EmergAlert - Community Care

Linking Community Care with Emergency Departments

Community Care Providers offer access to health and personal support services to help individuals live at home or assist them in making the transition to a long-term care home. Different provinces and territories in Canada have different approaches to the challenge of delivering cost effective health care without overloading their hospital systems and Emergency Departments. But, they share a common goal – to provide effective service that matches needs with available resources, in a cost effective manner.

Community Care Providers work with a vulnerable section of our communities. They are mandated to help guide people to the best solution, within the confines of the available resources. When an individual who is already receiving support from a Community Care Providers, arrives in an Emergency Department, the Community Care Providers need to know. They may need to suspend planned service visits when the client is in the Emergency Department or potentially cancel them if the client is admitted to hospital.

By working closely with the Emergency Departments, the Community Care Providers can identify future clients and help provide a superior service. Typical Community Care Providers staff includes onsite case workers based in the Emergency Department, the patient’s case worker, Community Care dispatchers and Community Care managers.

EmergAlert lets Community Care Providers improve their communication with hospitals by exchanging information on patients. This can improve service both within the Emergency Department and when the clients turn to the Community Care Providers for further support and service.

In one trial of EmergAlert in Southern Ontario, the Community Care Providers identified that almost 8% of patients presenting in an Emergency Department on one day (15 out of 200) were on the Community Care case list. Of these, the Community Care Providers identified that 3 could be diverted back to Home Care services through early assessment and intervention by the local case manager. This is not only a significant benefit to the Emergency Department as it helps to relieve the pressure, but also a significant benefit to the Community Care Providers in helping to identify clients.