Healthcare Health Check: Using Innovation to Deliver a Clean Bill of Health to Older Canadians April 25, 2024

While Canadian seniors are generally in good health, the sheer increase in their numbers will drive up healthcare expenditures. By 2044, people over age 65 are expected to represent about 23% of the population, up from 18.5% in 2021.

Any examination of healthcare resources-human and capital-should look not only at acute care, but also public health programs, preventative care, long-term care and palliative care.

Provinces should plan ahead to ensure there is an adequate number of skilled workers and sufficient infrastructure to meet future needs, particularly in fields involved in senior health. The importance of unpaid caregiving by family members can't be overstated. Excluding childcare, it's currently valued at over $97 billion annually (equivalent to 4% of ).

Technology and innovation will be essential to meeting growing demand for healthcare, addressing cost pressures, and improving the health and quality of life of seniors. Remote monitoring using sensors and smart devices, digital health services and apps, artificial intelligence (AI), immunotherapy, 3D printing and ethical big data management for patient records will all be key.

One area that promises to have the highest impact-in terms of both health outcomes and cost efficiency-is novel care models that shift the emphasis away from institutionalization and towards aging at home. These models encompass age-friendly cities and communities, smart home devices and designs, and local multidisciplinary teams that provide home care.

Governments can foster greater adoption and integration of technologies via a comprehensive approach that accounts for the social determinants of health and leverages community-based actors. Public-private innovation partnerships and funding arrangements can ensure faster rollout and commercialization of geriatric technologies. But policymakers should also work to make tech available to everyone, especially among more vulnerable groups.