Problem to be Addressed - 2024 01 19

 

SPOREA - Problem to be Addressed

Patients prefer to be cared for at home rather than be in an institutional setting (hospital, long term care, assisted living).

Institutions prefer to send patients home for recovery and ongoing care, "It costs less to have patients cared for in their homes."

Patient health outcomes improve when they are cared for at home rather than in an institutional setting.

Sending patients home for recovery and long term care places the burden of caregiving work on families instead of paid professionals in an institutional setting.

The burden of caregiving work in family homes has not been quantified in terms of evidence-based data. 

We need a reliable measure for quantifying family caregiving cost in relation to institutional caregiving cost.

We need a reliable measure to quantify the resources flowing to family caregiving settings and resources flowing to institutional care settings.

There is great diversity and variety in family caregiving settings, depending on culture, demographics, education, profession, housing, historical family system dynamics (mental, emotional, physical), medical requirements, mental health requirements, assistive requirements.

There are time and material requirements in common across all family caregiving settings: shelter, accomodation, meals, housekeeping, property improvement, property maintenance, property tax, property insurance, accessability.

There are time and material requirements in common between family caregiving settings and institutional settings.

Funding for family caregiving depends on family resources, their ability to navigate various agencies, health services, non-profit assistance, internal family contributions.

Funding for institutional settings is known and quantified in annual reports to funders and stakeholders.

The problem to be addressed with this scoping review is to find out what is known about time and materials cost analysis for family caregiving and institutional settings providing care to similarly fragile elders.