Experts are calling for a major overhaul of health and aged care systems to cater for rising numbers of elderly people.
Health management and leadership researchers from Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Finland and Saudi Arabia this week noted the number of people aged 60 and over is set to double to more than 2 billion by 2050 – a level which they say would place “unprecedented pressure” on health and aged care systems worldwide.
The experts say the fix is not only more funding, but also system-level redesign based on better connections between disciplines and service delivery.
Writing in a special issue of Health Care Management Review, the authors propose that ageing societies need a fundamental redesign in how care systems are governed.
Lead editor Dr Madhan Balasubramanian, Deputy Director of Health Care Management programs at the Flinders Business School and member of the Flinders Ageing Alliance said, “We have been reforming aged care for decades, but our latest assessment of management approaches shows we’ve been targeting the wrong thing.
“Without connecting clinicians, managers and policymakers into shared frameworks, system-level reforms continue to address symptoms rather than causes.
“Aged care systems are being redesigned, but the fundamental problem is how the people running them think.
“What’s missing is the ‘connective tissue’ – the shared language and structures needed to bring disciplines, sectors and institutions together.
“This is exactly the coordinated gap that Australian citizens are telling us about.”
In the opening article in the special edition, Dr Balasubramanian and colleagues said that this transdisciplinary approach required a change in the overarching “unit of design.”
Rather than assessing workforce, technology or policy reforms in isolation, the authors call for governance that treats these as one interdependent system, which will create the connective tissue that holds ageing-responsive care together.
“Clinicians, managers and policymakers don’t speak the same language. It should all be complementary – a transdisciplinary, interconnected approach,” Dr Balasubramanian said.
Co-author and WHO Technical Officer and Ageing Expert, Dr Amrita Kansal, added that health and aged care systems face “challenges relating to ageing that exceed the boundaries of any single discipline, profession or sector of policy domain”.
“Collective reforms are more effective when governance aligns with workforce capability, digital infrastructure, financing, referral pathways, and community and accountability structures.”
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