Message from the Department Chair

Dear Students and Friends,

Welcome to the Department of Gerontological Health Care. Taiwan will become a super-aged society, in which 20% of the population will be the elderly with nearly 5 million people of mature age in 2025. With this global aging wave at hand, the question now is: how much have we prepared for the upcoming super-aged society? How will we effectively cope with it? How do students, society, industries, and the public view aging—will it be a crisis or another opportunity?

Indeed, as population age, demands rise for even more complex home and community care services. Taiwan government has launched the “Care Services Welfare and Industry Development Program” since 2000 to expand home- and community-based care resources and promote “aging in place” and “aging with vitality” in accordance with the global trend of “Healthy ageing”. “Healthcare” industry has further been listed as one of the six emerging industries in Taiwan in the Executive Yuan’s Policy Package for the 2015 Economic Development Vision of Industry Development. In this package, six guidelines (i.e., national health, long-term care, healthcare, smart healthcare, medical care, and international healthcare) were formulated to enhance population health and facilitate development of related healthcare industries.

National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences (NTUNHS) has built itself into a reputable university that dedicates to nursing and healthcare education, practice, and sciences. In mid-2015, the Taiwan Executive Yuan held a cross-ministerial meeting on long-term care and appointed NTUNHS to establish the one and the only “Center of Healthcare Industry-Academia Collaboration”, which responsible for cultivating human resources and enhancing long-term care professional competency in Taiwan. NTUNHS was further awarded the “Ministry of Education Subsidy Program for Exemplar Universities” from 2013 to 2017.

With the university’s solid performance in nursing and healthcare sciences, the Department of Gerontological Health Care had been prepared for its establishment in 2015—the first term of our students was officially admitted in 2016. Because of our excellent performance, the department was further awarded the “Ministry of Education Higher Education Sprout Project” from 2018-2021.

Department Vision and Features

The Department of Gerontological Health Care aims to cultivate gerontological healthcare professionals with humanistic qualities and professional knowledge. Through the hard work of the University and its professors, an excellent learning environment has been established in the department. The University has the first high-quality “Gerontological healthcare and IoT demonstration classroom” in Taiwan with excellent software and hardware for cross-disciplinary collaboration. Together with solid curriculums and teaching faculty from various medical professions, the department well equips our students with gerontological healthcare knowledge for future career development and allows our students to keep up with the trend of upcoming super-aged society.

The Department of Gerontological Health Care was established by on-campus professors specializing in nursing and gerontological healthcare and experts in the gerontological healthcare industry by participating in several consultation meetings with relevant departments in colleges and universities across Taiwan. Gerontological healthcare is a special discipline that consists of multiple professions— it is holistic and encompasses the client and the family, the healthcare team and the community. It provides health promotion, health protection, early screening and intervention, healthcare management and rehabilitation care for the elderly.

Adhering to the “People-centered care” concept of NTUNHS, the Department of Gerontological Health Care works with the community and integrates health technology into student training. In addition, we develop an industry-academia collaboration model to facilitate students’ transition from college to industry and enhance their competency and competitiveness for career development. The Department of Gerontological Health Care also conforms to the core value of Taiwan’s technical and vocational educational system and dedicates to cultivation of gerontological health professionals with diversified abilities.

The Department of Gerontological Health Care prides itself on being the cradle for cultivating gerontological health leaders under the global silver hair wave. Features of the Department are as follows:

1) Professional Training - Cultivating Gerontological Healthcare Talents

The Department of Gerontological Health Care is built under the School of Nursing with comprehensive and solid professional nursing and healthcare skill training. It has on- and off-campus faculty and industry experts as well as resources from NTUNHS and off-campus hospitals, communities, long-term care institutions and home care agencies/units.

 2) Industry-Academia Collaboration - School Teaching Integrating with Clinical Practice

 Academic theory and clinical practice are integrated in our curriculum including dual-teacher joint teaching (school teachers and industry experts), curriculum design corresponding to academic theories and clinical practice, and progressive internships designed based on the needs of the healthcare industry. In addition to teaching, our faculty encourage students to participate in industry-college collaboration projects (we have collaboration with about 40 partners in the “MOE Center for Academia-Industry Collaboration in Health Care”), mentor students in their industry-college projects, offer cross-school, cross-department courses and perform research collaboration with universities/colleges across Taiwan in product design and improvement (e.g., joint research projects with National Taipei University of Technology).

 3) Seamless Transition from Academia to Industry - Employment upon Graduation

 The Department of Gerontological Health Care offers progressive internship to facilitate smooth transition from college to industry for our students. Our progressive internship starts from the Basic Care Practice (basic nursing and healthcare skills) in the sophomore year , the Geriatric Healthcare Practicum I (healthy and sub-healthy elderly) in the junior year, the Geriatric Healthcare Practicum II (mildly, moderately, and severely disabled elderly with physical and/or mental disabilities) in the senior year, to the Practicum for Obtaining Gerontological Health Care Employment (the last mile internship in the last semester of the senior year) in which the place of the internship is selected according to students’ wishes, allowing them to practice internship in their desired workplaces. Further, students are guided and assisted in obtaining official certificates and/or national qualification while studying at the department, which helps students to accumulate clinical experiences before graduation.

4) Global View – Domestic and Global Gerontological Healthcare Perspectives

Students will learn the domestic and global trend of gerontological healthcare in Taiwan and other countries while studying at the department. In addition, students will have the opportunities to participate in international exchanges/overseas employment program and/or take overseas training/internship/exchange courses through the collaboration of department and  universities in Japan and Australia. The Department of Gerontological Health Care offers overseas internships for students to broaden global vision, develop language skills, familiarize international gerontological healthcare practice and enhance career development.

 5) Course Features - Professional Skill Development in line with Career Requirement

(1) Our professional courses aim at cultivating graduates’ professional ability and facilitate development of core competencies of gerontological healthcare based on the requirements of academia and industry. 

(2) Our professional courses emphasize diverse development of the students and facilitate   career competencies through solid geriatric care skill training (see the palm figure below) and the five tracks of specially designed professional courses, including the “nutrition and wellness”, “dementia care”, “palliative and cancer care”, “care service management” and “technology and aids” (see the five fingers of the palm figure). These five tracks of courses are designed based on the well-grounded theory of “three-level five-stage healthcare for the elderly” and will equip students with solid knowledge of health promotion, health protection, early screening and intervention, disability limitation, and rehabilitation care for the elderly.   

(3) Our professional curriculum is designed to cultivate Three-in-one (i.e., gerontological health promotion, gerontological healthcare, and gerontological health management) professional talents that are capable of managing various healthcare situations and overcoming challenges in the gerontological healthcare industry.

(4) Our courses integrate academic theory with clinical practice. Course design includes dual-teacher joint teaching (school teachers and industry experts) and curriculums corresponding to  academic theory and clinical practice.

Highly Competitive Approach

    NTUNHS has been dedicating to nursing and long-term care education and practice and has rich gerontological health care resources from the following five partnerships: inter-college alliances, government and non-profit organizations (NPOs), long-term care institutions and home services, the orange industry, and medical systems. For promoting inter-college collaboration, NTUNHS has constructed an alliance titled “long-term care core-module course development alliance” in the 2016 academic year. In particular, NTUNHS’s MOE Center for Academia-Industry Collaboration in Heath Care is responsible for developing long-term care courses and promoting the long-term care industry organization and policy communication. The long-term care “core courses” and “course maps” are planned by the NTUNHS’s MOE Center for Academia-Industry Collaboration in Heath Care for students studying long-term care across Taiwan, and together with the “academia-industry internship matching platform”, students will equip with professional knowledge and skills for career development in the health industry. Rolling research and analysis are also being made to provide real-time policy advice to relevant government organizations. The gerontological healthcare and long-term care–related departments of a total of 35 colleges and universities across Taiwan have joined this alliance. The “National Committee for Long-term Care Curriculum”  has also been established to facilitate professional long-term care training. To date, a four-module curriculum specifically designed for training “care workers” , “home care service supervisors”, “care management specialists”, and “business management specialists” has been established and implemented in schools and colleges across Taiwan to improve competency and competitiveness of students studying gerontological and long-term care.

Expectation for Future Students

　  As a health professional for caring the elderly, every student of the Department of Gerontological Health Care is expected to uphold love, wholeheartedness, and patience, to be enthusiastic and prudent, to always smile, be polite, and caring, and maintain professional. We anticipate students to become gerontological health practitioners with humanistic qualities and professional knowledge and contribute to society.

University life is exciting. Students will have the opportunities to explore different dimensions of life while having freedoms in studying and learning and shaping future career path. The Department Chair encourages all students to pursue self-growth and take good control of their university life. I firmly believe that gerontological healthcare profession will continue to grow—it is the cause shared by you and me- and we shall work together to advance gerontological healthcare.