Five National Departments Launch Initiative to Promote Integrated Medical and Elderly Care Services, Focusing on Disability Care and Talent Development
To: Health Commissions, Civil Affairs Departments, Healthcare Security Administrations, Traditional Chinese Medicine Administrations, and Disease Control and Prevention Bureaus of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the central government, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps,
To thoroughly implement the guiding principles of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and its Second and Third Plenary Sessions, and to fulfill the requirements outlined in the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Integrated Medical and Elderly Care Services (Guo Wei Lao Ling Fa [2024] No. 40) issued by the National Health Commission and other departments, the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the National Healthcare Security Administration, the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration have decided to jointly launch a three-year initiative to promote integrated medical and elderly care services. By the end of 2027, the goals are to continuously improve relevant policies, strengthen the service system, effectively increase service supply, significantly enhance service capacity, further integrate and share medical and elderly care resources, and better meet the health and elderly care needs of the senior population. The relevant requirements are hereby notified as follows.
I. Optimizing the Layout of Service Resources
Strengthen the Integrated Service System: Improve the integrated medical and elderly care service system based on existing healthcare and elderly care networks. Encourage coordinated planning and adjacent construction of primary healthcare institutions and elderly care facilities. Support healthcare institutions and elderly care facilities in legally providing integrated services. By the end of 2027, promote each county-level administrative region to have at least one healthcare institution or elderly care facility directly providing integrated services, essentially achieving full county-level coverage.
Support Functional Expansion of Integrated Services: Based on strict formulation and implementation of regional health planning guidelines, promptly optimize the development direction and functional positioning of secondary-level public hospitals, actively developing integrated services and other medical resources. Guide some secondary and lower-level healthcare institutions in areas with abundant resources to transform into rehabilitation or nursing hospitals. Support eligible elderly care facilities in expanding services by establishing in-house clinics or nursing stations. Grant prescription rights as needed and according to regulations.
Deepen Collaboration within Medical Alliances: Support the inclusion of integrated medical and elderly care institutions under the unified management of compact medical alliances, facilitating coordinated referrals, medical treatment, rehabilitation, nursing, hospice care, medication management, and elderly care services. By the end of 2027, in principle, all eligible and willing integrated institutions should be included in compact medical alliances.
II. Strengthening Professional Talent Development
4. Expand the Scale of Professional Training: Implement relevant joint notices to guide and support higher education institutions and vocational schools in establishing programs related to integrated care, elderly care service management, and smart health elderly care. Integrated institutions should actively support faculty practice and student internships. By the end of 2027, accumulate at least 30 new program offerings nationwide in integrated care and management.
5. Enhance the Professional Competency of Practitioners: Conduct training to improve the capabilities of professionals in geriatric medicine, integrated care, elderly care skills, and long-term care. Provide continuing education for staff in integrated institutions. Local authorities should intensify training efforts to achieve full coverage of training for management and professional staff in integrated institutions by 2027. Encourage integrated institutions to employ nutrition guides to provide dietary advice and intervention for seniors, especially those underweight or of advanced age.
6. Conduct Health Education and Care Skills Training: Utilize geriatric departments in general hospitals, elderly care service providers, senior universities, and community education centers to offer "integrated care courses." Combine with events like Respect for the Aged Month, World Alzheimer's Month, and the Double Ninth Festival to provide health education and skills training for seniors and caregivers. Integrated institutions should conduct at least one health education or skills training session per month for residents, families, community members, and home caregivers, covering topics like seasonal health guidance, self-management of chronic conditions, fall prevention, cognitive impairment prevention, and TCM health preservation.
III. Developing Home and Community-Based Services
7. Strengthen Health Management for Seniors: Diligently implement health management service projects for seniors, continuously expanding the standardized provision of such services to urban and rural community residents aged 65 and above. Provide tiered health management services based on health status, and standardize the delivery of TCM health management services for seniors.
8. Enhance the Quality and Effectiveness of Family Doctor Contracting: Primary healthcare institutions should optimize family doctor contracting services, providing convenient services like appointment referrals for seniors aged 65+. Community elderly care service organizations, consultants, and volunteers should actively assist family doctors with home visits. Promote the extension of family doctor contracting services to elderly care facilities, providing health education, health management consultations, TCM techniques, and dietary guidance. Support establishing family doctor workstations within elderly care facilities, fostering communication between nursing staff, social workers, and family doctor teams to jointly maintain the health of contracted seniors. By the end of 2027, achieve a family doctor contracting coverage rate of no less than 80% for special-needs seniors (disabled, advanced age, with disabilities).
9. Provide Embedded Community Services: Enhance the capacity of basic home and community-based elderly care services. Utilize existing community elderly care facilities to provide services like meal assistance, cleaning, mobility support, bathing assistance, medical aid, and emergency help for key senior groups in the community. Promote "Internet + Medical Health" and "Internet + Nursing Services" to provide in-home medical services for seniors in need.
IV. Expanding Service Supply
10. Deepen Effective Linkage between Medical and Elderly Care Institutions: Guide healthcare institutions and elderly care facilities in establishing cooperative agreements, clarifying service linkage mechanisms. Leverage the roles of physicians in geriatrics, rehabilitation, general practice, and TCM departments to strengthen integrated care and continuously simplify referral processes. Elderly care facilities can serve as rehabilitation sites for patients discharged from healthcare institutions. Support cooperation between county or township healthcare institutions and elderly care facilities for efficient resource coordination. By the end of 2027, essentially achieve full signing of cooperation agreements between willing elderly care facilities and primary healthcare institutions.
11. Deepen Integrated TCM Services: Utilize the strengths of TCM in preventive care. Primary healthcare institutions within integrated facilities should standardly offer at least 4 categories/6 types of appropriate TCM techniques; other healthcare institutions should provide safe, effective, and easy-to-operate TCM services such as constitution identification and treatment of common ailments based on their context. Elderly care facilities should apply appropriate TCM techniques to provide health preservation services for residents.
12. Promote Mental Health Knowledge: Organize campaigns to care for elderly mental health, incorporating it as a key part of health science dissemination to increase societal awareness. Integrated institutions should conduct at least two mental health knowledge lectures annually, support the allocation of psychological counselors or professional social workers, and provide counseling services. Support integrated institutions in conducting mental health assessments for seniors.
13. Increase Healthcare Insurance Support: Actively include eligible healthcare institutions within integrated facilities (including those established within elderly care facilities) into the designated healthcare insurance provider network. By the end of 2027, include all voluntarily applying and eligible healthcare institutions within integrated facilities. Improve charging policies for "Internet + Medical Services" and home-based medical services.
14. Strengthen IT Support: Fully utilize existing service platforms to promote the interconnection and data sharing of medical and elderly care service information. Integrated institutions should achieve internal sharing of resident medical and care information. Improve electronic health records for seniors to provide personalized health management services.
V. Reinforcing Service Guarantees for Seniors with Disabilities and Cognitive Impairment
15. Launch Health Service Actions for Seniors with Disabilities: Based on local conditions, launch actions to provide annual services including health assessment, physical examination, rehabilitation nursing skills guidance, and dietary nutrition improvement guidance for seniors with disabilities who apply. Provide health consultations and referral suggestions as needed. Strengthen early identification of high-risk groups and disability prevention through education and comprehensive intervention.
16. Ensure Care Needs of Economically Disadvantaged Seniors with Disabilities: Include concentrated care services for economically disadvantaged seniors with disabilities and other groups in social assistance service lists. Assist willing economically disadvantaged seniors with disabilities in selecting suitable elderly care facilities and provide subsidies. Provide appropriate subsidies to facilities accommodating such groups based on performance evaluations.
17. Encourage Specialized Services for Seniors with Cognitive Impairment: Implement the National Action Plan to Address Dementia in Older Persons (2024–2030). Encourage integrated institutions to set up specialized care units/wards for seniors with cognitive impairment, explore developing family care beds, and provide professional, standardized home care services. Support qualified integrated institutions in establishing memory clinics to conduct cognitive function screening and intervention.
18. Promote Implementation of Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI): Support the inclusion of eligible integrated institutions into the designated LTCI service provider network. Elderly care facilities should increase nursing care beds through various means to improve disability care levels. Ensure effective linkage between subsidy policies for economically disadvantaged, advanced-age, or disabled seniors and LTCI, promoting the alignment of relevant assessment standards.
VI. Strengthening Quality Management
19. Implement Resident Assessment System: Upon a senior's admission, integrated institutions should conduct a comprehensive assessment of health status, service needs, risk level, and capabilities as needed, formulating a tailored service plan. After admission, closely monitor health status, conduct timely dynamic assessments, and scientifically adjust service plans based on results.
20. Enhance Quality Control: Support localities in utilizing provincial quality control centers, healthcare institutions, provincial elderly care service centers, or model facilities to provide technical guidance and quality control for integrated services. Integrated institutions should continuously improve quality and safety management systems, strengthen control over key processes, use service quality management as a key basis for internal evaluation, and promote service level improvement.
21. Promote Multidisciplinary Continuous Care: Based on senior needs, integrate medical, nursing, rehabilitation, hospice care, and pharmaceutical resources to form multidisciplinary teams, providing integrated one-stop services covering prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, nursing, hospice care, and pharmacy. Strictly implement core medical and nursing quality systems, ensuring the new incidence rate of Stage II or higher pressure injuries among seniors is controlled below 5%.
22. Standardize Management of Self-Administered Medications: Establish management systems for seniors' self-administered medications, strengthening the coordination between institution-prescribed and self-administered drugs. When seniors need to use their own medications, staff should follow medical orders or prescriptions to standardize the receipt, preparation, distribution, and categorized management of medications, strengthen medication guidance, conduct monitoring based on medication records, and promptly handle incidents like mistaken ingestion or adverse reactions.
VII. Fortifying the Safety Production Defense Line
23. Strengthen Industry Oversight: Local health and civil affairs departments should conduct industry oversight of healthcare institutions and elderly care facilities providing integrated services respectively. Annually, as part of "random inspection and public disclosure" checks, inspect a certain number of corresponding institutions based on their responsibilities. Strengthen safety production management, standardize administrative inspection requirements for enterprises, and collaborate with relevant safety production regulatory departments to strengthen daily supervision and guidance according to law.
24. Implement Institutional Primary Responsibility: Integrated institutions must strictly implement laws and regulations concerning fire safety and security, conduct regular self-inspections and corrections for risks and hazards, establish ledgers for identified issues, and rectify them promptly. Improve risk prevention measures, strengthen daily patrols, duty arrangements, and training drills. Conduct at least one fire safety inspection monthly and at least one fire drill every six months.
25. Conduct Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Drills: Integrated institutions should formulate emergency response plans, improve infectious disease prevention, control, and healthcare-associated infection management mechanisms, and conduct at least one infectious disease emergency response drill annually. Promptly report public health emergencies and suspected infectious disease outbreaks to the local disease control and prevention agency and superior authorities, and actively take emergency measures.
All local authorities and relevant departments should strengthen organizational leadership, enhance policy coordination, integrate resources from all sides, increase support, effectively expand supply, and improve service capacity. They should adapt measures to local conditions, combining them with initiatives like the creation of integrated service demonstration sites, high-quality development of public hospitals, and the construction of compact medical alliances. Strengthen work guidance and effectiveness evaluation to ensure the action achieves tangible results. Pay attention to summarizing and promoting exemplary practices discovered during the action, intensify publicity efforts, and foster a favorable social atmosphere. Relevant situations and typical cases should be promptly reported to the National Health Commission.
General Office of the National Health Commission
General Office of the Ministry of Civil Affairs
Office of the National Healthcare Security Administration
General Department of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine
General Department of the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration
October 11, 2025
Interpretation of the Notice on Launching the Action to Promote Integrated Medical and Elderly Care Services
Recently, the General Office of the National Health Commission, the General Office of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Office of the National Healthcare Security Administration, the General Department of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the General Department of the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration jointly issued the Notice on Launching the Action to Promote Integrated Medical and Elderly Care Services, launching a three-year initiative. The interpretation is as follows.
I. Drafting Background
The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to integrated medical and elderly care work. The Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and Advancing Chinese Modernization adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee proposes to "promote integrated medical and elderly care." To thoroughly implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, fulfill the requirements of the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Integrated Medical and Elderly Care Services (Guo Wei Lao Ling Fa [2024] No. 40) issued by the National Health Commission and other departments, further expand the supply of integrated services, improve service quality and efficiency, and promote their high-quality development, the five departments decided to jointly launch this three-year action.
II. Main Content
The Notice proposes that by the end of 2027, relevant policies will be continuously improved, the service system will be more robust, service supply will be effectively increased, service capacity will be significantly enhanced, medical and elderly care resources will be further integrated and shared, and the health and elderly care service needs of seniors will be better met.
The Notice deploys 25 specific tasks across seven areas:
Optimizing the layout of service resources, including strengthening the system, supporting functional expansion, and deepening collaboration within medical alliances.
Strengthening professional talent development, including expanding training scale, enhancing practitioner competency, and conducting health education and skills training.
Developing home and community-based services, including strengthening health management, enhancing family doctor services, and providing embedded community services.
Expanding service supply, including deepening linkages between institutions, integrating TCM services, promoting mental health knowledge, increasing insurance support, and strengthening IT.
Reinforcing service guarantees for seniors with disabilities and cognitive impairment, including launching health service actions, ensuring care for the economically disadvantaged, encouraging specialized services, and promoting LTCI.
Strengthening quality management, including implementing resident assessments, enhancing quality control, promoting multidisciplinary care, and standardizing medication management.
Fortifying the safety production defense line, including strengthening oversight, implementing institutional responsibility, and conducting infectious disease drills.
The Notice requires all local authorities and relevant departments to strengthen organizational leadership and increase support. They should combine this action with the creation of demonstration sites, high-quality public hospital development, and compact medical alliance construction, strengthen work guidance and effectiveness evaluation, and do a good job summarizing and promoting typical experiences.
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