idea of a continuum of old-age care service system.Pension service system with continuum of care, regards the continuity ofcare as the core concept, focusing the interface among families,communities, institutions for the elderly care and pay attention to theeffective institutional arrangements for the elderly, as well as designingoptimized services program, to achieve all kinds of integration of services.Continuum of elderly care service system can make the majority of oldpeople still live in a familiar environment, and receive the continuum ofcare., whether living at home or in institution, when changes appear inhealth status and self-care ability.However, continuum of elderly care service system is a long-termand complex project, which can not be finished overnight. From theaspect of Shanghai, the pension service model is integrated mainly by thefamily self-care, medical care, nursing homes, community home care, andelderly day care center. Through data analysis, visiting study and myworking experience in elderly social welfare organizations, the authorfound that there are some problems existing in Shanghai’s pension servicesystem, such as scattered resources, unfair use, imperfect and limitedpension system, differences of financial investment, and low efficiency of use, resulting in the problem that the pension services for the elderlypeople is not continuous and combined.Therefore, the author gives some suggestions on how to continuallybuild and perfect the continuum of elderly care system in Shanghai in thefollowing aspects, deepening the integration of resources of pensionservice, improving the inherent design of the system, asking for thefinancial sustainability and exploring the diverse pension mode. Onintegration of resources, the author emphasize the integration and use ofelderly service between pubic health organization and civil affairsorganization, as well as the elderly facilities, care providers and elderlyinformation in all districts; On the system design, the author proposes thenecessity of establishing elderly waiting round system, referral systemand describes the specific practices; On financial support, propose tocreate a long-term care insurance, on the basis of social insurance,supplemented by social assistance, social welfare assistance andcommercial insurance, covering all elderly residents of the city urban andrural areas, with diversified funding channel and multi-level security levelof the elderly; By exploring the diverse pension mode, the author thinkwe should continue to adhere to community care, and actively explore theelderly care among different places and the new practice of Old-AgedPension with House.The author realizes that only by focusing on the convergence among family self-care, community home care, institutional care as well asfocusing on the combination of government-led and communityinvolvement, market-driven, can we make our pension services to thesustained and healthy development; and only by the leading concept, thesupport of the system, innovation of service, and the guarantee of theteam, can we create a more harmonious pension service environment forthe elderly, and build a full pension with continuum of care system.