Grant: CIHR Café Scientifique Program

Home care combined with community resources are both valuable to community dwelling residents who require professional services such as nursing and therapy and/or assistance with activities of daily living. It continues to be the least developed component of health care services in Ontario. Home care services in Ontario include nursing, personal care, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, social services and home-making. In Ontario, publicly-funded home care is organized and co-ordinated by one of the 14 Community Care Access Centres (CCAC). It is subsequently delivered by the service provider organizations contracted by the CCAC. Currently, all home health care providers offer home care service beyond the levels provided through the publicly-funded and publicly-administered system in order to respond to the growing needs of individual Ontarians. This may also include the endorsement of novel technologies to include multidisciplinary contributions (e.g., health care engineering) to facilitate the mobility and encourage the dignity of home care recipients in the community.