Residential Care

The community residential care sector encompasses a range of living options for people, primarily seniors, with different support needs. With varying terminology across the country, residential care facilities can include lodges, assisted living, supportive housing and long-term care homes. Other terms across Canada are nursing and personal care homes.

These facilities offer different levels of care and may be free-standing or co-located with other types of care or hospitals.

CIHI collects and reports on clinical, administrative and resource utilization data from long-term care homes in Canada. These facilities serve diverse populations who need access to 24-hour nursing care, personal care and other therapeutic and support services.

We also collect information on transitions of long-term care home residents to and from hospitals or emergency rooms.

We welcome your feedback and questions

Have a data inquiry or research question? Make a custom data request.

Are you a RAI assessor or educator? Visit the Resources for Continuing and Residential Care interRAI Assessors page .

Residential care information

Reports and analyses
Databases and data sources
Metadata
Multimedia
Key resources

Reports and analyses

Public reporting of long-term care indicators
CIHI is working diligently to make long-term care information available through Your Health System, an easy-to-use, interactive web tool. In spring 2016, a number of facility-level long-term care indicators were be integrated into the In Depth section of the tool.

Find out more about long-term care indicators on Your Health System.

Databases and data sources

Continuing Care Reporting System

The Continuing Care Reporting System (CCRS) contains demographic, clinical, functional and utilization information. This data refers to individuals receiving continuing care services in hospitals or long-term care homes in Canada. Participating organizations also provide information on facility characteristics to support comparative reporting and benchmarking.

The clinical data standard for CCRS was developed by interRAI, an international research network. It was modified with permission by CIHI for Canadian use. Clinicians assess their residents using interRAI’s Resident Assessment Instrument–Minimum Data Set (RAI-MDS 2.0)©.

The information is entered into a computer at the point of care. Real-time reports flag resident risks and inform care planning. The information then flows to CIHI. With no additional collection effort, evidence is available to guide care and system-wide planning as well as quality improvement.

Integrated interRAI Reporting System

CIHI’s Integrated interRAI Reporting System (IRRS) accepts information from the new version of the long-term care assessment, the interRAI Long-Term Care Facilities (interRAI LTCF). The interRAI LTCF enables comprehensive, standardized evaluation of the needs, strengths and preferences of persons receiving short-term post-acute care in skilled nursing facilities, as well as of persons living in chronic care and nursing home institutional settings. This new version is part of an integrated suite of assessment instruments and includes increased commonality and standardized language across multiple care settings. Using this kind of integrated approach makes it easier to follow a person’s health care information across settings, encouraging continuity of care and increasing the chances of improved health outcomes.