From Pilot Project to System Change
This paper highlights positive examples of what is working well in home and community care in British Columbia. BC can boast of a number of local, small-scale initiatives that support people with significant health challenges who continue to live in their homes or in residential care. Many of these people are individuals with low income, frail seniors, and/or people living with a mental or physical disability. By helping them function in the community, these innovations take pressure off in-patient hospital and emergency services. And while they often cost more at the start, over the long term these innovations can reduce costs and improve the health status of those using these services.
About the authors
Nancy Hall
Janice Murphy
Alicia Priest
Marcy Cohen
Marcy Cohen is a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and an adjunct faculty member in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. She has co-authored a number of research and policy studies looking at public solutions to the current challenges in our health care system, including the 2007 CCPA publication Why Wait? Public Solutions to Cure Surgical Waitlists.