A System Dynamics Approach for Evaluating the Synergy Degree of Social Organizations Participating in Community and Home-Based Elderly Care Services

As the number of elderly continues to increase in China, anxiety about related problems has encouraged special care for the elderly. Social organizations participating in community and home-based elderly care services (SO-CHECS) seem to be a promising way to address these problems, but it also raises new challenges, such as uncoordinated cooperation among stakeholders, which would lead to low elderly care service quality and hinder the active participation of social organizations. However, synergetic development can be introduced to enhance the participation of social organizations and to improve social welfare. Thus, this study utilizes system dynamics (SD) to investigate how the overall synergy degree of the SO-CHECS system is affected by the dynamic interactions of main elements/subsystems of this system. It also provides a practical tool through which the effectiveness of various management measures in improving the synergy degree of SO-CHECS could be simulated in advance so that the key factors that restrict the development of SO-CHECS can be analyzed and potential effective policies can be designed. In this way, knowledge of the synergic development of the SO-CHECS system will help managers or policy makers to form optimal cooperative relationships among collaborative stakeholders, improve satisfaction for the elderly, and achieve high-efficient resource utilization for the whole city.