New Directions for Facility-Based Long Term Care explores the opportunities now before us to transform facility-based long term care. CHA’s research found:

• Canada’s health system must prepare for the future. Seniors will live longer, are predicted to experience a compressed period of morbidity at the end of life, and will have definite ideas on the types of services they require and the methods of delivery.
• Long term care is not always the preferred option. Younger adult residents of long term care facilities, part of a small-volume but high needs population, can be supported through the development of more alternate living arrangements within continuing care. Further, although most elderly Canadians prefer to live at home, eventually, many will require care in a long term care home.
• Differences in long term care exist across the provinces and territories and within them. The delivery of appropriate facility-based long term care services will continue to be a challenge until policy makers realize its importance to the changing heath system and focus on making services more equitable across the country.
• Resource allocation and accountability are inseparable. If facility-based long term care is to meet future expectations, we must fund it properly and hold homes accountable for excellence.
• More research is needed in long term care. Canada lags behind other countries in per capita expenditures for research on aging. Many Canadians, health professionals included, are poorly informed about facility-based long term care. The establishment of teaching long term care homes should be given immediate priority for several reasons: to promote cultural transformation, to integrate leading practices for the benefit of residents, to better support current professionals, and to prepare the future workforce in this field.

Copy of the report