As China's aging population increases faster, the demand for professional nursing and care services have also grown quickly. Currently, many Chinese cities are building pilot programs of online nursing services appointment. The elderly can book experienced nurses via online apps and mini webpages, and have professional services at home.
In many Chinese cities, local governments have set up various digital access – WeChat programs, registered apps, hospital-affiliated websites – for residents to book online.
In February 2019, China's National Health Commission (NHC) launched a pilot program – the Internet Plus Nursing Services – in six provincial-level regions including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong, in an attempt to make use of nurses' spare time to provide door-to-door nursing services. Under the program, discharged patients and disabled people can apply for registered nurses to serve them at home via an online system.
Being such a nurse, Wu Xiujuan from Hunan Renmin Hospital has serviced her patients many times. "Many people are familiar with me, and I know their health info as well. So this long-term booking mechanism can make nursing work more effective," she said.
Shi Xiaomao, director at the gerontology department of Hunan Renmin Hospital, said services are usually provided to senior citizens, kids, chronic patients or disabled people. Nurses make use of their off-work time to carry out such services. Usually, fees charged by them include traffic, nursing, insurance and service.
In Hunan Province, patients in need can browse the messaging app WeChat's official account "Xixin Health" to check nurses' info and select the one they want, then make an order on WeChat. Nurse will come to patients to proceed with professional services afterwards.
Nurses using the apps can check and record patients' orders, health info, clinic records and payments. To conduct more professional tailor-made services, the apps are used by a third party to supervise nurses' work, contact their superintendents, and provide advice. A system integrating nurses, doctors, patients and hospitals is thus established.
"You just need to click the button, like hailing a taxi online, the instant services will be offered," said Qin Xiulan, vice president at Hunan Renmin Hospital. "This is a smart application based on big data and AI. By July this year, it has covered most of the areas within Hunan."
"The evaluation is very strict. Nurses need to know well about the patients beforehand, take photos of onsite situation and upload them to the hospital platform once they got to their homes. This is for our information consistency and following treatments," she said.
It is key to guaranteeing the quality of services, and make sure the nursing service is traceable and controllable, in order to continue this service. Door-to-door nursing is special considering it requires onsite services, so timely monitoring and instructions are necessary.
As Qin suggested, charging standards should be regulated and included into health insurance. In the future, more support from China's public sector is needed to encourage more qualified nurses to register.
According to the NHC, the average life expectancy of Chinese people reached 77 years in 2018, but, healthy life expectancy was 68.7, indicating a huge number of seniors are living with illness for about eight years on average before they die. With a population of about 250 million aged over 60, China has a huge shortage of nurses, where there are barely four million registered.
