Every family has elderly members and everyone will grow old, so caring for the elderly today is caring for ourselves tomorrow. At the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the leaders stressed the need to implement a national strategy to actively cope with the aging of population and promote the realization of basic elderly services for all elderly people. Zhejiang Province is one of the first provinces to enter the society of the aging population. At present, there are 12.43 million elderly people registered for permanent residence in Zhejiang province, with 24.37% of them aged 60 or above, which signify this province has entered the moderately aging society.

In order to study and implement the guidelines of the Party’s 20th National Congress, to provide solutions on smart health care for Zhejiang to become the pioneer of common prosperity of socialism with Chinese characteristics and of provincial modernization during the high-quality development, and to develop the elderly care career and the elderly care industry, the International Forum on Smart Health and Care 2022 was held in Hangzhou on November 4. The representatives of international medical and nursing colleges and universities, scientific research institutions, enterprises, and nursing institutions for the elderly gathered together to discuss hot topics in the field of smart health care. Our university also held the unveiling ceremony of "Zhejiang-Asian Countries Alliance for Training Talents of Medical and Elderly Care" and the award ceremony of the first Zhejiang Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition on Home Economics Service Industry with Integration of Industry and Education at the same time.

The opening ceremony was host by Professor Chen Jun, Vice President of Zhejiang Shuren University.

This forum was hosted by our university. Some distinguished guests, including Tina Ho, Deputy Director of Committee for Liaison with Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Overseas Chinese of the CPPCC National Committee, and Honorary Director of the Eighth Board of Directors of Zhejiang Shuren University, Gu Jianxin, Director of Department of Foreign Affairs (Department of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs) of Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government, Tang Xiaoshu, Deputy Director of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education, and Chen Ping, Deputy Director of Zhejiang Civil Affairs Bureau, attended the forum and gave speeches. More than 250 experts and scholars in and outside China discussed the issues related to smart health care through online and offline means.

Zhang Qing, Professor and Secretary of the Party Committee of the University, introduced the discipline construction in the field of smart health and care in recent years in his welcome speech at the forum. Our university has been actively developing itself in the field of smart heath care through building the training base of the integration of "medical treatment, health care, nursing and management" for elderly care service talents, and the training base for talents in health big data engineering based on the integration of medicine, engineering and information technology. He expressed his hope that through this forum and the alliance, the university would make useful exploration for promoting the construction and talent training of health care disciplines in Asia.

How to implement a strategy to actively cope with the situation of population aging?

In the lecture of "Actively Coping with the Aging Population with the Goal of Common Prosperity", Li Lu, President of our university, explained the necessity and urgency of smart health and care with rich research data from four aspects: the development of China's population aging and the challenges, the national strategy of actively coping with population aging, the practice of Zhejiang Province of actively coping with the situation of population aging, and Zhejiang Shuren University’s efforts in actively training talents for elderly care. He hoped to learn from each other with international and domestic peers and create a beautiful life for the elderly.

Hon Wai, Wilson, Director of Social Welfare Bureau, the Macao SAR Government, delivered a speech entitled Social Welfare and Services for the Elderly in the Macao SAR at the forum. He pointed out, Macao's effective public policy system, community governance model and disciplinary education system cannot be achieved without the high-quality community welfare and services for the elderly provided by the Social Welfare Bureau of Macao. Tso Shing Yuk, Alice, Founding President of Hong Kong College of Nursing and Health Care Management, also indicated that in order to actively cope with the problem of aging population, providing community care for the elderly was a key factor. Ng Siu Lai, Chairperson of General Union of Neighborhood Associations of Macao, added that community resources should be utilized to set up the senior centers throughout Macao to provide services for needy families, so that the elderly could get community support and enjoy family life in a familiar environment, and at the same time the caregivers’ pressure could be reduced. In addition to the experience in Hong Kong and Macao, Professor Shen Jie from Japan Women's University provided us with a new perspective. She took the communities in Tokyo as an example and introduced the experience of the Japanese communities in providing public service for the "care of the elderly and protection of children", which provided reference for the future development of the communities in China. Kato Katsutoshi, Director of Welfare and Longevity Policy Division of the Department of Health and Welfare of Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan, advocated to build activity places for the elderly, strengthen the social participation of the elderly, and promote the health and longevity of residents and thus improve services for the elderly.

How to realize the transformation from traditional health care to "smart" health care?

During the meeting, Professor Mow Wai-Ho of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology introduced three important research advances of his team in camera communication, camera positioning and camera sensor, and briefly introduced the development direction of smart "health care" based on artificial intelligence. Sergey Ablameyko, Professor of Belarusian State University and Academician of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and Maria Ablameyko, Associate Professor of BSU, added that, on one hand, the application of artificial intelligence diagnosis signified the integration with the advanced science and technology, on the other, people should be wary of its challenge to ethical rules. In the report Key Technology Innovation and Series Products Development of Diagnosis and Treatment Integrated Neural Remodeling Robots, Wu Zhengzhi, Foreign Academician of the National Academy of Engineering of Ukraine, and Professor of Shenzhen University First Affiliated Hospital, introduced the intelligent rehabilitation robot of neural remodeling developed by their team, which integrated early diagnosis and rehabilitation intervention of stroke. This achievement promoted the digitalization and precision of rehabilitation diagnosis and treatment, and technically realized “smart” health care. In addition to technology, medicine is also a good approach. The successful experience of the team of Alexander V. Tuzikov, Academician of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in the computer-aided drug design driven by artificial intelligence has the important referential significance for us.

How to build the talent training system for the elderly care?

In order to accelerate the development of elderly service industry, it is also necessary to carry out cooperation and training of medical and nursing professionals, academic exchanges and policy research. In her report, i.e. Experience and Prospect of Building a Talent Training System for Nursing the Elderly, Prof. Van Iat Kio, President of Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau, introduced the teaching concept of "from human to benevolence", the multi-level nursing curriculum system, the "Benevolence Lights up My Later Life--A Tailored Meta-programme to Face with Ageing Population in Macao" and the training course of the Alzheimer’s Disease International, which have good referential significance for training nursing talents. Professor Wang Youmei, President of Zhejiang Dongfang Polytechnic, advocated strengthening the deep cooperation between universities and governments, senior care enterprises, hospitals and rehabilitation centers, creating a multifunctional platform integrating "medical treatment, health, protection and education", realizing the integration of study in universities, practical training in hospitals and internship and employment in industrial parks, exploring new paths for modern talent training in the elderly care industry, and providing a new model for the integration of industry and education in vocational education. Professor Jia Rangcheng, President of Ningbo College of Health Science, also proposed to create the model of Ningbo College of Health Science of training talents for elderly care by actively integrating into the national strategy of actively coping with the aging population, in order to improve the training quality and service capacity of the talents for elderly care and build a talent training system for elderly care.

At the end of the meeting, Vice President Ye Shiping gave a concluding speech of thanks, hoping that after this forum, there would be new developments in the elderly care industry.

In future, Zhejiang-Asian Countries Alliance for Training Talents of Medical and Elderly Care will strengthen cooperation and share experience in training the good-quality, reasonably structured and sufficient teams of medical and health care talents by holding exchange and seminar activities, promoting exchange of visitors and communication between teachers and students, and sharing international standards.