What is shown through the provision of home care services is that traditionally when people were looking at moving to nursing homes or long-term care facilities, 15 to 20 years ago, they were seen as accommodation options. Mom can't cope at home anymore, because Dad's gone; it's too much work, so she needs to be in a nursing home. And that was the only option. So the average length of stay of a nursing home resident 15 years ago was probably five to 10 years.
If you talk about the average length of stay of a nursing home resident today, I'm not sure what the statistics are for Canada, but in Australia it's less than two years. When I started in the health department, it was five years. So you can actually measure the success of your home intervention programs by the decline in the average length of stay in a nursing home.
It would be great if the average length of stay in a nursing home was under a year, because we know that people are being supported at home for much longer, with only very short-term interventions in a very unfamiliar setting in long-term care.