Quantitative Analysis on the Policy of TCM Health Care Service for

the Aged in Jiangxi Province Based on Policy Tools

Lidong Xie and Guang Chen

College of Economics and Management, Jiangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanchang, China

Keywords: TCM Health Care Service for the Aged, Policy Tools, Policy Analysis.

Abstract: Objective: To analyze the use of policy tools in promoting TCM health care for the elderly in Jiangxi Province,

explore the characteristics and shortcomings of existing policy tools in the application, and provide

suggestions for optimizing the policy system of TCM health care for the elderly in Jiangxi Province. Methods:

Based on the perspective of policy tools, combined with stakeholder theory, establish a two-dimensional

policy tool analysis framework. Using content analysis method and quantitative analysis method to

quantitatively analyze the policy texts and policy tools of TCM health care for the elderly in Jiangxi Province.

Results: The combination of policy tools is unbalanced, the environmental policy tools are overused, and the

supply and demand policy tools are relatively insufficient; the application of policy tools to the "elderly group"

is seriously lacking, and its distribution among stakeholders is uneven. Conclusions: Need to further optimize

the portfolio structure of policy tools; focus on the "elderly group"; improve the coordinated development

mechanism of policy participants.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the accelerating speed and deepening of

population aging in Jiangxi Province, the traditional

community care and home care models are no longer

able to meet the health and pension needs of the

elderly. As a new mode of health care, Chinese

medicine health care has unique advantages in

treating disease treatment, disease rehabilitation and

reducing disease burden due to its unique prevention

and treatment concept and appropriate technology

(Cai, 2017). Therefore, the development of TCM

health and elderly care services has become an

important way to meet the needs of the elderly and

deal with the problem of aging. In recent years, the

Jiangxi Provincial government has issued a series of

relevant policy documents, applied a large number of

policy tools, and initially built a TCM health and

elderly care service policy system, which provides a

strong support for promoting the high-quality

development of TCM health and elderly care service

industry. However, there are still many problems in

the application of policy tools. This study is based on

the perspective of policy tools, combined with

stakeholders theory, establish two-dimensional

policy tool analysis framework, quantitative analysis

of TCM health pension service policy, in-depth

analysis of traditional Chinese medicine health

endowment service policy system focus and

deficiencies, to further optimize the traditional

Chinese medicine health pension service policy

system to provide countermeasures and suggestions.

2 DATA AND METHODS

2.1 Sample Source

Using the Peking University Magical Laws and

Regulations Retrieval Tool, with the keywords of

"Chinese medicine for healthy pension" and "elderly

care", and the retrieval time interval is 2010-2021, the

local laws and regulations of Jiangxi Province were

searched by title and full text. And search for the

relevant policy documents that have been released

and are currently valid on the official websites of the

Jiangxi Provincial People's Government, Jiangxi

Health Commission, Jiangxi Provincial Medical

Security Bureau, etc.

294

Xie, L. and Chen, G.

Quantitative Analysis on the Policy of TCM Health Care Service for the Aged in Jiangxi Province Based on Policy Tools.

DOI: 10.5220/0012020100003633

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Biotechnology and Biomedicine (ICBB 2022), pages 294-300

ISBN: 978-989-758-637-8

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2.2 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Inclusion standards: (1) policy documents must have

contents closely related to TCM health and elderly

care services; (2) policy types mainly reflect

government policies by planning, notices, opinions;

(3) the issuing unit is Jiangxi Provincial People's

Government and its subordinate institutions.

Exclusion criteria: (1) the policy documents that are

not obviously related to TCM health and elderly care

services and lack material content; (2) the policy text

that has been included in the policy text information

pool shall only retain once (Zhang, 2019). (3) Other

relevant policy interpretation, activity notice, meeting

speech and other informal documents (Zhang, 2021).

2.3 Sample Retrieval

The policy documents were searched and screened in

strict accordance with the inclusion and exclusion

criteria, and a total of 347 policy documents were

retrieved. Read all the documents as a whole, and

delete only the keywords of traditional Chinese

medicine health care without substantive relevant

content, duplication with the materials that have been

included in the policy documents, and other related

policy interpretations, news reports, conference

speeches and other documents, a total of 17 policy

documents (Table.1).

Table 1: Distribution of measuring points of specimens.

Number

Policy Name

Issuing organization Release date

Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of old-age

care services

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Governmen

2010

2 Jiangxi Provincial Department of Health

Jiangxi Provincial Department of

Health

2013

Notice on the issuance of the Development Plan for TCM

Health Services (2016-2020)

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Governmen

2016

Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of

Traditional Chinese Medicine

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Governmen

2016

The Implementation Opinions on Promoting the integrated

development of medical and health care and old-age care

services

Jiangxi Provincial Health and

Family Planning Commission

2016

Notice on the issuance of the TCM Development Plan for the

13th Five-Year Plan of Jiangxi Province

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Governmen

2017

The Implementation Opinions on the comprehensive

liberalization of the pension service marke

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Governmen

2017

Notice on the issuance of the 13th Five-Year Plan for the

Development of Aging undertakings in Jiangxi Province

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Governmen

2017

Notice on the issuance of the implementation plan of Jiangxi

Zhangshu "Chinese Pharmaceutical Capital" revitalization

rojec

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Government

2017

Notice on the issuance of the Development Plan of Smart

Health and Pension Industry in Jiangxi Province (2017-2020)

Jiangxi Provincial Health and

Family Planning Commission

2017

The Implementation Opinions on Strengthening the

Standardization of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Jiangxi Provincial Bureau of

Quality Supervision

2018

Notice on the issuance of the Action Plan for the Construction

of the National TCM Comprehensive TCM Reform Pilot Zone

(Jiangxi) (2018-2020)

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Government

2018

Notice on the issuance of the Three-year Action Plan for the

Construction and Development of the Elderly Care Service

System in Jiangxi Province (2019-2021)

Jiangxi Provincial Party

Committee General Office

2019

Notice on speeding up the improvement of ten measures to

strengthen the shortcomings of rural elderly care services

Jiangxi Provincial Department of

Civil Affairs

2019

Notice on helping building Jiangxi TCM brand service

traditional Chinese medicine to strengthen the province strategy

Jiangxi Provincial Medical

Security Burea

2020

Notice on promoting medical and health institutions to sign

health care services

Jiangxi Administration of

Traditional Chinese Medicine

2020

The Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the High-quality

Development of Ol

-age care services

General Office of Jiangxi

Provincial People's Governmen

2021

Quantitative Analysis on the Policy of TCM Health Care Service for the Aged in Jiangxi Province Based on Policy Tools

295

2.4 Research Method

From the perspective of policy tools, this paper takes

the TCM health care service policy of Jiangxi

Province as the research object, and extracts and

codes the relevant policy documents according to the

policy document number-chapter-specific clauses,

such as 3-2-4, which means the third document. The

policy document "Notice on Printing and Distributing

the Development Plan for Traditional Chinese

Medicine Health Services (2016-2020)" proposed

"Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Health Care Services" in Article 4 of Chapter 2 "Key

Tasks". There are 411 codes in total. On this basis,

combined with the content analysis method and

quantitative analysis method, a statistical analysis is

carried out on the policy tools involved in the policies

related to traditional Chinese medicine health care

services in Jiangxi Province.

3 CONSTRUCTION OF A

POLICY TOOL ANALYSIS

FRAMEWORK

3.1 X Dimension: Policy Tool

Dimension

Based on Rothwell and Zegveld's classification

criteria of policy tools (Rothwell, 1985), this study

divides policy tools into pulling demand type,

pushing supply type, and influencing environmental

type. The main reasons are as follows: Firstly, the

classification method can reduce the dimensionality

of complex policy systems from the perspective of

tools and measures, and has significant intra-

dimension aggregate validity and inter-dimension

discriminant validity. At the same time, it has strong

target pertinence and content guidance (Li, 2016),

which is widely used in policy research. Secondly

such methods downplay the mandatory

characteristics of policy tools and emphasize the role

of the government as an environmental builder, rather

than just the intervenor and controller (Wang, 2015),

which coincides with the preference of improving the

development environment of policy projects in the

TCM health and pension policy. Therefore, this study

uses this policy tool classification standard to analyze

the TCM health and pension service policy in Jiangxi

Province, which has theoretical applicability and

empirical operability.

Demand-based policy tools refer to the

development (Li, 2021) of the government to stabilize

the market environment through external means to

broaden the policy objectives, mainly including

government procurement, government outsourcing,

demonstration projects, international exchanges, etc.,

to create external impetus for the development of

TCM health and elderly care services. Supply-based

policy tools refer to that the government directly

provides policy resources to promote the

development of policy objectives, mainly including

public services, talent training, technical support,

capital investment, resource allocation, etc.

Environmental policy tools mainly refer to the

government affecting the realization of policy goals

by creating a good policy environment and

development soil, mainly including strategic

measures, legal regulations, financial support, tax

incentives, etc. The relationship between the three

policy tools and the TCM health and elderly care

service industry is shown in Fig.1.

Figure 1: Policy tools for the development of TCM Health Care Service for the Aged.

3.2 Y Dimension: Stakeholder

Dimension

Stakeholders of policy resources are policy makers

and policy influencers or audience (Du, 2012). The

main stakeholders of TCM health care service policies

include policy makers: "government departments",

and policy audiences: "service institutions" that

provide TCM health care services and "elderly

people" who receive TCM health care services. The

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traditional Chinese medicine health care service

system needs the coordinated development of

government departments, consumers and service

institutions. Only in this way can the establishment of

the traditional Chinese medicine health care service

system be accelerated. Therefore, this paper selects

"government departments", "service institutions", and

"elderly population" as the Y dimension for analysis.

3.3 Two-Dimensional Analysis

Framework of TCM Health and

Elderly Care Service Policy

In essence, the policy is an authoritative distribution

for the value of the whole society (Davie, 1999), that

is, diversified policy tools are used to allocate the

limited various resource elements to the relevant

interest subjects of the policy. Therefore, it is

necessary to analyze the policy characteristics to

conduct a comprehensive analysis of the policy tool

dimension and the stakeholder dimension. Based on

this, a two-dimensional analysis framework is

constructed (Fig.2).

Figure 2: Two-dimensional analysis framework of TCM health and elderly care service policy.

4 RESEARCH RESULT

4.1 Statistical Results of Policy Tools in

the X Dimension

Based on the perspective of policy tools, the coded

policy documents were statistical classified and the

statistical table of frequency distribution of policy

tools was compiled (Table.2).According to the data in

the table, environmental policy tools are used at the

highest frequency, accounting for 64.7%; followed by

supply policy tools, accounting for 24.8%; demand

tools are used at the least, with the total proportion of

10.4%.Among environmental policy tools, strategic

measures were 33%, tax incentives, only 1.4%, 8.7%,

public services and 2.4%, 7.7%, but government

outsourcing, only 0.2%, no social stimulus was found.

Quantitative Analysis on the Policy of TCM Health Care Service for the Aged in Jiangxi Province Based on Policy Tools

297

Table 2: X dimension policy tool frequency distribution statistics table.

Tool t

e Tool name Fre

uenc

of use Percenta

Total

supply-oriented policy tools

(102)

Talent development

23 5.50%

25%

Capital investmen

36 8.70%

Information suppor

21 5.10%

Public service

12 2.90%

Resource

configuration

10 2.40%

Demand-based policy tools

(43)

international

exchange

4 0.90%

10.40%

Government

purchases

6 1.40%

Government

outsourcing

1 0.20%

social stimulus

0 0%

Demonstration project

32 7.70%

Environmental-type policy tools

(266)

Development plan 56 13.60%

64.70%

financial suppor

14 3.40%

Rules and regulation

54 13.10%

Tax incentives

6 1.40%

strategic measures 136 33%

4.2 Statistical Results of Policy Tools in

the Y Dimension

On the basis of the X dimension, the statistical

analysis of the stakeholder dimension is added to

obtain the statistical results of the distribution of

policy tools in the Y dimension (Fig.3). The results

show that there are 205 policy items for government

departments, accounting for 49.8% of the total; 181

policy items are used for service agencies, accounting

for 44% of the total; while the policy items for the

elderly are the least, only 25 items, accounting for

6%.

A two-dimensional analysis is carried out

combining the two dimensions of policy tools and

stakeholders. Among the supply-oriented policy

tools, 10.2% of them involve government

departments as the main body of interest, and 12.4%

and 2.2% of service institutions and elderly groups

are involved. Among the demand-based policy tools,

only 0.24% are used for the elderly, while

government departments and service agencies

account for 6.1% and 4.1% respectively. Among the

environmental policy tools, the evidence for the

elderly is the least, 3.6%, and more attention is paid

to government departments and service agencies,

33.6% and 27.5%, respectively. In general, the

environmental type is the most used policy tool

among the three stakeholders, which is consistent

with the use of environmental policy tools in the X

dimension.

Figure 3: Y dimension policy tool frequency distribution statistics table.

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5 CONCLUSION

From the analysis of the above research results, it can

be seen that in the use of policy tools of traditional

Chinese medicine health care services for the elderly

in Jiangxi Province, the use of environmental policy

tools is excessive, while the use of supply-based

policy tools and demand-based policy tools is

insufficient; At the same time, the distribution of

various types of policy tools in the stakeholder

dimension is uneven, the number of policy tools used

in government departments and services is

significantly higher than in the elderly population. It

can be seen that the combination structure of policy

tools needs to be optimized, the application rate of

policy tools for the elderly needs to be improved, and

the coordinated development mechanism of policy

participants still needs to be improved.

6 COUNTERMEASURES AND

SUGGESTIONS

6.1 Optimize the Combination

Structure of Policy Tools

Firstly, optimize the internal structure of

environmental policy tools while reducing the

frequency of use. To be specific, the focus should be

on reducing the proportion of "strategic measures"

policy tools, and avoid the formulation of government

policy only at the macro level. By increasing the use

of "financial support", "tax preferential" and other

policy tools, it should provide targeted and specific

supporting measures as support. Secondly, we should

also strengthen the application of supply policy tools,

promote the health of Jiangxi TCM endowment

service "supply side reform", attach great importance

to public services and resource allocation, strengthen

the guiding role of government public service

function, with the "visible hand" overall planning and

comprehensive coordination of resource allocation,

solve the contradiction between public service supply

and demand, realize the coordination and balance of

supply and demand. Finally, we should focus on

increasing the application of demand-based policy

tools, especially the use of policy tools such as "social

stimulus" and "government outsourcing", to stimulate

market demand and stimulate the development of the

industry.

6.2 Strengthen the Application of

Policy Tools in the Elderly Group

The elderly are the fundamental driving force for the

development of the old-age service industry. Only by

improving the security system including social

security measures and enhancing the consumption

supply level of the elderly, can the effective demand

for old-age services be expanded and the

development of the old-age service industry be

promoted (Cao, 2018). At the same time, the

improvement of TCM health and elderly care service

consumption by the elderly group will also promote

the continuous enrichment and quality of TCM health

and elderly care services, so as to improve the

consumption and supply level of TCM health and

elderly care service industry. It is suggested that the

provincial government departments should pay

attention to improving the payment ability of the

elderly group in the formulation of policies, so as to

improve their consumption ability of TCM health and

elderly care services. To sum up, it is suggested that

the government should strengthen the application of

policy tools in the elderly group, and improve the

policy attention to the elderly group, so as to ensure

the sustainable and healthy development of

traditional Chinese medicine health and elderly care

service industry in Jiangxi Province.

6.3 Improve the Mechanism for the

Coordinated Development of Policy

Participants

The combination of policy tools needs to achieve the

final policy performance through multi-party

coordination and adjustment and balance. The TCM

health and elderly care service industry in Jiangxi

Province needs the multi-party participation from the

government departments, service institutions and the

elderly people. The combination of relevant policy

tools should also have the comprehensive supporting

characteristics covering the government departments,

service institutions and the elderly people. Different

stakeholders have different interest needs, therefore,

the coordinated development mechanism of policy

participants should be improved; in policy

formulation, according to the actual development of

TCM health and pension service industry, balance the

interests of all parties and form a policy force.

Government play a leading role at the same time, to

pay close attention to the TCM health pension service

institutions, financial insurance companies and other

related institutions of the development and dilemma,

pay attention to the incentive of social organizations,

Quantitative Analysis on the Policy of TCM Health Care Service for the Aged in Jiangxi Province Based on Policy Tools

299

reduce the burden of the elderly endowment, form

government departments-services-the elderly trinity

of industry development pattern, help the

development of traditional Chinese medicine health

pension service industry.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Project of the Key Research Base of Humanities and

Social Sciences in Universities in Jiangxi Province:

"Research on the Construction of the National

Comprehensive Reform Pilot Area of Traditional

Chinese Medicine in Jiangxi Province" (No.

JD19065)

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