On May 16th and 17th, we attended a conference entitled “Innovations in Home Care: A Public Policy Perspective” at Segal Centre, SFU Vancouver Campus. There were some very knowledgable and experienced healthcare professionals at the conference, many of whom drew on some very interesting statistics to support the various themes and concepts related to homecare. Probably one of the most compelling metrics shared with the attendees was the number 2. It’s the factor by which Canadians deaths will grow in the next 10-20 years. This was shared by Donna Wilson, a professor at the Faculty of Nursing a ..read more

In these uncertain times with Covid 19, caregivers are faced with a big dilemma. Most caregivers that support the elderly in our community are working multiple jobs to make ends meet. With safety being the top priority, caregivers are now being asked to choose to only work for one employer. This has a resounding effect on the healthcare system since most long term care facilities as well as home support agencies prefer to hire caregivers on a part time basis in order to avoid the costs incurred by employing full time workers ie., extended healthcare benefits etc. In order to mitigate the furth ..read more

In senior care, simplicity and accessibility are two very common, very important themes, for obvious reasons. There’s little time or patience for complexity around delivering care, and everything must be designed with constraints in mind, be it related to mobility, vision, hearing or anything related to the physical environment. Claris is a technology company in Vancouver that gets that — and with their easy-to-use, highly responsive tablet computer, they have uncovered that power as it relates to effective senior care. The Claris platform is used by healthcare professionals to manage acute ca ..read more

For those of you considering hiring a live-in caregiver from outside Canada or someone temporarily visiting Canada, you may have noticed some changes to the information the federal government has posted regarding temporary foreign workers, formerly known as the Live-in Caregiver Program (LICP). Today, non-residents must apply for a work permit and ultimately permanent residency; unless they qualify for an open work permit under some of the criteria grandfathered forward from the LICP, the wait and uncertainty can be daunting. However, caregivers who have been pre-qualified ..read more

Report out today finds that delivery of care, especially home care, is declining sharply We all typically believe ‘the government’ is actively taking care of the needs of our aging population, whether you view the world of healthcare at the federal level, or by provincial jurisdiction. But articles like the one in today’s Province — Access to Care for B.C. Seniors Shrinking as their Numbers Grow are revealing, and in many ways, shockingly clear that at least at the provincial level, we could all be in trouble. Reporter Elaine O’Connor writes about the reality seniors areFrom “Caring ..read more

In times of financial uncertainty, we often find ourselves burdened with non-financial issues. Trying to make ends meet somehow brings about a whole host of other challenges that sometimes seem unrelated to financial stress. And yet it’s all related. As I said in my last post, we’re facing a demographic tidal wave of change. Our parents are aging. And more than ever, they’re in our lives, much as we used to be in their lives as children. They phone us. They phone us again. We’re so busy – due to financial strain, if you recall – that we get annoyed, and ask them if we can call them back later ..read more