□ Special Correspondent Hao DongliangNot long ago, on a morning in the kitchen of the Huasheng Smart Community Home Care Service Center in the Kangle Community of Jinhuajie Street, Yuci District, Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province, the aroma of food wafted through the air. 79-year-old Dong Wenqin arrived on time for breakfast as usual. “A bowl of steaming rice porridge, paired with an egg and some side dishes, costs only 5 yuan,” Dong Wenqin said with satisfaction. “The food is delicious and affordable. After eating, I sing and practice calligraphy with my old friends, making my day fulfilling.”This scene has become commonplace in various communities in Yuci District. As the main urban area of Jinzhong City, Yuci District has a population of 150,000 aged 60 and above, accounting for 15.8% of the total population in the district. In recent years, Yuci District has actively developed an ’embedded’ elderly care service model, striving to achieve the beautiful vision of ‘aging at home.’“The Kangle Community is located in an area with a high degree of aging and a concentration of old residential communities. The elderly care service center covers an area of about 1,500 square meters, serving around 10,000 elderly people in 132 surrounding residential communities,” said Chen Liyuan, the person in charge of the Huasheng Smart Community Home Care Service Center.In the Huasheng Smart Community Home Care Service Center, the two-story space is divided into multiple functional areas. The elderly canteen on the first floor offers a variety of nutritious meals seven days a week and can provide special meals for elderly people with hypertension and diabetes. The second floor features elegantly designed rooms in a new Chinese style, which have been renovated for elderly accessibility, with the entire house equipped with a smart voice control system to facilitate daily living for the elderly.The head of the Yuci District Civil Affairs Bureau introduced that in recent years, Yuci District has recruited various market entities to explore the layout of fully functional elderly care service centers in 35 communities and 731 residential areas. Currently, eight home care service centers have been established in seven communities, including Yingbin, Jinshang, Sifeng, and Kangle, focusing on creating a ’15-minute elderly care living circle.’ These eight elderly care service centers connect to form a network, effectively integrating resources such as supermarkets, dining, and medical care within a 2-kilometer radius to provide comprehensive elderly care services.On the monitoring screen of the Huasheng Smart Community Home Care Service Center in the Jinxing Community, nearly a hundred green dots flicker on the map, forming a dense service network. “Each dot represents an elderly person wearing a smart device,” Chen Liyuan explained. These smart devices can monitor health data such as heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen levels in real-time. If any abnormalities are detected, the system will automatically alert and locate the issue while dialing the elderly person’s family members’ phone numbers.All rooms in the center are equipped with smart devices such as digital TVs, voice lighting, and call systems. Medical staff measure blood pressure and blood oxygen levels for the elderly twice a day. Data shows that over the past 10 years, the center has provided comprehensive elderly care services to more than 130,000 people and handled 2,290 emergency calls.“Technology makes services more efficient and allows elderly people to live with dignity and respect,” Chen Liyuan pointed to a device in the room and introduced, “This is a wheelchair shower machine that allows elderly people with limited mobility to complete the entire bathing process while seated, ensuring safety and maximizing privacy for the elderly.”Currently, the smart elderly care information platform developed by Yuci District has integrated data from 87 elderly care institutions across the district, establishing electronic files for over 100,000 elderly people, covering data on living conditions, health status, elderly care needs, and medical treatment. This platform adopts an intelligent model of ‘system + service + elderly + terminal,’ achieving a complete closed-loop management of ‘demand collection + precise dispatch + service tracking + quality assessment.’Exploring school-community cooperation mechanisms is also one of the unique features of Yuci District’s ’embedded’ elderly care. The district fully utilizes the advantages of Shanxi University Town and Vocational Education Port to promote the gathering of talents, technology, and equipment from universities to the grassroots level, advancing the integration of traditional Chinese medicine culture into the community elderly care service system. Among them, the Party Working Committee of Jinlun Street has established a long-term cooperative relationship with Shanxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine to create a ‘Traditional Chinese Medicine Pavilion’ in Yuhu Community, regularly organizing free clinic activities and offering health lectures, inviting experts to explain seasonal health maintenance and acupoint care knowledge to the elderly.In the Luxi Street area, the innovative model of ‘property + elderly care service’ has played an important role. “We systematically train property staff to master basic elderly care skills, enabling them to become ‘elderly care stewards’ beside the elderly,” said Zhang Qiaoshun, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Luxi Street. The street actively explores integrating property services into community elderly care, renovating public areas such as unit doors, public ramps, and elevators for elderly accessibility, and increasing daily cleaning and purchasing services for home care.In recent years, Yuci District has raised over 11 million yuan in funding for elderly care services, leveraging over 100 million yuan in social capital, and concentrating investments in the ’embedded’ community elderly care service sector. In the next step, the district will continue to deepen the innovation of the ’embedded’ elderly care model, striving to achieve a transition from ‘elderly care’ to ‘enjoying old age.’
(Follow the ‘Health Shanxi Official WeChat’ account for authoritative information)
Source: Health News
