Managing Continuity of Care for Continuing Care Services

The MCC Project

Managing health care and resources for our aging population is a concern of growing urgency given healthcare restructuring and changing population dynamics. The daily demands on the healthcare system make it difficult for those working within the system to analyze the vast amount of data that build up day after day. A newly funded research project will help meet the need for a broad review of the demands placed upon the continuing care system. The current research project is led* by Dr. Tammy Hopper, University of Alberta, and includes a team of over twenty regional health and university professionals who play integral roles within the project.

* Dr. Marlene Reimer, deceased, was co-principle investigator

The purpose of the three-year $300,000 project, titled Managing Continuity of Care for Continuing Care Services within two Health Regions: Perspectives on Waitlists, is to better understand:

(a) the nature of waiting lists for publicly funded continuing care services in Alberta’s two most populous health regions: Capital Health (Edmonton and area) and Calgary Health Region (Calgary and area),

and

(b) the experience of individuals as they wait for these services. The two health regions included in the study fund 60% of all continuing care beds in Alberta.

The project will be carried out in two phases that will run concurrently. The objective of Phase 1 is to conduct a system level analysis of the characteristics, recorded preferences, patterns of relocation, and use of services of waitlisted individuals retrospectively over the previous five years (1999 – 2004), and prospectively throughout the years of the study (2004 – 2006). The objective of Phase 2 is to conduct an individual level analysis of the perspectives, circumstances, and choices of waitlisted individuals and their families.

The findings from this project will identify important system level and client level issues for health care managers and policy makers that must be addressed to aid in the efficient management and allocation of resources for the rapidly growing population of older adults. Additionally, the results are potentially generalizable to other health regions responsible for continuing care waiting list management outside of Alberta.