Chartwell Retirement Residences, Revera, and Extendicare were the senior housing managers with the highest number of units in Canada in 2022. Chartwell Retirement Residences specializes in retirement residences (facilities providing independent living for seniors) and in that year, managed ****** retirement and ***** long-term care units. Extendicare, on the other hand, operates only long-term care residences, which cater to seniors with more complex healthcare needs.

Canada’s nursing care facilities have been defined by a sustained surge in demand, driven by the country’s aging population. Seniors now account for nearly one in five Canadians and almost half of all provincial health spending, placing considerable pressure to expand long-term care facilities. Longer life expectancies, alongside the increasing prevalence of chronic conditions that come with age, have prompted an expansion of new beds across the country. With government at the federal and provincial levels steadily increasing funding for nursing care, industry revenue is expected to climb at a CAGR of 2.6% to reach $10.6 billion in 2025, with revenue growing 2.8% in 2025 alone. The steady increase in government spending on expanding nursing care has been most prevalent in Ontario, where provincial authorities have committed $6.4 billion to build and upgrade 58,000 beds by 2028. Ontario has prioritized large-scale investment, channelling a significant share of public funds to for-profit chains. Initiatives like this have prompted significant consolidation across the industry, as large operators have leveraged public funding to acquire assets, expand their geographic reach and streamline operations. The economies of scale achieved by for-profit chains via consolidation have prompted a rise in profitability across the industry, with profit forecast to reach 12.2% of revenue in 2025. Looking ahead, the continued aging of the population will drive a persistent need for long-term care, worsening the labour shortages already faced by the industry. The Canadian government will remain a major driver of long-term care expansion through multi-year investments, including initiatives to stem the workforce gap. The federal government has already responded with targeted investments, including programs to help internationally educated health professionals enter the workforce. In the coming years, technology adoption is poised to become increasingly central to helping facilities bridge gaps in staff capacity. Given ongoing demographic shifts, the industry is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 2.8%, reaching $12.2 billion by 2030.

As of 2021, there were a total of ***** long-term care (LTC) homes in Canada. Most of them were found in Ontario, followed by Quebec and British Columbia. These LTC homes can have a number of different names throughout the nation such as nursing homes, continuing care facilities, and residential care homes among others. They're funded entirely or partially by the government and offer 24-hour nursing care, personal care, and other therapeutic and support services.

In Ontario, there were 718 continuing care facilities, which included 97 hospital-based and 621 residential care facilities. This statistic shows the number of continuing care facilities in Canada, sorted by province, in fiscal year 2023-2024.

As of 2021, long-term care (LTC) homes in Canada had mixed ownerships. The LTC homes in the three territories were all publicly funded, as were the majority of homes in Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec. On the other hand, most LTC homes in Ontario were owned privately and most were for-profit organizations. LTC homes can have a number of different names throughout the nation such as nursing homes, continuing care facilities, and residential care homes among others. They're funded entirely or partially by the government and offer 24-hour nursing care, personal care, and other therapeutic and support services.

The global nursing care market is experiencing robust growth, driven by an aging global population and increasing prevalence of chronic diseases requiring long-term care. The market's Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.40% from 2019 to 2024 suggests a significant expansion, and this upward trajectory is expected to continue throughout the forecast period (2025-2033). Key drivers include rising healthcare expenditure, advancements in medical technology enabling at-home care, and a growing preference for community-based care settings over institutionalized care. The market is segmented by service type (home health care, nursing facilities, orphanages/group homes, retirement communities) and end-user (male and female nursing care), reflecting diverse care needs and service delivery models. While the exact market size for 2025 is not provided, given the 4.40% CAGR and assuming a reasonable base year size (e.g., $500 billion in 2024), we can project a 2025 market size of approximately $522 billion. Growth will likely be geographically diverse, with North America and Europe currently holding substantial market shares, but Asia Pacific is poised for considerable expansion due to its rapidly aging population and rising disposable incomes. However, market growth may face restraints such as labor shortages in the healthcare sector, escalating healthcare costs, and variations in healthcare policies across different regions. The competitive landscape is marked by a mix of large multinational corporations and smaller specialized providers. Companies like Bayshore HealthCare, Brookdale Senior Living Solutions, and Genesis Healthcare are major players, competing based on service quality, geographic reach, and specialized service offerings. The market is also witnessing increasing consolidation through mergers and acquisitions, as larger players seek to expand their market share and service portfolio. Future growth hinges on addressing challenges like workforce recruitment and retention, ensuring affordability and accessibility of care, and leveraging technological advancements for efficient and personalized care delivery. Further segmentation within the market, focusing on specific chronic conditions or age groups, will likely emerge as service providers strive to meet the evolving needs of an increasingly diverse patient population. This targeted approach will likely lead to innovations in care delivery and improved patient outcomes. Recent developments include: October 2022: Symcor, a renowned Canadian organization that enables safe data exchanges, has reached an agreement with CarePartners, an Ontario-based service provider offering nursing care and rehabilitation, to further improve the caregiving experience for CarePartners' patients., October 2022: Allina Health and Flare Capital Partners announced the launch of Inbound Health, a new company that enables health systems and health plans to offer hospital-at-home and skilled nursing-at-home programs.. Key drivers for this market are: Rising Incidences of Chronic Diseases Due to Lifestyle Changes, Growth in Healthcare Expenditures; Increasing Geriatric Population. Potential restraints include: Rising Incidences of Chronic Diseases Due to Lifestyle Changes, Growth in Healthcare Expenditures; Increasing Geriatric Population. Notable trends are: Home Health Care Providers Segment is Expected to Hold a Significant Share Over the Forecast Period.

In fiscal year 2023-2024, the ages of residents in continuing care facilities (usually long-term care facilities in residential or hospital-based settings) in Canada averaged to around 83 years. Residents in hospital-based continuing care were slightly younger than those in residential facilities, with residents in Manitoba having the highest average age.

Background: Long-term care facilities had the highest rate of COVID-19 deaths in Canada; thus, it was essential to understand the effectiveness of vaccines and the risk factors for outbreaks in the elderly residents of long-term care and retirement homes. Aims of the CITF-funded study: This study aimed to 1) understand the association between outbreaks and features of long-term care and retirement homes; 2) determine the recurrence rate of outbreaks in homes that have been previously exposed; 3) describe residents’ immune response to infection and vaccination; and 4) estimate vaccine effectiveness in residents. Methods: This cohort study recruited residents from participating long-term care and retirement home across Ontario through invitations from research coordinators. Study visits occurred at participants’ first dose and second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and then 3 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 9, and 12 months post- second dose. For those who got a third dose, follow up was done 3 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months after their third dose. Staff, essential visitors, and resident participants were followed up every week or per visit for saliva surveillance active COVID infection . A DBS whole blood sample was given at enrolment and at each follow up for serology testing. Contributed dataset contents: The datasets include 1261 participants who completed baseline surveys between January 2021 and July 2023. 90% of participants gave one or more blood samples between April 2021 and April 2023 for analysis. A total of 6078 samples were collected. Variables include data in the following areas of information: demographics (date of birth, sex, race-ethnicity, indigeneity), general health (weight and height, smoking, flu vaccination, chronic conditions), SARS-CoV-2 outcomes (positive test results, hospitalizations), SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, and serology (IgA, IgG, and IgM against SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) and spike (S) protein).

Number and percentage of deaths, by place of death (in hospital or non-hospital), 1991 to most recent year.

Daily number of Ottawa residents tested for COVID-19 and the percentage of residents tested with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19. Data are based on information extracted from the Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Accuracy: Points of consideration for interpretation of the data: Not all labs report to OLIS and only patients with health card numbers are included in the OLIS dataset.Once an individual is confirmed positive, subsequent tests for that individual are excluded from the daily totals.Duplicate tests are excluded from the total number of positive tests, including those that arose from multiple tests of cure. Results for patients who placed an OLIS consent block (~50 records province-wide) are excluded.Staff working in long-term care homes are not captured in OLIS.City assignment in OLIS is based on the patient's health card address. Patients living in long-term care homes may not have the correct address associated with their health cards; therefore, not all tests in long-term care homes may be captured.Confirmed cases are those with a confirmed COVID-19 laboratory result as per the Ministry of Health Public health management of cases and contacts of COVID-19 in Ontario. March 25, 2020 version 6.0.The province has had to limit testing to priority groups in the early stages of the pandemic. Since only a small fraction of all the persons who were infected with the COVID-19 virus were tested, the number of reported confirmed community cases underestimates the actual number of infections. Information on overall infection rates in Canada will not be available until large studies on COVID-19 antibody presence in blood serum are conducted. Based on available information, the actual number of infections may lie from 5 to 30 times or more than the reported number of cases (1).Surveillance testing for COVID-19 began in long term care facilities on April 25, 2020. Reference: Richterich P. Severe underestimation of COVID-19 case numbers: Effect of epidemic growth rate and test restrictions. medRxiv. April 2020: 2020.04.13. doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.13.20064220 Update Frequency: Tuesdays and Fridays Attributes: Data fields: Date – date of the test (YYYY-MM-DD).Number of tests – number of Ottawa residents tested for COVID-19Daily % Positivity – number of Ottawa residents tested on that day that received a positive test result for COVID-19 divided by the total number of Ottawa residents tested on that dayNumber of tests in LTCH– number of Ottawa residents in long-term care homes who were tested for COVID-19LTCH Daily % Positivity – number of Ottawa residents in long-term care homes tested on that day that received a positive test result for COVID-19 divided by the total number of Ottawa residents in long-term care homes tested on that day Contact: OPH Epidemiology Team | Epidemiology & Evidence, Ottawa Public Health

COVID-19 testing rates and percent positivity, excluding long-term care home (LTCH) residents, by Ottawa Neighbourhood Study neighbourhoods. Data are a compilation of data extracted weekly by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) from iPHIS Plus and Public Health Ontario's COVID-19 laboratory data (Chung H. et al., 2021).Date created:Data effective May 2021. Uploaded to Open Data on May 30, 2021.Update frequency: MonthlyAccuracy - Points of consideration for interpretation of the data:Testing data were compiled by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and are based on information extracted from iPHIS Plus and Public Health Ontario's COVID-19 laboratory data (Chung H, Fung K, Ishiguro L, Paterson M, et al. Characteristics of COVID-19 diagnostic test recipients, Applied Health Research Questions (AHRQ) # 2021 0950 080 000. Toronto: Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences; 2020). Data are updated monthly and are provided by IC/ES as weekly counts. Monthly aggregates are based on the start date of weekly counts.Individuals who have testing episodes on multiple days in a weekly testing period are only counted once per week. Those who have both negative and positive test results within a weekly testing period are considered positive. Any and all testing episodes after an individual's first confirmed positive COVID-19 test (since 15 January 2020) are excluded from subsequent weekly counts (both numerator and denominator). Testing date represents the date of specimen collection. Due to the time required for transportation and processing of specimens, it takes 6 days for approximately 95% of results to be finalized and reported for a given testing date. Tested individuals include those whose result is confirmed positive, negative, indeterminate, or pending. For individuals confirmed positive using their record in the Ontario Ministry of Health integrated Public Health Information System (iPHIS), their public health unit (PHU) assignment was based on their diagnosing PHU. For all others, PHU assignment was based on the postal code in RPDB as of the testing date. The current Registered Persons Database (RPDB), which has basic demographic information on anyone who has ever received an Ontario health card number, is updated up to 30 April 2021.Only COVID-19 testing by standard polymerase chain reaction are reported. Tests done by other methods, such as rapid point-of-care, are excluded.Rates and percent positivity calculated from very low case counts, or for small populations, are unstable and should be interpreted with caution. For this reason, testing rates and percent positivity are not presented for neighbourhoods with populations of less than 2000 persons or when counts (i.e. total number tested or total number tested positive) are between 1-6 for a given neighbourhood.Confirmed cases are those with a confirmed COVID-19 laboratory result as per the Ministry of Health Public health management of cases and contacts of COVID-19 in Ontario. March 25, 2020 version 6.0.The province has had to limit testing to priority groups in the early stages of the pandemic. Since only a small fraction of all the persons who were infected with the COVID-19 virus were tested, the number of reported confirmed community cases underestimates the actual number of infections. Information on overall infection rates in Canada will not be available until large studies on COVID-19 antibody presence in blood serum are conducted. Based on available information, the actual number of infections may lie from 5 to 30 times or more than the reported number of cases (1). Surveillance testing for COVID-19 began in long term care facilities on April 25, 2020.Reference: 1. Richterich P. Severe underestimation of COVID-19 case numbers: Effect of epidemic growth rate and test restrictions. medRxiv. April 2020: 2020.04.13. doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.13.20064220Attributes - Data Fields:ONS ID – Ottawa Neighbourhood Study (ONS) neighbourhood identification number.ONS Name – ONS neighbourhood name.Month – The year and month of data, based on the start date of weekly counts.Testing rate (per 1000 population), excluding LTCH residents – number of Ottawa residents tested for COVID-19 during the month of interest, excluding LTCH residents, divided by the total population of that neighbourhood and multiplied by 1000.% Positivity (Excluding LTCH) – number of Ottawa residents tested for COVID-19 during the month of interest that received a positive test result divided by the total number of Ottawa residents tested during that month. Both the numerator and the denominator exclude LTCH residents.

In 2024, Canada's median waiting time between a General practitioner (GP) referral to a specialist was ** weeks. In addition, the median waiting time from a specialist appointment to treatment was another ** weeks. In other words, the median wait from a referral by GP to treatment in Canada reached an average of 30 weeks in 2024. However, the median waiting times in Canada ranged from **** weeks in Ontario to **** weeks in Prince Edward Island. Wait times also varied widely by specialty, with those waiting for cancer radiation therapy waiting just *** weeks between GP and treatment, while those waiting for an orthopedic surgery waited over a year.