Background Paper

In 2006, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) collaborated with the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) Canada and Capital Health Edmonton to prepare a background paper examining patient safety issues for Canadian home care clients. This paper, “Safety in Home Care: Broadening the Patient Safety Agenda to Include Home Care Services”, prepared by Dr. Ariella Lang and Dr. Nancy Edwards, provided an impetus for further work on home care safety and identified that there was an urgent need for patient safety research specific to home care.

Formative Research Team

Recognizing the importance of home care safety and the lack of knowledge in this area, CPSI provided a formative team grant in the spring of 2007 for the purpose of developing and supporting a team of researchers and decision-makers who could advance home care patient safety research in Canada. The hope was “to make something happen that would not otherwise occur”.

Research Competition - Patient/Client Safety in Home Care in Canada

While there is increasing evidence about patient safety issues and potential solutions in hospital or acute-care settings, there is a need for more evidence on the nature of patient safety issues in all healthcare sectors and settings to guide effective approaches to improving patient safety and the quality of healthcare services in Canada. Specifically, there is limited data and understanding about the burden of safety problems and adverse events among Canadian home care clients and in the home care setting.

To help identify the scope of the patient safety challenge in home care, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute has partnered with other sponsoring organizations – including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR), Institute of Aging (IA), Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (ICRH), The Change Foundation, and the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) – who are committed to supporting research that generates new knowledge and that contributes to improving the safety of home care services for Canadian home care clients. As a collaborative initiative, the sponsors launched the “Patient/Client Safety in Home Care in Canada” research competition in late January 2010.

The scope of this research is a first of its kind - not only in Canada, but internationally – and will support the development of evidence-informed improvements in policy and practice related to home care safety.