‘Looking ahead to a brighter future’

The Alberta 2021 Continuing Care Report outlines ideas to help improve Alberta’s continuing care system

Continuing care is a system of health, personal support and accommodation services that supports people to maintain

their independence and quality of life regardless of their age, diagnosis or the length of time they need support. Continuing care services may be provided in different settings, including peoples’ homes, as well as community-based service locations such as adult day programs, supportive living sites and long-term care facilities.

The population of older Albertans is growing rapidly. To meet this growing demand, while ensuring the continuing care system provides appropriate care and is sustainable, the Alberta government commissioned MNP to conduct a review.

“The review focused on improving the quality of life of continuing care residents and their families, the quality of work environment for staff and operators, and changes needed to modernize the facility-based care delivery model,” explains Bruce West, a continuing care advocate with a 30-year career with the Government of Alberta, who is currently on the board of the Health Coalition of Alberta, a non-profit society that advocates for high-quality, person-centred care.

“As well, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted many issues with the current facility-based continuing care system that require an urgent response.”

During their review, MNP gathered information from four distinct sources, including stakeholder engagement, expert panel advice, literature/ jurisdictional review and analysis of data from facility-based continuing care providers and Alberta’s health-care system.

For the survey, MNP received feedback from more than 7,000 Albertans and completed more than 90 individual and group interviews with key informants and cited more than 150 references in their literature review.

MNP found a number of strengths in Alberta’s facility based continuing care system. Some highlights include: a skilled and dedicated workforce, well established clinical assessment tools, robust financial management tools, performance monitoring systems and operating standards, and a centralized health administration system.

“Despite early tragic events in facility-based continuing care settings related to COVID-19, the health system and care providers worked collaboratively and made many adjustments to improve outcomes during subsequent pandemic waves,” says West. “However, they also identified many areas for improvement that made up the bulk of their report.

 “While MNP’s mandate focused on the facility-based continuing care system (designated supportive living and long-term care), their interviews and literature review pointed to the need to expand their focus and recommendations beyond the facility-based care system to incorporate home care and aging in the community. In general, MNP recommended that Alberta’s future continuing care system focus on promoting healthy aging by providing a range of home care, community care and supportive housing services designed to decrease the number of people requiring facility-based continuing care services.”

MNP developed a Healthy Aging Vision for Alberta where Albertans are supported to be healthy and active in their community, with an improved quality of life, and they are engaged, empowered and enabled to live in inclusive communities with social connectedness and health-care access.

The MNP report listed 42 recommendations grouped into 11 policy directions. In addition, MNP also recommended a national discussion on an integrated continuing care system in the future, which could include improved funding and national standards, outcome measures and accountability.

 “A key element of MNP’s report that promotes enhanced quality of life as well as system sustainability involves a shift from facility-based continuing care toward a home care-based approach, with enhanced community supports to enable aging in the community,” says West.

 The Calgary Seniors Housing Forum will be hosting a FREE online event on Wednesday, April 27, at 6 p.m. to review the Alberta 2021 Continuing Care Report that outlined recommendations to help improve Alberta’s continuing care system. If you would like to learn more about the future of continuing care, join the free webinar at https://tinyurl.com/CalgarySeniorsApril27.

~ Article published in the Calgary Herald (March 28, 2022 edition)