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Toronto Community Paramedicine at Home Program (CP@Home)

Status: Ongoing

Evaluated

Toronto Canada
Print this page City population: 279435617.1% over 60Practice started in 2015

Summary

As part of the Toronto Seniors Strategy, the Toronto Paramedic Services partnered with Toronto Community Housing, Sinai Health System and others to pilot a program called CP@home where Community Paramedics visit older people in the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) buildings who are high-volume callers to 911. By visiting these older people and connecting them to community services such as Home Care, Meals on Wheels or the Alzheimer’s Society of Toronto according to their needs, this program helps avoid otherwise time-consuming and costly visits to the Emergency Department. These referrals to home care and community supports resulted in a significant decrease in calls from frequent 911 users and contributed to improved health outcomes for these older people.

Key facts

Main target group: Older people with chronic health conditions or disability

Other target group(s): Vulnerable older adults

Sector(s): Health, Housing

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:
  • Accessibility
  • Ageing in place
  • Dementia
  • Disasters and emergencies
  • Inequities

Contact details

Name: Andrea Austen

Email address: andrea.austen@toronto.ca

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Local authorities

Others involved in the project:
  • Social or health care provider

Older people’s involvement: Older people were consulted during the planning process

Details on older people’s involvement: The idea was developed by Toronto’s age-friendly cities steering committee which brings together the perspectives of multiple stakeholders and sectoral representatives including older people, caregivers, community support service providers, equity groups, advocacy organizations such as the Toronto Seniors Strategy, municipal, provincial, international partners, local businesses, school boards and others.

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: Yes

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Please share with us what you found in detail:
From the assessments conducted, the primary presenting issues are as follows: o Participants experiencing pain – 74% o Participants experiencing anxiety and depression – 68% o Participants with impaired mobility – 61% o Participants with poor daily activity – 56% o Participants with poor self-care – 46% Follow up survey results (after program implementation) include the following: o Participants experiencing decreased pain – 64% o Participants experiencing decreased anxiety and depression – 68% o Participants with improved mobility – 61% o Participants with improved daily activity – 70% o Participants experiencing improved self-care – 46% Overall, 911 calls were reduced by 43%.

Looking back

Challenges:
The main challenge faced in this program is the need for ongoing funding support. There is no base funding for this program, as it is a collaboration across all five Local Health Integration Networks across the City of Toronto. Partnering with local organizations such as the Toronto Seniors Strategy has been the most important for our efforts at securing continual funding.