Can the organization of health resource integration be analyzed in terms of the current state of unmet demand for health services? take the health needs of the elderly in a place in zhejiang province, china, as an example

BACKGROUND: The aging of the population has made the health problems of the elderly increasingly prominent, and their health needs are increasing. Existing studies on health resource integration approaches are mostly incomplete in assessing the health service capacity from the perspective of the health service provider. OBJECTIVE: The unmet health needs of the elderly were sampled and analyzed from the perspective of health service demanders. To explore how to build an integrated medical organization structure to better meet the health needs of the elderly. METHODS: A whole-group sampling method was used to conduct a questionnaire survey of 1527 older adults in N district of H city, Zhejiang province, China, to cross-sectionally analyze their current status of unmet health needs. RESULTS: The survey and analysis found that the needs of the elderly in this community to obtain disease-related knowledge, rational exercise, a healthy diet, and access to health information were not met. There were more patients with chronic diseases, and the top three chronic disease prevalence rates were hypertension (40.2%), dyslipidemia (8.4), and diabetes (7%). Chronic disease co-morbidities accounted for 13.3%. CONCLUSION: The relatively independently set up health service system at the present stage in China can no longer fully meet the health needs of the elderly, and the health service providers should provide integrated and continuous health services to meet the needs of whole-cycle health management. Therefore, we believe that effectively integrating various health service providers in the region and building an integrated health service organization with general practitioners as the core may be a solution to the current situation of unmet health needs of the elderly. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12875-022-01893-7.