Long-term care is currently highly institutionalized and often based on the medical model of care. This leads to poor health, low quality of life, and staff dissatisfaction. Canada needs to modernize and deinstitutionalize long-term care to particularly meet the needs of an increasingly older, frail, and cognitively impaired resident population.

Recommendation #85: Emotion-Focused Care

Change the model of care to an emotion-focused or transformative model such as the Butterfly Model (https://www.dementiacarematters.com), the Greenhouse Project Model (www.thegreenhouseproject.org), the Eden Alternative (www.edenalt.org), or similar non-medical models.

Recommendation #86: Residents’ Bill of Rights

Create a standardized core Residents’ Bill of Rights to be integrated into provincial and territorial long-term care legislation and National Quality Standards.

Recommendation #87: Residents’ and Family Councils

Embed the requirement for Residents’ Councils and Family Councils in each long-term care home as part of National Quality Standards. Integrate these two types of Councils into provincial and territorial legislation. Ensure that these Councils have substantial rights and direct high-level linkages to long-term care home management and administration.

Provinces and territories should support and fund provincial governing associations of Residents’ Councils and Family Councils.

Recommendation #88: Keep Couples or Companions Together

Develop regulations and programs to keep couples or companions together in the same long-term care home, and where possible in the same rooms if that is their preference. Prioritize the relationship over differentiated care needs.

Recommendation #89: Privacy

Increase physical privacy in long-term care homes to support personal choice and dignity. Ensure that residences have rooms where couples or groups can spend private and uninterrupted time. Invest in creative solutions to dissuade other residents from coming uninvited into a residents’ room. Create appointments and door-knocking protocols to reduce staff entering a resident’s room unannounced.

Recommendation #90: Digital Investment to Reduce Isolation

Invest in digital innovation and technology for health and social care in order to decrease isolation and loneliness. Invest in robust wifi in resident rooms as a right. Prevention and reduction of social isolation and loneliness of residents in long-term care can be achieved by the implementation of the following: smart-technology integration, video visits, a virtual museum and cultural visits, virtual concerts or modern music online providers, on-demand movies and entertainment, social media, computer and technology-supported communication, and other online activities.