Youhuwanjia: Building a Closed-Loop Elder Care Ecosystem through Integrated Medical-Elderly Services, Community-Based Healthcare, and Talent Development
Elderly care must closely follow policy trends. In 2016, the National Health and Family Planning Commission, in conjunction with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, formally introduced the concept of integrating medical and elderly care services and vigorously promoted its implementation.
This national initiative provided a clear development direction for elderly care service institutions that were then in the exploratory phase, including Beijing Youhu Wanjia Elderly Care Service Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Youhu Wanjia”), formerly known as “Youhu Wanjia (Beijing) Elderly Care Service Co., Ltd.” Established in October 2016, Youhu Wanjia is dedicated to providing professional elderly care services for China’s aging population and to cultivating and supplying skilled caregiving talent for the elderly care industry.
Duan Xuan, Founder of Youhu Wanjia (Image source: Provided by the company)
“Rooted in medical practice, integrating healthcare and elderly care, Youhu Wanjia is a pioneer and leader in the integrated medical and elderly care sector.” This is the unique competitive barrier perceived by Duan Xuan, Chairman of Youhu Wanjia.
“As former healthcare professionals, our decision to focus on the elderly care industry was a natural progression rather than a strategic pivot. Healthcare and elderly care are inextricably linked; the transition from medical treatment to caregiving is an inherent connection, as older adults can rarely do without medical services entirely.” Guided by this philosophy, the Youhu Wanjia team “started from healthcare,” founding and operating a renowned specialized hospital for hematological diseases between 2001 and 2012. From 2012 to 2016, it partnered with Poly Real Estate to establish the “Hexihui” elderly care service brand, beginning its efforts to integrate medical and elderly care services. In 2016, Youhu Wanjia (Beijing) Elderly Care Service Co., Ltd. was formally established, marking a new “starting point” for the integrated development of medical and elderly care.
Youhu Wanjia completed the layout of its various business segments over a three-year period and officially commenced group-level operations in 2019, establishing a comprehensive organizational structure and clear strategic positioning. As of June 2019, Youhu Wanjia operated four community-based elderly care institutions, nine community elderly care stations, and one education and training base, distributed across cities such as Beijing, Ningbo, and Dezhou, thereby initially forming a multi-regional, multi-site chain operation model.
“Bringing medical care and professional elderly care skills into every household” is the original aspiration behind the founding of Youhu Wanjia, as well as the origin of its corporate name.
Duan Xuan believes that elderly care should extend beyond mere assistance with daily living; it must leverage the group’s professional strengths in the healthcare industry to bring medical nursing and specialized geriatric care services into households. This is particularly crucial for the high-demand market of disabled and semi-disabled seniors, where caregiving backed by medical expertise and professional experience becomes even more essential.
Youhu Wanjia boasts a multidisciplinary professional team that “understands elderly care best within the medical sector and possesses the deepest medical expertise within the elderly care industry.” The team has extensive practical experience in consulting, planning, and operational management for multiple elderly care and healthcare projects. This professional team is regarded as the group’s core competitive advantage. “Our founding team members all come from the healthcare industry and have spent many years exploring and practicing in the elderly care sector. Therefore, we are the ones who best understand the needs of the elderly population within the medical community, while also possessing the strongest medical professional capabilities within the elderly care industry.”
Given the founding team’s inherent medical background, providing “medical skills” training to caregivers is naturally essential. In an interview, Duan Xuan told reporters, “Service standards are not as straightforward as industrial processes, especially when it comes to elderly care, which requires emphasis on psychological communication and caregiving, as well as etiquette and attitude. In addition to high-quality hardware-based services, there is a greater need for high-quality soft-support services. Therefore, our caregiver training program provides diversified skills training to care specialists to meet our professional standards.”
“We began laying the groundwork for talent development in the early stages of Youhu Wanjia’s establishment. Moreover, our training philosophy is derived from frontline market practices and grounded in real-world experience, ensuring that we cultivate caregiving professionals with genuine expertise.” In 2017, Youhu Wanjia officially established its talent academy, namely the Youhu Talent Academy.
U-Care Talent Academy is a practical platform established by U-Care Wan Jia, dedicated to exploring new models for cultivating talent in medical and elderly care services and management during its operation of healthcare and senior living facilities. Adhering to the philosophy of “Professionalism, Innovation, Integration, and Development,” U-Care Talent Academy emphasizes not only the systematic, professional, and scientific nature of its curriculum but also its practical applicability. By employing typical work tasks and sandbox-style teaching methods with a problem-oriented approach, the academy effectively helps students transform knowledge into skills that can be applied in real-world work settings.
It is understood that Youhu Talent College collaborates with major higher vocational colleges across China to deliver degree-oriented education in medical and elderly care talent. In partnership with the Medical-Nursing Combination and Health Management Committee of the China National Association of the Silver Industry, it has jointly launched the “Medical-Nursing Combination Talent Development” training program. Together, they certify and issue a series of specialized skill credentials covering areas such as operational management of elderly care services, elderly care techniques, and rehabilitation nursing. The initiative aims to cultivate and supply frontline operational staff for elderly care services who possess strong comprehensive qualities, robust professional skills, and a high degree of professionalism.
“Currently, there is a reluctance among the elderly population to move into institutional care facilities. If these facilities are located far away and medical services are inconvenient, seniors will become even more resistant. The goal is to enable older adults who can no longer care for themselves and whose families are unable to provide adequate care to remain within their own communities—close to home but not necessarily in the same household—so that family members can still visit and accompany them frequently.” Since turning her attention to the caregiving industry, Duan Xuan has focused on “community-based elderly care,” a small-scale model that is conducive to chain operations and entails relatively lower costs.
Targeting the elderly, disabled, and dementia-affected populations; implementing an operational model that leverages small-scale community-based institutions to extend professional services—including caregiving, nursing, rehabilitation, and medical care—to provide home-based care within a 3–5 kilometer radius of surrounding communities; featuring integrated community healthcare and long-term personal care services as the group’s operational hallmark; and adopting a business model with a replicable, franchise-ready standardized service operation system, Youhu Wanjia has established an eldercare service model characterized by “integration of medical and eldercare services, small-scale chain operations, and extended home-based care.”
The Youhu Wanjia model provides comprehensive care services for elderly residents in institutional settings, including high-quality daily living assistance, professional nursing, nutritional meal planning, cultural and recreational activities, rehabilitation therapy, and psychological support. It also extends home-based elderly care services to community residents, such as communal dining programs, routine visitation, in-home visits, and family nursing care.
Regarding future plans, Duan Xuan stated that she would currently concentrate on delivering high-quality nursing services and diligently fulfill her responsibilities. In the future, she intends to explore market-oriented approaches in home-based care services.