How to Improve the Performance of Elderly Care facility Embedded in Communities？—Case Study from Two Districts of Hangzhou, China

Abstract

China's population is ageing, and urban centres have high densities of older people.The Zhejiang Provincial Government has proposed that ‘institutions should follow the elderly’, requiring that not only the number of beds per 1,000 elderly persons should be counted, but also the distance between the facilities and the homes of the elderly should be taken into account.Applying both the new supply capacity calculations and the old calculations shows that the number of beds in elderly care facility(ECF) in Up-town District is well below the planning requirements.However, the occupancy data collected from the actual research shows that there are many elderly care facilities with a certain percentage of vacancies.This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of six of these facilities and finds that facility location, space quality, and quality of operational services, all affect occupancy rates.The study reminds the government to pay attention not only to the location of facilities, but also to the service quality of existing facilities. Finally, two dimensions of coping strategies are proposed.