Read on for more and add your voice to the conversation, too. We also welcome your questions, comments and suggestions.

Today’s answered question

Q. I have a question about the Home is Best program: What services and resources are added to allow people to be at home? Is there extra home support? Meal and cleaning services? Or has it remained at 4 hours of home support a day?

A. In response to your questions, ‘Home is Best’ is a philosophy that supports the belief that home is the best place for people to live as long as they are safely able to do so.

In order to support this philosophy, VCH has developed many Home First initiatives, including:

• QRT (Quick Response Team)
• EDicare
• Home First case conferences
• Integrated case conferences
• HomeVIVE

Following VCH guidelines re-established for the program in 2008 and based on Ministry of Health regulations, Home Support is another service that enables clients to remain at home.

With Home Support, the primary focus is on personal care with services that include:

• Bathing
• Dressing
• Toileting
• Mobility assistance
• Medication management
• Meal set-up

Home Support was created to provide supplementary services to promote the client’s maximum participation in care in order to optimize their level of independent function, but is not designed to meet all the clients’ needs.

Home Support is not intended to include hospitality services such as: housekeeping, laundry and advanced meal preparation. There are community organizations who offer some of these services, such as the United Way’s Better at Home program. Family, friends or private care may also be options for clients to support all levels of care at home.

We are continually working towards applying the guidelines for Home Support in an equitable, consistent and sustainable manner that most benefits the client based on their needs.

We hope you will join us at the next All-Staff Meeting on June 10 where we will be discussing the topic of ‘Home is Best’ in greater detail.

What’s on your mind?

If you have a question, comment or suggestion, we encourage you to email us what’s on your mind at onevancouver@vch.ca.