Policy and Practice Note: Policy, Safety, and Regulation with Regard to Ontario Home Care Clients and Personal Support Workers

In light of COVID-19 and elevated concerns for the health of older Canadians receiving care, this Policy and Practice Note explores the confluence of the current home care policy landscape and the organisation of personal support worker (PSW) work, and highlights the need to consider governance of PSW work generally, and in-home and community care especially. PSWs are currently not professionally regulated, nor is there a central site documenting location, education, or any form of verification of the PSW workforce. Home care PSWs often provide physical care in isolated settings with no in-person supervision. In home and community health care, complaints about PSWs can be scattered among different service providers or client files not linked to or searchable by PSW name. This policy note explores how these factors and the currently unregulated status of PSWs affect home care safety in general as well as in the context of COVID-19, Ontario’s decentralised home care system, and efforts towards professional regulation.

BETTER OFF AT HOME: SAFETY DEVICE

ABSTRACT Objetive: to problematize the home care proposed by the Melhor em Casa Program as a safety device for understanding knowledge and conditions of possibility that support its discoursive network. Method: it is a study of genealogical inspiration about home care. The empirical material was constituted by legal documents about the theme, published in the Diário Oficial. The extracts that supposingly had the power to extract truth were organized in a spreadsheet. The analytic units were constructed, and instruments proposed by Foucault, such as power, biopolitics and device, were used for document analysis. Results: two analytic categories were elaborated: "From hospital to home", and "Home care: safety for the patient or for the State?". Conclusion: Home care, as a security device, proposes home as a safer and better place for the patient, who is close to the family, with no risk of hospital infection, cared by the health team, with the necessary technology.

Mapping a Research Agenda for Home Care Safety: Perspectives from Researchers, Providers, and Decision Makers

RÉSUMÉLe but de cette conception qualitative et interprétative était d’examiner les perspectives des chercheurs, des pourvoyeurs de soins de santé et et des décideurs aux sujets des risques principaux, des préoccupations et des problèmes émergents rattachées à la sécurité de soins à domicile qui informerait une ligne d’enquête de recherche. La sécurité, tel qu’elle s’applique spécifiquement à ce context des soins à domicile, n’a pas encore été définie. Par conséquent, afin de profiter de diverses parties prenantes sur les questions de securité relatives aux soins à domicile est nécessaire afin d’informer les orientations stratégiques pour la recherche future. Afin de commencer à tracer un programme de recherche, une analyse en trois parties de l’environnement a été realisée: (a) une étude pilote avec les bénéficiaires et les fournisseurs de soins à domicile; (b) des entretiens avec des informateurs clés, les chercheurs, les fournisseurs de soins de santé, et les décideurs; et (c) une revue de la littérature dans trois domaines thématiques. Seulement les résultats des entrevues des informateurs clés sont présentés ici.