On the morning of August 25th, around 7 AM, a subtle aroma of traditional Chinese medicine drifted through the corridor of the integrated medical and elderly care center on the fifth floor of the Fushan County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Head Nurse Song Huiting carried a treatment tray into a ward to administer an insulin injection to Grandma Li, a disabled elderly patient with diabetes who requires four injections daily. Since moving into the center, nurses have provided bedside injections on time, monitored her blood sugar levels regularly, and doctors are always on call. The elderly woman remarked, “It's much more convenient here than at home. I see a doctor every day, meals are prepared, and my medication is managed. My children can go to work with peace of mind now.” This is a microcosm of Fushan County's efforts to promote an integrated medical and elderly care service model.

The county has consistently prioritized the well-being of its senior citizens, using institutional care as a cornerstone, community and home-based care as a foundation, integrated medical and nursing care as a key feature, and wellness-focused elder care as a guiding direction. This strategy coordinates balanced development of urban and rural elderly care services, continuously improving facilities and service quality. Fushan County Party Secretary Zhang Kexin, during his inspection of the County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Central Nursing Home, emphasized that the needs of the elderly must always be a top priority. He stressed the need to improve facilities, enhance accommodation and nursing care standards, consistently implement fire safety and daily management protocols, fully implement various elderly care support policies, and create a safe, comfortable, and welcoming environment for seniors. County Deputy Party Secretary and County Mayor Wang Xing has also conducted multiple research trips on the wellness industry and elderly care system development, requiring improvements to caregiver training systems, enhancement of home and community services such as meal assistance, bathing assistance, and health monitoring, and the construction of a diversified care structure combining institutional, community, and residential wellness options to boost seniors' happiness and fulfillment.

The nursing beds in medical-nursing centers, the day-care centers across urban and rural areas, the footsteps of family doctors making house calls, and the emerging wellness blueprint nestled in the Zhai Geta mountains all paint a picture of Fushan County's elderly care services transitioning from basic support to quality enhancement and from basic coverage to precision and excellence. Walking into the Fushan County Central Nursing Home, one finds a peaceful, clean, and tidy environment with seniors strolling and chatting in groups. As the county's core public elderly care institution, the home is responsible for the centralized care of individuals receiving special government support and disabled or semi-disabled seniors. It currently has 104 beds with 30 residents, including 11 disabled, 15 semi-disabled, and 4 self-sufficient individuals. However, this older facility has faced challenges such as outdated infrastructure, limited functions, low occupancy, and underutilization, failing to meet the diverse needs of the elderly.

To address the lack of vitality and low occupancy in public institutions, the Fushan County Party Committee and County Government made a decisive move to initiate public-private partnership reforms and undertake a comprehensive upgrade according to four-star nursing home standards. “The renovation project covers not only building facades and age-friendly facilities but, more crucially, adds nursing-type bed functions and establishes rehabilitation and activity rooms,” explained Qin Qing, Deputy Director of the Fushan County Civil Affairs, Human Resources, and Social Security Bureau. “Given the high proportion of disabled and semi-disabled residents, the focus is on upgrading nursing beds and professional care capabilities.” Through these upgrades, the home will improve its infrastructure, optimize living and dining environments, enhance nursing services, and provide integrated services for daily living, rehabilitation, recreation, and medical care. This will not only secure basic needs for impoverished seniors but also open its doors to the public, allowing families from ordinary backgrounds to access high-quality, affordable institutional care.

85-year-old Li Tingfang, a resident of Wenchang Community, previously lived alone and struggled with meal preparation. “Without my children around, eating and living alone felt lonely. Now I come to the community care center every day. Meals are managed, I have companions for fun, and my health is monitored. Life feels comfortable and stable.” Since the Wenchang Community Day-Care Center opened, she can enjoy nutritious meals for just 3 yuan. “Wenchang Community is the largest in Fushan County, with 549 residents aged 60 and above, a significant portion of whom live alone, are empty nesters, or are disabled,” noted Gu Zhijun, Secretary of the Wenchang Community Party Branch and Director of the Neighborhood Committee. “To solve the problems of dining, care, and recreation for community seniors, we are building the Wenchang Community Happiness and Wellness Center on the site of the former Dongguan Primary School. It will comprehensively meet the diverse needs of seniors for meals, entertainment, rest, and rehabilitation.” The center covers 4,000 square meters with a building area of 1,500 square meters, featuring a dining hall, leisure and entertainment rooms, rehabilitation rooms, offices, and accessible elevators. It aims to provide one-stop services like day care, short-term respite, rehabilitation nursing, and spiritual support, creating a 15-minute community elderly care service circle so seniors can access convenient, high-quality care without leaving their community, truly achieving “aging in place with services at the doorstep.”

Community resident Uncle Ning, a stroke patient with limited mobility who has long required round-the-clock care from his children, looks forward to the upcoming opening of the community care center. “If I move into the care center, meals and accommodation are taken care of. My children won't have to sacrifice work to look after me. It lightens their burden and makes me more comfortable.” To ensure elderly care services benefit every senior, Fushan County is coordinating urban and rural development by advancing the construction of day-care centers across the board. To date, 23 day-care centers have been established—7 in Tiantan Town, 6 in Zhangzhuang Town, 4 in Xiangshuihe Town, 3 in Dongzhang Township, 1 in Huainian Township, 1 in Bei Wang Town, and 1 in Zhai Geta Township—achieving full coverage of elderly care service stations at the township level. Additionally, a senior dining hall has been built in Qifeng Community, adopting a model of “central kitchen delivery + on-site dining + home meal delivery” to primarily tackle the “difficulty eating” issue among low-income, solitary, and disabled seniors.

“For many elderly people, eating is a challenge. Some have mobility issues, making shopping and cooking difficult. This is especially acute for those living alone or with disabilities,” Qin Qing explained. The county uses day-care centers and senior dining halls as vehicles to address the issue of “one meal” for seniors. Community canteens and rural day-care centers tailor nutritious menus to seniors' needs, offering affordable, healthy, and tasty meals. Every dish and bowl of soup embodies thoughtful care, ensuring seniors eat warmly and safely. With institutional care being upgraded, community care becoming convenient and warm, and rural care achieving full coverage, Fushan County is weaving a tight urban-rural elderly care network through a layout of “centers in urban areas, stations in townships, and full coverage in villages,” continuously filling service gaps and optimizing service supply so seniors can enjoy accessible, high-quality care.

At the medical-nursing center of the Fushan County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, red banners, a warm photo wall, and the coming and going of medical staff and caregivers create a homely atmosphere. The center, built around a care system with four core functions—daily living care, medical care, health guidance, and senior activities—is the city's first integrated “medical-care-rehabilitation-nursing” model and a pioneer among public medical institutions exploring integrated medical and elderly care services. “We focus on serving disabled and semi-disabled seniors, adhering to public welfare principles and affordable pricing, breaking down the barriers of 'high-end elderly care' so that ordinary families can afford it and receive good care,” said Song Dachao, Vice President of the hospital. The center has 32 beds and is staffed by 4 full-time medical personnel and 4 professional caregivers, providing comprehensive services. For daily medical needs, it offers medication guidance, pressure ulcer care, insulin injections, and chronic disease management, with 24-hour dedicated care for disabled residents. In terms of traditional Chinese medicine wellness, it deeply integrates TCM advantages, offering moxibustion, cupping, acupuncture, acupressure, and herbal steam therapy to provide personalized rehabilitation services that help restore bodily functions. For nutrition, professional chefs prepare low-salt, low-fat, soft, and easy-to-digest meals, with three meals and two snacks delivered to the bedside daily, accommodating special dietary needs like diabetes and hypertension. For spiritual care, the center organizes chess and card games, calligraphy and reading sessions, holiday celebrations, and health lectures, while caregivers chat, read, and walk with residents, making them feel at home. Mr. Liang, a stroke patient who requires two rehabilitation sessions daily, previously faced exhausting trips with family members. Now, living at the center, he simply takes the elevator down two floors to the rehab room, making treatment quick and convenient and greatly easing his children's caregiving burden. To date, the center has served 123 residents cumulatively, with a bed utilization rate of 60%, and home-based services have covered 74 people, totaling over 10,000 service visits.

Focusing on the health needs of the elderly population, Fushan County is leveraging integrated medical and elderly care as a breakthrough to deepen the fusion of healthcare and aged care services. Relying on the county TCM hospital's medical-nursing center and township health center pilot programs, it is building a three-tiered “hospital-township-home” medical and elderly care service system. This provides seniors with one-stop services for medical treatment, rehabilitation, daily care, and health management, ensuring they “don't leave care for medical treatment and don't leave medical care for daily living,” solving the “last mile” problem of healthy aging. Over a month ago, 78-year-old Grandpa Xu from Nan'an Village, Bei Wang Town, developed a cough and phlegm. Due to mobility issues, he struggled to see a doctor, so he contacted the service team at the Bei Wang Town Central Health Center. Medical staff promptly visited his home to provide treatment. The elderly man expressed his gratitude, saying, “Going to the hospital would have required my family or neighbors to take me. Having the doctor come to my home solved a huge problem for me.”

Rural seniors, who are numerous, widely dispersed, and have weaker health protections, are a key focus for integrated medical and elderly care services. Fushan County is solidly implementing grassroots pilot demonstration projects, targeting the dual needs of “medical care + elderly care” for rural seniors. Pilot programs have been launched at the Bei Wang Town Central Health Center and the Dongzhang Township Health Center. Using family doctor contract services as a starting point, these programs integrate outpatient treatment, chronic disease management, rehabilitation nursing, and health education resources to provide doorstep medical and elderly care services for rural seniors. The Bei Wang Town Central Health Center serves 2,588 people aged 65 and above, including 602 disabled, cognitively impaired, or very elderly individuals. “Using family doctor contracts as our starting point, we focus on the basic, practical, and convenient needs of rural seniors,” said Zhang Haixia, Director of the health center. “We don't take on overly complex projects beyond our grassroots capacity; we genuinely solve health problems for seniors.” The center offers three core services: universal services, including two annual integrated medical and elderly care visits for home-based seniors aged 65 and above, covering blood pressure measurement, blood glucose testing, rehabilitation guidance, nursing skills instruction, health consultation, and nutritional improvement guidance; assessment services, providing standardized nursing needs assessments for over 70% of disabled, cognitively impaired, and disabled elderly individuals in the area, with 566 seniors already assessed; and home visits, with all moderately or severely disabled seniors signed up for at least four home visits per year, with family sickbeds established where conditions permit. Grandpa Zhang, 73, from Liangjiayuan Village, suffers from hypertension and stroke sequelae, making movement difficult and requiring regular blood draws. His family doctor team visits his home for blood draws and returns them to the health center for testing, allowing him to complete checks without leaving home. He said emotionally, “Having the doctor come to my home is so convenient.”

To deepen the integrated medical and elderly care service system, Fushan County is pushing high-quality medical resources downward to build a county-wide interconnected service network. This includes improving the pairing mechanism between institutions and nursing homes, with the county people's hospital and TCM hospital providing designated support and regular assistance to all elderly care institutions and community day-care centers through routine visits, expert consultations, health checkups, and chronic disease screenings, while opening green channels for senior medical treatment and two-way referrals. It also involves precise home-based medical services, regularly providing home visits, medication guidance, wound dressing changes, rehabilitation nursing, and health assessments for seniors with limited mobility, while expanding the scope of family sickbeds. The county is promoting two-way connection between medical and elderly care services, strengthening coordination between civil affairs, health, and human resources departments, integrating daily living and health management resources, and forming home-visit service teams to ensure seamless service delivery. It is also revitalizing grassroots service platforms, using pilot projects as a guide to equip rehabilitation facilities, summarize replicable experiences, and gradually achieve the goal of rural seniors “aging without leaving their hometown, rehabilitating close to home, and treating minor illnesses without leaving their village.” From professional care at the county medical-nursing center to services provided by township pilot programs and the county-wide integrated medical-nursing network, Fushan County is using “integrated medical and elderly care” to solve health challenges for seniors, ensuring they are “well-cared for” and “conveniently treated,” safeguarding their healthy lives.

On a vacant lot at the northeast corner of Yaoshan East Road and Donghuan Street in Fushan County, a high-standard, high-quality elderly care and rehabilitation center is about to begin construction. “The Fushan County Elderly Care and Rehabilitation Center Project is a key livelihood project implemented to fill the gap in high-end wellness and care services,” Qin Qing stated. With an estimated total investment of over 61.15 million yuan and a building area of 9,537 square meters, the completed center will fill the county's blank in high-end wellness services, providing high-quality rehabilitation nursing, residential wellness, and health management services, and serving as a new benchmark for elderly care in the county. This is a key part of the county's strategy to strengthen a three-tier institutional care system based on the principle of “high-end with quality, mid-range with options, and low-end with security.” First, high-end guidance: a dedicated task force will push forward the construction of the wellness and rehabilitation center to create a high-quality benchmark. Second, mid-range affordability: accelerate the public-private partnership renovation of the central nursing home and revitalize community elderly care resources to break through community care bottlenecks. Third, low-end security: comprehensively regulate private elderly care institutions to ensure basic support services meet standards, achieving coordinated development of high-, mid-, and low-end elderly care services.

Fushan County has scientifically planned a “3+2+1” overall framework, comprising a three-tier institutional care system, two service networks, and one professional team. For the two service networks, the Wenchang Community Happiness and Wellness Center will serve as a hub, linking with four community day-care centers to create a 15-minute elderly care service circle. In rural areas, 19 village-level day-care centers will be consolidated and upgraded, strengthening functions like daytime rest, recreational activities, and health monitoring to achieve full coverage of community and home-based care in both urban and rural areas. Building on the meal assistance functions of the 23 day-care centers, the county will implement the “central kitchen delivery + on-site dining + home meal delivery” model to address the dining difficulties of special elderly groups, achieving full coverage of meal assistance services across urban and rural areas. Simultaneously, relying on the central nursing home, the county will establish a county-level elderly care nursing training base to provide tiered and categorized training for caregivers in basic care, disability care, rehabilitation assistance, first aid, and psychological counseling, building a strong professional team and solidifying the talent foundation for elderly care services.

With its excellent ecological environment, rich cultural and tourism resources, and deep roots in traditional Chinese medicine, Fushan County has unique advantages for developing the wellness industry. The county will leverage the Zhai Geta Wellness Scenic Area as a flagship, linking with rural happiness canteens and village-level elderly care stations, deeply integrating resources such as ecological tourism, red heritage study tours, TCM wellness, and mountain leisure. It will innovatively develop special projects like forest wellness, seasonal health preservation, mountain retreats, and sub-health conditioning, creating a new benchmark for “residential wellness.” At the same time, the county will make every effort to build the “Longevity Fushan” brand, construct distinctive “Longevity Residence” guesthouses, develop longevity food products, increase promotional efforts, and build multi-form wellness scenarios such as “Forest Wellness Stations.” It will strengthen the linkage between wellness and healthcare, innovate integrated models of “TCM + chronic disease wellness” and “TCM + ecological tourism,” and build a TCM health service and industry development system with Fushan characteristics. By strengthening the elderly care industry, Fushan County will highlight the local features of “wellness, medical care, and nutritional food,” developing distinctive industries such as high-end elderly care, wellness tourism, senior nutrition meals, TCM health preservation, and senior entertainment products. This will cultivate a new engine for county economic growth, transitioning elderly care from a “livelihood guarantee” to “industry empowerment.” With guaranteed basic care, health protection for the sick, and a pursuit of quality wellness, Fushan County is responding to the call of the era for “supporting, treating, engaging, and delighting the elderly” through concrete measures, vivid data, and the happy faces of its seniors.