Problem to be Addressed - 3/10

Thank you for your interest in our work to discuss the topic, "Long-term Care - At what cost, to whom? Understanding the Costs of Institutional vs. Home-based Long-term Care".

We are sending out the third of ten (3/10) short articles we are writing from our Scoping Review project funded by Strategy for Patient Oriented Research Evidence Alliance (SPOR EA). The Scoping Review looked for evidence-based research on the topic of cost accounting in long-term care, specifically seeking research on the cost-effectiveness of home-care versus assisted living facilities for individuals requiring additional support (frail elders with complex needs).

In this third article we describe the Problem to be Addressed in terms of health research, family caregiving and public discussion. We used information gleaned from conducting an extensive search of research literature, lived experience of a family caregiver, and comments collected from health research leadership. In this article we triangulate these three perspectives to focus on a problem in common across all three dimensions of caregiving.

We hope to inspire interest in fostering momentum to host a series of community engagement events. These events would lead development of research priority setting in the area of long-term care, cost accounting, and the best ways to support home-based caregiving.

Please feel free to contact me, Jenny Arntzen, at jenny.eacaregivinginvestigation@gmail.com to share your thoughts, experience or ideas for improving outcomes for family caregiving households in Canada. We know that the work of family caregiving extends into institutional operations when families are not able to look after their care recipient at home. These stories are also very important for us to hear.

We look forward to leading innovation to improve efficiency and efficacy of long-term caregiving across all caregiving settings.

Email Craig.Mitton@ubc.ca or jenny.eacaregivinginvestigation@gmail.com to recommend additions to our mailing list.

On behalf of the project team:

Jenny Arntzen, PhD, PMP, Family Caregiver - Patient-Partner Co-Lead

Craig Mitton, Professor, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation (UBC/C2E2)

Gavin Wong, PhD, RRT, Research Scientist, Evidence synthesis, UBC/C2E2

Neale Smith, MA, MEDes, Research Coordinator, UBC/C2E2

Nora Fripp, MPH, Research Scientist, Economic Modelling, UBC/C2E2  

Smita Roy, MSc Student, Graduate Research Assistant, UBC/C2E2

Affiliation: University of British Columbia

Geographic Health Region: Vancouver Coastal Health