Grant: Project Grant

For older adults living with advanced chronic illness, aging in place is key to quality of life but without adequate support can result in heavy symptom burden and social isolation. Older adults may not be aware of health and social resources available in their communities, so an innovative model was developed to provide navigation services. In this person-centered approach, trained volunteer navigators advocate, facilitate community connections, coordinate access to services/resources, and promote active engagement of older adults with their community (NCARE: Navigation, Connecting, Accessing, Resourcing, and Engaging). Pilot work indicates this model provides important support to older adults while developing meaningful roles for volunteers. The purpose of this project is to enhance the quality of life of older adults living with advanced chronic illness at home by implementing, evaluating, and planning a sustainable volunteer navigation model using an integrated knowledge translation approach. Eight hospice societies from rural, remote, and urban contexts in BC, AB, and NS are project partners. Hospice volunteers and older adults living with advanced chronic illness will be recruited in each community. Volunteers will receive training and then provide navigation services to assigned older adults, visiting in the home every 2-3 weeks for 18 months. They will be supported by a nurse navigator coach, a hospice society volunteer coordinator, and a local healthcare provider. Evaluation data will be gathered from older adults, families, volunteers, and other stakeholders. At project conclusion, a tool-kit will be created to enable hospice societies across Canada to implement volunteer navigation. Anticipated contributions to Canadian healthcare are significant: older adults will have better quality of life, volunteers will have enhanced roles that build hospice capacity, and supportive care will be implemented early for those living with advanced chronic illness.