THE TORONTO COMMUNITY CARE ACCESS CENTRE has positioned itself in a leadership role in the area of home care research. Ongoing research is an integral part of the overall operation of our organization as staff members participate in a broad range of initiatives, in cooperation with academic institutions, hospitals, other community agencies and our sister Community Care Access Centres. Creating partnerships with organizations throughout the community we serve has always been a prime objective for the Toronto Community Care Access Centre and the benefits of this effort are certainly evident in the area of research.
A number of research projects have been completed, many are now underway and more are in the planning stages. Research will continue to be a vital force carrying us into the new millennium. Several research initiatives have included the development and delivery of specialized education and training to service providers. Other efforts have focused on: the relationship between home care services and the quality of life of clients and caregivers; outcomes achieved through the delivery of home care services; and cost analyses of health services delivered in hospital compared with those delivered in the community.
Key collaborators for many of these initiatives are the Hospital for Sick Children and other Toronto teaching hospitals and the Home Care Evaluation and Research Centre established by the University of Toronto with the help of several contributors. This Centre, established in 1999 as the first of its kind in Canada, will work to champion home care evaluation and policy development, foster a national network of quality home care researchers and disseminate findings to all interested stakeholders.
Major research initiatives now underway at the Toronto Community Care Access Centre span age boundaries, from children to the elderly. They focus on such topics as: asthma follow-up care; home chemotherapy; tele-homecare to bridge the transition from hospital to home among children; assessment of medication-management services for home care clients discharged from hospital; post-hospitalization experiences of very elderly women living in the community; comparative analysis of inpatient and home-based rehabilitation following hip and knee replacement; evaluation of a new drug treatment for clients with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension; and a study of how two home-care programs, the Toronto Community Care Access Centre and the Regina Home Care Program, are meeting the changing needs of clients.
These are just a sampling of the projects underway. In the months to come we plan to highlight many of these projects in our newsletter Contact to inform clients, caregivers, members, and the public of the exciting and challenging initiatives being undertaken.
Research partnerships will continue to be a priority for the Toronto Community Care Access Centre in the future. In fact, we plan to formalize our commitment to research with the establishment of a research review committee, and the development of research protocol and standards for the organization.
You can download a copy of this FAQ
Click the above link and save the file to your hard drive or floppy disk.
It is in rich text format and will open in most word processors and text editors.
© 2000, 2001, 2002 Toronto Community Care Access Centre