Restoring trust: COVID-19 and the future of long-term care in Canada

• Main Authors: Carole A. Estabrooks, Sharon E. Straus, Colleen M. Flood, Janice Keefe, Pat Armstrong, Gail J. Donner, Véronique Boscart, Francine Ducharme, James L. Silvius, Michael C. Wolfson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 2020-08-01
• Series: FACETS
• Subjects: long-term care; nursing homes; covid-19; pandemic; quality of care; quality of life; end of life; ltc transformation; data quality; accountability
• Online Access: https://www.facetsjournal.com/doi/full/10.1139/facets-2020-0056

The Royal Society of Canada Task Force on COVID-19 was formed in April 2020 to provide evidence-informed perspectives on major societal challenges in response to and recovery from COVID-19. The Task Force established a series of working groups to rapidly develop policy briefings, with the objective of supporting policy makers with evidence to inform their decisions. This paper reports the findings of the COVID-19 Long-Term Care (LTC) working group addressing a preferred future for LTC in Canada, with a specific focus on COVID-19 and the LTC workforce. First, the report addresses the research context and policy environment in Canada’s LTC sector before COVID-19 and then summarizes the existing knowledge base for integrated solutions to challenges that exist in the LTC sector. Second, the report outlines vulnerabilities exposed because of COVID-19, including deficiencies in the LTC sector that contributed to the magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis. This section focuses especially on the characteristics of older adults living in nursing homes, their caregivers, and the physical environment of nursing homes as important contributors to the COVID-19 crisis. Finally, the report articulates principles for action and nine recommendations for action to help solve the workforce crisis in nursing homes.