Maximizing Your Visit: A Guide to Touring Long-Term Care Homes

Choosing a long-term care home for yourself or a loved one is a big decision that can impact quality of life and well-being. Get Started on Elderado makes it easy to narrow your focus to the long-term care homes that are likely to be the best fit. Once you are focused on 4-7 homes, an in-person tour is an important step in the selection process, offering a first-hand look into day-to-day life, amenities, care, and conditions in long-term care homes.

We recently came across a long-term care home checklist from Concerned Friends that we feel is a great resource for anyone conducting in-person tours of long-term care homes.

Why we like the Concerned Friends LTCH Checklist

It's easy to follow

The Concerned Friends LTCH Checklist is broken up into nine sections:

1. Physical Facility
2. Community
3. Daily Life for a Resident
4. Activities
5. Meal Services
6. Staffing and Staff Training
7. Medical Care
8. Approach to Care
9. Additional Services

All of us will have different priorities when choosing a long-term care home. You don't need to ask every question on the Concerned Friends LTCH Checklist, but they make it easy to ask questions about the aspects of long-term care that are most important to you. And because the Concerned Friends checklist is thorough, just reviewing it can help you start thinking about your priorities.

You don't need to be an expert in long-term care

Many of us start the process of looking for long-term care overwhelmed, stressed, and under time-pressure. Despite our best intentions, about 90% of families don't begin considering their options for long-term care until it is needed. The Concerned Friends long-term care home checklist is a great way to get up to speed on what you might want to consider when choosing a long-term care home.

Tours of long-term care care homes can be overwhelming

It can be hard to know what to look for at a long-term care home. Whether you've visited someone in long-term care, or your tour is the first time you step into a long-term care home, it's a different feeling when you are looking for a new home for yourself or a loved one.

We may not be in the best head-space when we are touring a long-term care home. Typically we are touring long-term care during a stressful time that most of us are not prepared for. At the end of a long-term care home tour, referencing the Concerned Friends LTCH Checklist is a great way to ensure you've collected all the information you are looking for to help make a decision on the right care.

Conculsion

Touring long-term care homes can be difficult and time consuming. The Concerned Friends long-term care home checklist helps make the process of touring long-term care homes a little bit easier. Whether you used the Concerned Friends checklist, or you make your own, you are going to want to be prepared to ensure the time your are spending is a product visit that answers your most important questions.

You can learn more about Concerned Friends at ConcernedFriends.ca.