In 2023, TSHC launched a Partnership Table. It is a strategic advisory body to help guide our leadership team in strengthening the work of the Integrated Service Model. The Table includes tenant volunteers, hospital leaders, Ontario Health Team members, community service organizations, the City of Toronto, Ontario Health, and Ontario Health atHome.
Through six meetings annually, the Table shares accountability for improving outcomes to support aging at home. Working on the advice of tenants at this Table, they have delivered information to help tenants navigate their own care, while continuing to find solutions to improve access to services and support.
Earlier this year, the Partnership Table asked for a provincial review of coordinated care programs which support older adults. The report, Aging at Home Service Delivery Model Review, completed late in the summer and finalized in September, is now available.
The report details seven programs, three of which are at TSHC. It synthesizes their commonalities and notes that most are quite similar in execution but vary in other ways. All rely on health and social care providers working with housing providers to improve person-centred and system outcomes. Some key successes include more stabilized tenancies, reduction in hospital admissions, and improved quality of life.
This type of multi-system integration is not easy, but it is necessary. Aging at home is not a housing problem – it is a multi-system problem. The aging population is increasing, and needs are becoming more complex.
The Partnership Table made several recommendations, which are included in the report. TSHC accepts and is now responding to the recommendations, one of which is expanding access to coordinated program delivery.
TSHC supports expansion. Expansion, however, primarily depends on buildings where space is available, and where there is local tenant support. The success of expansion will also depend on existing partners working more closely together to coordinate service delivery.
Partnerships matter because housing is health care. Aging at home can happen if housing, health, and social care programs continue to work together.