Evolutionary game model of health care and social care collaborative services for the elderly population in China

Introduction The synergy of health care and elderly social care organizations has become the focus of the research on integrated health care and social care. This study aims to propose a collaborative strategy among health care and elderly social care service providers. Methods An evolutionary game model is applied for performance analysis and optimization of the cooperation between health care and elderly social care organizations. The behavioural strategies and the impact of key parameters on promoting the cooperation of the players are presented in detail. Results Simulation experiments and sensitivity analysis results indicate that (1) the behavioural evolution of health care organizations and elderly social care organizations forms three types of integrated health care and social care services, namely, the bilateral cooperation type, health care organization-led type and elderly social care organization-led type. (2) Increasing the additional benefits for cooperation and reducing the additional costs for cooperation can promote the willingness to synergize to provide integrated health care and elderly social care services. At the early stage of evolution, increasing the costs that elderly social care organizations pay to purchase health care services or pay for negotiation in the bilateral cooperation type can provide incentives for health care organizations to cooperate while reducing the cooperation preferences of elderly social care organizations. However, the long-term impact of the costs on the behavioural strategies for cooperation of the two players cannot be determined. Conclusion The behavioural decisions on cooperation between health care and elderly social care organizations influence each other; commitment to integration and effective collaboration can be achieved by increasing the additional benefits and reducing the marginal costs. The findings suggest that the political-economic context and government policies have a greater influence on promoting cooperation, thus yielding positive or negative results for integrated care practice.