Observations on quality senior health business: Success patterns and policy implications

Objective: Population ageing is a global issue that affects almost every country.Most ageing researches focused on demand side and studies related to supply side were relatively scarce. This study selected quality enterprises focus on ageing health and analysed their patterns on providing quality services successfully. Design: Our study selected quality senior health enterprises and explored their success patterns through face-to-face semi-structured in-depth interviews with CEO of each enterprise in 2013. Setting: Thirty-three quality senior health enterprises in Taiwan. Participants: Thirty-three CEO's of enterprises were interviewed individually. Intervention: None. Main Outcome Measures: Core values and vision, historical development, organization structure, services/products provided, delivering channels, customer relationships and further development strategies. Results: Our results indicated success patterns for senior enterprises that there weremeeting diversified lifestyles and substitutive needs for the elderly and their caregivers, providing a total solution for actual/virtual integration and flexible one-stop shopping services. We classified these enterprises by used degree of clicks-and-mortar of services and residing situation of the elderly. Industry characteristics and policy implications were summarized. Conclusions: Our observations will serve as a primary evidenced base for enterprises developing their senior market, and also for opening dialogue between customers and enterprises to facilitate valuable opportunities for co-creation between the supply and demand sides.