Homecare once again is going to be renamed throughout Ontario. You may recall that the Ontario government morphed its 2019 Connecting Care at Home Act into the 2023 Convenient Care at Home Act, In the process Ontario Health has emerged as the new face of homecare for Ontarions. This strategic homecare move is part of Ontario Health’s expansion.
The Ontario Ministry of Health via Ontario Health is updating its homecare branding throughout the province into “Ontario Health At Home”. It’s part of the unpacking of the Ontario government’s 2023 Convenient Care At Home Act. I don’t yet have the implementation particulars for Stratford and area, but I suspect it will come with a new acronym for Health At Home …. perhaps HAH.
I’m concerned that too often the attempts at homecare improvements come across, not as the evolution of homecare but more as the evolution of acronyms. And usually, a perplexity on the part of the public. The diagram below shows a brief history of homecare branding. Many local people I talk with, even if they are working in the local health system, don’t know the acronyms and don’t know what they mean. Nor, surprise, surprise, do most members of the public know where the various agencies are located in order to go and find out about homecare…before urgency strikes.
What would be so wrong with calling homecare…HOMECARE … or STRATFORD HOMECARE? Something simple, visible, findable and understandable. Citizens are having enough to worry about navigating our complex health “system”. Let’s make it easier for people to find homecare…. the earlier the better. So that the evolution of homecare embraces the evolution of easily finding homecare. Because at one time or another we’re all going to need homecare.