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Canadian seniors account for 85 per cent of patients in hospital beds

2011-12-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

Seniors Need Care at Home But Recruiting Is Drying Up From Overseas

Canadian seniors account for 85 per cent of patients in hospital beds who could be receiving care elsewhere, a problem that will only grow as the first baby boomers turn 65 this year, according to a new report.
Thursday's report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information called Health Care in Canada, 2011: A Focus on Seniors and Aging, examines how seniors use the health system and where there’s room for improvement.

For example, 47 per cent of seniors have completed their hospital treatment but remain in an acute-care hospital because they're waiting to be moved to a long-term care facility such as a nursing home or to rehab or home with support (so-called "alternate level of care" patients.)
Those patients have a ripple effect on the rest of a hospital, said Dr. Jeff Turnball chief of staff of the Ottawa Hospital.

"The delays of getting into the hospital delays, of getting timely surgery diagnostics, all are affected by our that fact that we have so many people sitting in our acute-care beds," said Turnbull.
Last year, those ripples meant the hospital had to cancel 600 elective surgeries, he said.
Currently, seniors represent 14 per cent of the population, but they use 40 per cent of hospital services and account for about 45 per cent of health spending of provincial and territorial government, the report's authors found.
For hospitals, an acute -care bed costs about $1,100 a day. In comparison, Turnbull estimated it costs a quarter of that to care for the same senior in the community.

The goal for governments should be to spend money on the right services so more seniors can stay at home and out of hospital longer, said Kathleen Morris, CIHI's director of health system analysis.

Those services include traditional health-care services such as nursing and physiotherapy as well as transportation or help with household chores to help the 93 per cent of seniors who live at home, Morris said.
Ensuring continuity of care for seniors across the health care system could potentially lead to better care and better quality of life, health policy researcher Marcus Hollander in Victoria said, commenting on the report.
The report's authors pointed to efficient use of new technologies such as:

A medication monitoring system equipped with a sensor to allow family members to use online video clips to monitor which medications were taken for seniors receiving home-care services.
Magnetic door sensors that send an email, text message or cell phone message to caregivers if a person with dementia goes outside unattended.
Flexible bed mats with pressure sensors that let caregivers know when their family member has woken up and is moving.

The report also included chapters on seniors' use of prescription drugs and caring for seniors in the community or in residential care.

Are Children Scared of the Elderly…?

2011-11-08T00:24:00.000-08:00

October 27, 2011 By Kyle Murphy

Young children uncomfortable around old people…I am always amazed when I see young children interact with an elderly person.

Some children are very comfortable, but the majority seems to be uneasy or scared around seniors. A lot of what I see is in our Residential Care Homes for the Elderly or Board and Care Homes as they are also known.

That probably starts at home. If they have close ties to grandma and grandpa, they are most likely used to seeing them quite often. One difference is that some people in these types of homes need more care and often have disabilities that might be strange to younger children.

What I noticed here in the United States is that seniors downsize and move out of the old neighborhoods where they raised their children living separate lives and only seeing each other here and there. Some of our Elderly populations live in 50 and over parks or communities where children are not allowed. I feel this is unfortunate because exposure to children may very well be what keeps us young.

On our recent trip back to my hometown in Switzerland, I was curious to see if anything had changed. The one thing that I really enjoyed growing up in my little hometown was that the young and old lived together.

In many cases, Grandpa and Grandma would live with their kids until the end, especially on farms. Our Elders were always involved with the younger generations; they even lived in the house next to their families or in the same building as their children and grandchildren.

If one went to a restaurant, you would always find the old and young sitting together and talking about daily issues. I always thought that was great. The younger people learned a great deal from the older generations and older ones learned what’s new with teenagers, etc.

What I found out while on my trip is that times are changing there as well. More and more elders are moving to Assisted Living Communities and Board and Care Homes, usually because of an ailment like Dementia or Alzheimer’s, etc. As fate would have it, a Care Home for the Elderly was built across the street from the house that I grew up in.

But like anywhere in the world, people like to stay home as long as possible and live independently. The one thing that I did not see is 50 plus neighborhoods. People still live in their communities, downsizing here may mean to rent out a room or two to get additional retirement income. Overall, young and old stay in the same neighborhoods and live together without too many problems.
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Raising Grandchildren | 4 Tips for Grandparents

2011-11-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

November 2, 2011 By Kyle Murphy

A Grandparents’ Quick Guide to Raising Grandchildren

Grandparents have an incredibly important role in a young baby’s or toddler’s life. You are an additional source of love and care, a valuable resource for the parents, an inspiration to all.

Here’s 4 Quick Ideas that will help Mold you into the Grandparent you strive to beWhen you’re not visiting in person, try making a scheduled phone call once a week to talk to the child. Encourage him to share some news with you, preferably something only he can reveal.

These phone calls will likely become a favorite event that the child looks forward to.Video Record. If Grandma and Grandpa are hip, they may be carrying a smart phone with a video recorder, a camera with video capabilities, or a digital camcorder. If they try to use anything that winds up, it is time to invest in a birthday gift. Grandparents make wonderful videographers of special events; they hold the camera steady and are usually okay with not being in the middle of things.

Stories. Magnify your family history by telling your granddaughter stories of her parents. For me, it was always the story about my dad painting an entire glass window while my grandmother stepped away for a brief phone call.Celebrate at your house. Holidays are a time for everyone to get together and usually this falls on the oldest generation. Host parties to your heart’s content and cherish family rituals and the time spent together. You never know when it will be the last.

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5 Ideas to Keep Busy During Retirement

2011-11-07T12:31:00.000-08:00

November 1, 2011
By Kyle Murphy

Just because you’re retired doesn’t mean you are done working.

For some of us this means, now we get to pursue something we’ve wanted to do all our lives. Before retirement, we had responsibilities and obligations to provide for family and set aside for retirement; now we actually have the time and hopefully the energy to begin a new chapter. The best part is the luxury of not having to worry about whether your new venture is extremely profitable or not.
Some of These May Seem Obvious

However, consider this a checklist of things not to forget to ask yourself during your Idea Hunt.
Think about jobs that relate to childhood dreams or old hobbies. Buy and sell baseball cards online.Consider a job that enables you to continue or grow your expertise in a certain area. Working at a nursery or teach at a local community college.Do you love fishing, cooking, golfing, traveling, spelunking, law enforcement? There is a creative solution to working as a retiree in almost any industry, especially if you have a comfortable financial lifestyle already.If you can afford to sacrifice income for a rewarding job and vitality, than volunteering is certainly an option.

There is never enough people to fill all the worthy causes in the world, starting with hospitals, schools, libraries, churches, parks, zoos, international relief organizations, and so much moreIf you just want to do something, anything…you can find a company that actively recruits seniors. You may be surprised to find everyone from McDonalds to MetLife wants to employ older people. Why? The AARP has developed a program that partners with companies who encourage experience and leadership from older Americans.

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A ‘Perfect Storm’ Helped Create Health Care Reform in Our Country

2011-11-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

CanadaRetirement Living Submitted by szadmin on Wed, 10/05/2011 - 08:00
Browsing our Museum of Civilization’s time-line series, you can’t help but think that the ‘perfect conditions’ meteorologist Bob Case described to author S. Junger, who was researching a book about a real-life hurricane, is eerily similar of what happened between 1914 and 1918 in our own country to help create health care reform.

Canada faced extraordinary circumstances from four different situations. Each was overwhelming, combined they formed a ‘perfect storm’. The consequences forced ordinary Canadians to demand change.

Looking back, 1914, Canada was a colony in the British Empire, population approximately 7.5 million, many of whom were recent immigrants. Alberta and Saskatchewan were the newest provinces created in 1905; Newfoundland was still a separate colony. Canada had 8 medical schools with 1,792 students in all--321 doctors graduated that year and the majority went into private practice as general practitioners.

Four ‘perfect storm’ conditions converged.

WW1 exposed the poor health condition of our citizens!

That same year Britain declared war on Germany and doctors here discovered numerous health problems as Canadians enlisted (active tuberculosis, bad teeth, sexually transmitted infections). They also found many recruits unfit for duty because of past childhood ailments (infectious diseases such as smallpox, diphtheria, typhoid, scarlet fever, measles).

These findings, plus earlier reports of high maternal and infant death rates in our cities, launched calls for a national preventive services health department to be created to ease the problems of communicable diseases.

The conscription crisis forced compromise!

Winning the war was a priority for Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden, thus he promised to maintain a field force of 500,000 soldiers and to supply food and munitions to the Allied forces.

But fewer men volunteered for overseas service as the war dragged on. Thus, in 1917, the government decided to introduce military conscription.

It became a controversial election issue and caused a split in the opposition Liberal Party led by Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The Borden government was forced into an alliance with some of the pro-conscription Liberals. One of the conditions the Liberals called for, so as to join a Union government led by Borden, was the formation of a federal health department.

The Halifax Explosion signalled our lack of emergency planning!

On December 6, 1917, once again the need for health-action was starkly revealed when the Halifax Explosion occurred. Two ships in the narrows of Halifax military harbour (one of the world’s greatest natural harbours) rubbed together, one carried explosives. The resulting flames caused a massive explosion and a huge tidal wave, all within 10 seconds! (This was the second biggest man-made explosion in history, the first is the bombing of Japan.)

1,963 died, 9,000 were injured and 25,000 became homeless as 2.5 kilometres were levelled. The situation worsened when a six-day blizzard hit immediately after the catastrophe. The “Shattered City” as it became informally known, urgently needed medical assistance, supplies and help. Canadians responded rapidly, but help came more swiftly from Massachusetts. (Halifax still sends Boston a Xmas tree every year in thanks for their support.)

At the same time, the services needed to deal with the orphans, the blind and the disabled from this disaster were also required for the 160,000 returning wounded servicemen.

As a result, the Department of Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment was created in 1918 to run convalescent hospitals, sanatoria and homes, pay disability allowances, operate an artificial limb and surgical appliance factory, work with out-patients with tuberculosis, dental and mental health conditions, help servicemen find jobs, occupational therapy was pioneered in these hospitals....

Up until then, Canadians had been expected to pay for their own care or seek aid from municipal or provincial facilities. Now, for the first time, the federal government was helping fund health services.

An influenza pandemic revealed the limits of our system!

Then during the final battles in the spring of 1918, a new enemy appeared. ‘Spanish flu’ (a subtype of avian strain H1N1) attacked troops on both sides of the conflict. The disease quickly struck our troops overseas plus those in camps at home.

(Note: The pandemic lasted from March 1918 to June 1920, between 50 and 100 million, about 3% of the world's population of 1.6 billion at that time, died of the disease making it the deadliest natural disaster in human history.)

The outbreak spread to our civilian population, killing many of our young adults between 20 and 45. Communities rallied to provide food, bedding, fuel and care to those ill, but the horrifying speed of the epidemic clearly highlighted our country’s need for more health care professionals, facilities and medical research.

The resulting loss of 50,000 of our young men and women to the flu in addition to the 60,000 war dead prompted Canadians to demand government action to protect up-coming generations from similar suffering.

Meanwhile: New political parties were being formed, such as the United Farmers of Alberta and the National Progressive Party, because of growing differences between urban and rural needs. Several of these new provincial parties supported public health measures that would improve access by all to health services.

The upshot: These 4 crises-driven factors contributed significantly to the establishment of our federal Department of Health in 1919!

**I’d like to acknowledge The Canadian Museum of Civilization (a fascinating educational website) for the information in this article, as I have extracted many of the researched parts almost verbatim from their excellent time line series. Visit my website to connect directly to Canadian Museum of Civilization’s complete story, ‘History of Health Care in Canada, 1914 to 2007’. View the Original article

Long Term Care Insurance Planning For When You Need Private In-Home Care in Ontario

2011-11-07T08:50:00.000-08:00

The idea of private in-home care during a major long term illness is far more attractive than an extended stay in an Ontario long term care facility. According to the Canadian Home Care Association, 35% to 50% of Canadians over the age of 65 will require some form of long term or palliative care.

Here are some statistics:

• About 50 thousand strokes occur in Canada each year. This is the leading cause of transfer from hospital to long term care.
• 1 in 11 Canadians over 65 is affected by some sort of dementia disease such as Alzheimer’s.
• 7% of Canadians age 65 and over reside in health care institutions.

Private home care services allow individuals to remain at home surrounded by family and friends. It allows them to continue to contribute to their community. This also makes it easier for families to continue caring for their loved one.

Receiving that care in the comfort of your own home can be a way to recover from a long illness. This can also include palliative care, but no matter what the reason might be, private home care in Ontario is costly. This is why, if you would prefer to have private home care should the need arise, you should begin long term care insurance planning today so that you can meet those costs.

The level of private home care coverage in Ontario that is offered by insurers differs. Some policies might offer less financial aid for private home care than for institutional care. When planning long term care in Canada, you should consider how much private home care would cost where you live. Since costs vary throughout Canada, it’s important to be realistic. Unfortunately, many communities have a shortage of qualified home care workers. If access to private home care is important to you, then you need to keep that in mind for your decision with long term care insurance planning. You want to ensure that if you need it, home care will be affordable to you.

To be able to afford the best long term care and minimize your costs, the sooner you start planning the better. Long term care insurance planning in Ontario begins with your Ontario Insurance Agent. Long term care in Canada continues to face increased pressure and quality of care has suffered as a result of low staffing and poor living conditions. This is not how you want to live once you retire and the best way to be in a position to afford in-home care is to start long term care insurance planning now. This will give you peace of mind, knowing that your long term care is covered.

SOURCE: Independent Financial Concepts Group

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How to Find an Assisted Living Facility

2011-11-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Assisted LivingCanada Submitted by szadmin on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 14:37
In an Assisted Living facility, support is provided to individuals that still wish to live as independently as possible but also need a hand with certain daily life activities. Housekeeping, dressing, laundry, transportation and taking medications are a few examples; there are many ways in which assistance is generally provided. Prepare a list of specific daily life activities that you would like assistance with and inquire about the services offered by each residence that you are considering.

Do an Online Search
The term ‘Assisted Living’ refers more to the type of care than the type of facility and for that reason, a website search will be helpful in the process of narrowing down your options. Assisted Living facilities may be available in a single family home or an apartment building or an entire community.

There are many online databases that you may use to search by location, city, province or postal code. At seniorszen.com you have the option to search by province, city and care type. Enter your search criteria and the SeniorsZen database will show you the Assisted Living facilities available in the city you’ve selected.

Browse Assisted Living in Victoria, BC

Quality of care and Level of Service
The provinces vary in the level of services provided under the Assisted Living umbrella so look into whether the provincial government has established regulation or if there is a standard that assisted living providers are accountable to.

In the province of Ontario, look for ORCA – Ontario Retirement Communities Association. In the absence of government regulation, ORCA has set standards of excellence in order to receive accreditation as an ORCA residence. In being accredited the facility demonstrates their commitment to providing a high quality of service to residents, staff and the public. Complete information may be found on the ORCA website.

British Columbia is the first province in Canada to regulate assisted living residences and an Assisted Living Registrar protects the health and safety of seniors in Assisted Living residences under the Community Care and Assisted Living Act. More information about the Assisted Living Act may be found on the BC Government website.

Location and Amenities
Location will be important when choosing an Assisted Living residence and in your web search you will see many community planners have already thought of that with regard to amenities. You may want to be in the heart of the city where you’re close to dining and shopping or you may rather live in a quiet community in a more rural setting. Being close to family may also be important to you so make a list of your location preferences to help in your decision making process.

Visiting and Questions to Ask
Most seniors’ communities welcome visitors; look beyond the physical structure and esthetics and arrange to visit for an afternoon or even as an overnight guest. In doing so, you’ll get a better feel for the community and have the opportunity to ask questions. Take a list of questions with you on your visit; here are some suggestions of things to keep in mind:
• Talk with the residents about their feelings and opinions of the community and collect references from them as well; you may want to call family members for their feedback.
• Arrange for a dinnertime visit and ask for a tour of the kitchen and also for a menu.
• Inquire about safety standards and look at stairwells and less traveled areas of the building for maintenance and cleanliness.
• Ask about the activities available and whether there’s a social director on staff, ask for a calendar or a newsletter that you can take with you.
• Ask about admission requirements and application paperwork.
• Ask about the daily or monthly rates and whether there are costs for additional services like cable and telephone.
• Inquire about the average rates over the last 5-year period and about how frequently they expect to increase the rates. How much advance notice must you give if you decide to move?

Consider hiring an Advisor or Consultant
There are many things to consider in making the move to an Assisted Living community and an advisor or consultant can help in covering all bases. This is a big step and the most important consideration should be given to ensuring your comfort and safety. Gather all the information you can with the focus on making this period of transition as smooth as possible.

Explore Assisted Living in Calgary

By Alice Lucette
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Questions to Consider When Seeking Home Care for Your Loved One

2011-11-07T08:20:00.001-08:00

Posted by SunTimes Online Magazine on 11/04/2010
As the cooler temperatures arrive in Arizona, our relatives arrive as well. This is a wonderful time of year, when our loved ones join us for holiday celebrations and outdoor activities. For some families, this means seeking help for their elderly family members. They may not get around as well as they used to, or perhaps a job requires you to leave them alone for long periods during the day or even a few days at a time.

In Arizona, roughly 400 companies provide some type of in home care, such as cooking, cleaning, companionship and transportation. As an unregulated industry, it’s important to do some research so that you feel comfortable, safe and confident with the caregiver(s) you select. Although most organizations offering home help are ethical and trustworthy, there are a few points to consider while choosing the right provider.View the Original article

The Difficult Journey To A Nursing Home

2009-11-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

HomeCare Financially Squeezed

2008-01-24T05:03:00.000-08:00

Home care services scrutinized
Former health minister promises to find solutions

System is squeezed financially, Caplan acknowledges

ROBIN HARVEY
LIFE WRITER

Ontarians deserve "the best quality for the best price" from community home health services, and Elinor Caplan pledges to help them get it.

In her first major interview since she was appointed to review the way contracts are awarded for home health care, the former Ontario Liberal health minister and member of the federal cabinet, says she'll conduct an impassionate, logical review based on "facts and evidence."

But Caplan, along with home care service providers and their lobby groups, all say to varying degrees that the underlying problem is insufficient money.

Caplan acknowledges the "system is squeezed" financially. But by "best price" she does not mean lowest, she says.

And an official with the association representing for-profit firms says flat out that no service provider can provide the scope of care that was offered years ago. Today, the care offered is "truncated," says Susan VanderBent, executive director of the Ontario Home Health Care Providers' Association.

She says that although provincial laws specify which services should be provided, tight budgets mean they are not.

Years ago, personal support workers went into homes for three hours a day, but now it is likely to be just under an hour, VanderBent says. "(They) run inside, say `Get your clothes off and get into the tub.'

"But we have to do the best we can with the money we have," she adds.

The system is "tearing away the fabric of community health care," says the association representing the non-profit service providers.

"The not-for-profit home and community care agencies are in jeopardy of closing their doors forever," says Susan Thorning, chief of operations for the Ontario Community Support Association.

She cites a study released this summer by McMaster University researchers which found that the change has driven many frustrated service providers out of the business.

It also found that some providers made successful bids for contracts they knew they could not fulfill.

Caplan says she is open-minded but also has some firm ideas about fixing the problems.

"I don't think it matters so much to the client who is in the uniform ... just that the person in the uniform is giving good quality care," she says.

She vows to find a way to improve the system in a non-partisan and non-political way.

"Face it, three different governments tried to fix home care for 15 years and no one has gotten it right yet," she says.

A battle has brewed over the contract system ever since the former Tory government introduced "managed competition" to the home care sector in 1996. When the Liberals were elected, many in the home care sector expected the Request For Proposals system would be radically overhauled, if not scrapped, based in part on their pre-election promises.

Though much of the debate has centred on whether the new system has favoured the generally larger for-profit providers over the usually smaller non-profit services, Caplan says this will not be the focus of the review.

It will instead look at the bigger picture, she says, and how it's affected by the way contracts are awarded. She says the ongoing evolution of primary health care has a much bigger role for community home care, because people now know staying in your home is better for your health and much less costly.

"We need to focus on the person getting the care. But still be accountable," Caplan says.

Many clients and service providers and their associations, both non-profit and for profit, agree with that statement but say it's not that simple.

Anne Leon, 61, has been receiving a mix of free, subsidized and market-rate services for her 93-year-old father. When dementia set in and her father became confused, she was told it was to be expected. It took months before she finally got a doctor to visit him every other week. Finally, the doctor told her his mental confusion was caused by too much potassium. Because his medication causes a loss of potassium which, if lacking, can damage the heart, he was being given a diet rich in the mineral.

Leon is very angry about the months her father spent suffering needlessly and says the dementia caused him to fall more than once, requiring that he be readmitted to hospital, after waiting in emergency for hours.

"Such a waste of taxpayers' money," she says.

Odette Maharaj, of the non-profit Scarborough Support Services, says the new system favours large private firms because they can offer economies of scale. To benefit from economies of scale and compete, a small non-profit obtains a contract and then subcontracts the work to another, she says.

The system treats people like "widgets" and no longer gives service workers a chance to really assess a client's needs or to refer them to available services, says Maharaj.

The for-profits, however, say good care doesn't require the same caregiver day in and day out and this is, in fact, impossible.

VanderBent says the tender process is a good one that needs fine-tuning. And she says the allegation that "the lowest price gets the contract" is not true.

She points to a University of Toronto study on her association's website that says the new system is more transparent and rigorous, more accountable, and has led to clearer standards. It improved invoicing, the amount of services offered and made for expanded and more flexible hours.

But whether a group was for-profit or non-profit "was less of a factor in determining the quality of care ... than other factors related to ... conditions of employment and work experience," the study found.

VanderBent points out that research shows 40 to 50 per cent of elderly people who fall and break their hips will likely die within two years.

"Personal support ... homemaking services ... never get done (the same way) anymore. There isn't the money. But this is the stuff that keeps an 85-year-old in home, away from falling and out of hospital."

Another issue is that after acute care — for example, major surgery — a person's needs are assessed before they are sent home, but it's hard to judge what those are until they're at home, she says. But if they are later found to need more care, "it is very hard to get those extra hours," she says.

Thorning says the home care sector is the only major player in the health care system that has to constantly, at huge expense, bid every three years for contracts and if this were the case across the health care system, there "would be chaos."

The new tender system decides who gets money to provide home health care community services. In total, 43 community care access centres were created in 1996. They decide how to allocate services such as nursing care, physiotherapy, personal care assistance, homemakers' services, as well as equipment like oxygen and wheelchairs and medical supplies.

The U of T study concluded that some community care access centres are "confident that quality of care has improved, some believe that it has declined, some are undecided."

The McMaster study said the changes caused "greater (health system) costs" because costly crises were not detected in time.

Caplan will tour the province and aims to spend about two months gathering information, another two months analyzing data and studies, and two months writing the review.

She hopes to come up with ways to make things less disruptive for all parties and to continue to improve quality of care, while making providers more efficient and cost accountable.

The Toronto Star

Call Us For Seniors Home Care Services In Toronto GTA

2008-01-19T06:33:00.001-08:00