Ninie Wang is the Founder and CEO of the Pinetree Care Group. Since 2004, Ninie Wang has focused on business model innovation, professional service and talent development in providing restorative, integrated care services for the ageing population. Over the years, as a standing committee member of China Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Ninie Wang has worked closely with nation-wide experts to advance research in the field of healthy ageing, publishing diverse papers on innovative models of care, and participating in the drafting of senior care industry standards and policy papers in China.
Ninie Wang has played an instrumental role in the development and piloting of the World Health Organization’s Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) framework and package of tools, which forms a core part of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing’s plan of action to implement integrated care worldwide. Ninie Wang was responsible for the localisation of the ICOPE framework and tools into the Chinese language and context, and the formation of a network of 200 organizations in support of the ICOPE pilot study. Ninie Wang’s other innovation in support of integrated care was the development of the ‘multi-discplinary talent’ approach, where each health worker involved in delivering integrated care would be trained in multiple aspects of care. With every individual in the team empowered to understand and practice every step of integrated care, the approach’s feasibility and economic viability significantly increased especially in low- and middle-income contexts.
Ninie Wang’s work and leadership show us how the contextualisation of global initiatives and frameworks within local realities is crucial in transforming the world to be a better place to grow older during the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing. The appeal of integrated care – a care approach that places people, not disease, at the centre of care – is universal, yet the exact modalities of providing such care must be responsive to local contexts to generate maximum impact.