Background As demand and desire to “age-in-place” grows within an aging population, challenges exist to realizing this wish. Changing demographics and new areas of need have governments nationally and internationally calling for more focused attention on integrative approaches to health and well-being. Seniors’ Campus Continuums seek bridge the “divide” between health and social care for residents and local community. This paper investigates factors that influence Campus evolution, ongoing functioning, and ability to offer wrap around care for older adults wishing remain in their own home and community. Methods This research uses a comparative case study approach across multiple bounded cases to explore how Seniors’ Campus Continuums operating in various contexts integrate health, housing and social care around older adults living on the campus and in the local community. Six seniors’ campuses from across Ontario offering four physically co-located components – mixed independent housing options, internal community supports to residents, external community supports to the broader community, and a long-term care home – were studied and compared. Results Eight factors that promote or impede Seniors’ Campus Continuum evolution, design and function, and ability to provide wrap-around care to older adults with progressive needs are identified including: i. historical legacies; ii. windows of opportunity; iii. organizational structure and capacity; iv. intentional physical and social design; v. campus services mix, amenities and partnerships; vi. policy rigidities and enablers; vii. human resources shortages and innovation; viii. funding limitations and opportunities. Together these factors describe opportunities to optimize care on many levels. Conclusion Seniors’ Campus Continuums offer creative boundary-spanning approaches to address a variety of needs while taking into account local contexts. At an individual level, campuses increase access to a range of care supports and housing options to benefit seniors’ health and wellbeing. At an organizational level, they offer consistency and coordination of care, improved economies of scale, and rich environments for training/research, education and volunteering. At a system level, they offer potential to help people avoid ending up in the “wrong places.” This study fills a gap in evidence-based research around understanding of this integrative model and offers lessons learned for future development.

Background: As demand and desire to “age-in-place” grows within an aging population, and new areas of need emerge, governments nationally and internationally are focusing effort and attention on innovative and integrative approaches to health and well-being. Seniors’ Campus Continuums are models of care that seek to broaden access to an array of services and housing options to meet growing health and social needs of aging populations. The objective of this study is to increase understanding of this model and factors that influence their evolution, development, ongoing functioning and capacity to integrate care for older adults wishing to age in their own home and community.Methods: This research uses a comparative case study approach across six-bounded cases offering four geographically co-located components (mixed housing options, internal and external community supports, and a long-term care home) in various contexts across Ontario. Onsite in-person and phone interviews with senior campus staff (N=30), and campus partners (N=11), enhanced by direct observation at campuses explored historical and current efforts to offer health, housing and social care continuums for older adults.Results: Analysis highlighted eight key factors. Enabling factors include i. rich historical legacies of helping people in need; ii. organizational vision and readiness to capitalize on windows of opportunity; iii. leveraging organizational structure and capacity; iv. intentional physical and social design; v. broad services mix, amenities and innovative partnerships. Impeding factors include vi. policy hurdles and rigidities; vii. human resources shortages and inequities; and viii. funding limitations. A number of benefits afforded by campuses at different levels were also observed. Conclusion: Findings from this research highlight opportunities to optimize campus potential on many levels. At an individual level, campuses increase local access to a coordinated range of health and social care services, supports and housing options. At an organizational level, campuses offer enhanced collaboration opportunities across providers and partners to improve consistency and coordination of care, access to shared resources, expertise and infrastructure among other benefits. At a system level, campuses can address a diversity of health, social, financial, and housing needs to help seniors avoid premature or inappropriate use of higher intensity care settings.

Background: As demand and desire to “age-in-place” grows within an aging population, challenges exist to realizing this wish. Changing demographics and new areas of need have governments nationally and internationally calling for more focused attention on integrative approaches to health and well-being. Seniors’ Campus Continuums are models of care that seek to broaden access to an array of services and housing options to meet the growing health and social needs of aging populations in their communities . The objective of this study is to increase understanding of this integrative model through the exploration of factors that influence Campus development, functioning, and scope and extent of integration of care for older adults wishing to remain in their own home and community.Methods: This research uses a comparative case study approach across six bounded cases offering four physically co-located components – mixed independent housing options, internal community supports to residents, external community supports to the broader community, and a long-term care home – to explore how Seniors’ Campus Continuums operating in various contexts across Ontario, Canada integrate health, housing and social care for older adults.Results: Seniors’ Campus Continuums come in different shapes, sizes, and geographies however, they share many influencing factors in their evolution, design, function, and ability to integrate a broad range of supports and services for older adults with different and progressive needs. Enabling factors include i. rich historical legacies of helping people in need; ii. organizational vision and readiness to capitalize on key windows of opportunity; iii. leveraging organizational structure and capacity; iv. intentional physical and social design; v. broad services mix, amenities and innovative partnerships. Impeding factors include vi. policy hurdles and rigidities; vii. human resources shortages and inequities; and viii. funding limitations. A number of benefits afforded by campuses at an individual, organizational and system level were observed. Conclusion: Findings from this research provide detailed descriptions of campus continuums from inception to expansion and highlight opportunities to optimize their potential on many levels. At an individual level, campuses increase local access to a coordinated range of care services, supports and housing options that can be tailored to benefit their health and social care needs. At an organizational level, campuses offer enhanced collaboration opportunities across providers and partners to improve consistency and coordination of care, access to shared resources, expertise and infrastructure, improved economies of scale, and rich environments for training/research, education and volunteering. At a system level, they offer potential to address a diversity of health, social, financial, and housing needs to help seniors avoid premature or inappropriate use of higher intensity care settings. This study fills a gap in evidence-based research on this integrative model and offers lessons to consider for future “age-friendly” policy development.

Background: As demand and desire to “age-in-place” grows within an aging population, and new areas of need emerge, governments nationally and internationally are focusing effort and attention on innovative and integrative approaches to health and well-being. Seniors’ Campus Continuums are models of care that seek to broaden access to an array of services and housing options to meet growing health and social needs of aging populations. The objective of this study is to increase understanding of this model and factors that influence their evolution, development, ongoing functioning and capacity to integrate care for older adults wishing to age in their own home and community.Methods: This research uses a comparative case study approach across six-bounded cases offering four geographically co-located components (mixed housing options, internal and external community supports, and a long-term care home) in various contexts across Ontario. Onsite in-person and phone interviews with senior campus staff (N=30), and campus partners (N=11), enhanced by direct observation at campuses explored historical and current efforts to offer health, housing and social care continuums for older adults.Results: Analysis highlighted eight key factors. Enabling factors include i. rich historical legacies of helping people in need; ii. organizational vision and readiness to capitalize on windows of opportunity; iii. leveraging organizational structure and capacity; iv. intentional physical and social design; v. broad services mix, amenities and innovative partnerships. Impeding factors include vi. policy hurdles and rigidities; vii. human resources shortages and inequities; and viii. funding limitations. A number of benefits afforded by campuses at different levels were also observed. Conclusion: Findings from this research highlight opportunities to optimize campus potential on many levels. At an individual level, campuses increase local access to a coordinated range of health and social care services, supports and housing options. At an organizational level, campuses offer enhanced collaboration opportunities across providers and partners to improve consistency and coordination of care, access to shared resources, expertise and infrastructure among other benefits. At a system level, campuses can address a diversity of health, social, financial, and housing needs to help seniors avoid premature or inappropriate use of higher intensity care settings.