An exploratory study on the design of an integrated healthcare organization structure from the demand side perspective of health services

Background: China has entered a severely aging society, and the elderly have an increasing demand for health care. The current medical policy can no longer meet the growing demand for health services for the elderly. Objective To analyze the unmet needs of the elderly in Chinese communities, and put forward a plan from the perspective of health service demand side to make full use of health service resources and ensure the balance between the supply and demand of health service. Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted to analyze the unmet needs of 1527 elderly people in N district of H city, Zhejiang province, China. Results The unmet health needs of the elderly in this community were mainly related to chronic diseases, and the top three diseases in terms of chronic disease prevalence were hypertension (40.2%), dyslipidemia (8.4%), and diabetes (7.0%). Conclusions We propose that in the context of integrated medical policy, chronic disease management of the elderly in the community should break the concept of the original three-level medical system hierarchy and build an integrated chronic disease service system with general practitioners as the core.