Collaborative Governance in Senior Health Care: Actor Structure and Its Dynamic Mechanism in China

China’s aging policy aims at promoting healthy aging and active aging, guaranteeing the economic independence in the elderly and mobilizing social participation so as to promoting the health and the quality of service for... [ view full abstract ]

China’s aging policy aims at promoting healthy aging and active aging, guaranteeing the economic independence in the elderly and mobilizing social participation so as to promoting the health and the quality of service for the elderly through cooperative governance. Its goal is to build health care system of the aged characterized by a pyramid structure with a narrow top and a wide bottom. First, the basement should be wide and preferred, which means that the health care system should be based on the family and community, involving the participation of the elderly themselves, caregivers and local governments and being characterized by self-supporting and family support. Second, the middle of the structure plays a role of conversion and cohesion, linking the top and the bottom. It aims to realize the community-based nursing home, resulting that the elderly needed for some kinds of service can get access to low care or high care in their own homes. Third, the top of the structure should be minimized. The top of the pyramid involves care services from facilities and emergency services from hospitals, including the low care and high care from the nursing institutions. The base, middle, top of this pyramid structure for senior health care should be a complete system, interrelating and cooperating with each other. With the deepening of China’s aging population, policy makers should explore effective ways to provide heal care for the aged. This paper will focus on the government, market, individual and family as different actors in the senior health care system, together with a commitment to the future development and policy practice.