Grant: Partnerships for Health System Improvement (PHSI)

Residents in Long Term Care have considerable difficulties in caring for themselves, suffer the impact of multiple medical conditions, and are often cognitively impaired. While staff in Long Term Care Homes do their best to care for these complex residents, Homes must manage demands of resident and families as well as provincial legislation and regulations with limited financial resources. Gaps in quality have been identified as a concern in LTC homes by researchers, policy makers and in media stories. In Ontario, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care introduced a new LTC Homes Act and regulations on July 1, 2010. At the same time, the Health Quality Council is actively trying to help LTC Homes improve quality of care by engaging with homes in a province-wide Quality Improvement program called Residents First. The Quality Council is also publicly reporting measures of the quality of care in LTC Homes. Our research study will examine what effects these different approaches to quality assurance and improvement are having on resident outcomes. We will also study how LTC Homes respond to these programs and observe changes in staff outcomes. Our research will describe the effects in Ontario and offer lessons to other provinces and jurisdictions regarding the effects of regulation and quality improvement programs on LTC residents, staff and homes.