Under-regulated, under-researched and largely privatized is an apt description of British Columbia’s assisted living system for seniors’ care.
This report—The Place of Assisted Living in BC’s Seniors Care System: Assessing the Promise, Reality and Challenges—shows that problems in seniors’ care are not isolated to long-term care, but are symptoms of a larger crisis in our fragmented system of home- and community-based health care. This qualitative study, by Dr. Karen-Marie Elah Perry, looks at the state of assisted living in terms of the quality and appropriateness of services it provides to seniors, the conditions for both residents and workers, and the legislative and regulatory frameworks that govern assisted living.
This is the first comprehensive report from a BC perspective to look at care quality issues in assisted living from the perspectives of front-line workers and families, and documents why we need to urgently act to improve quality of care in assisted living for seniors.