CIHI collaborates with federal, provincial/territorial, regional and other stakeholders to identify and address home and long-term care (LTC) information needs and priorities. We support the development, reporting and use of timely and comparable data related to this topic.

Home care is delivered in the community in private homes and residential settings, as well as in hospitals and ambulatory clinics. Home care programs deliver a wide range of health and home support services, including

• Short-term care for those recovering from surgery or acute medical conditions
• Long-term home care and support to allow people with chronic conditions to continue living in the community
• Other specialized programs, such as end-of-life care and rehabilitation

CIHI collects and reports on clinical, administrative and resource utilization data from publicly funded home care programs in Canada.

Resources for home care interRAI assessors

This page lists home care reports, stories, infographics and release summaries.

This page lists data tables that provide information about home care.

This page lists CIHI’s indicators on home care.

This page lists CIHI’s performance reporting tools that contain home care data.

The clinical data standards used for the reporting systems are developed by interRAI, an international research network, and modified, with its permission, for Canadian use. The following clinical data standards are currently in use across Canada:

• interRAI Resident Assessment Instrument–Home Care (RAI-HC): Identifies the preferences, needs and strengths of home care clients
• interRAI Contact Assessment (interRAI CA): Captures a brief profile of all people served through screening or home care intake processes
• interRAI Home Care (interRAI HC) (NEW): Focuses on the individual’s functioning and quality of life by assessing needs, strengths and preferences, and facilitates referrals when appropriate 
• interRAI Contact Assessment (interRAI CA) (NEW): Supports health care professionals in the community and in hospitals to capture a brief profile of all people served through screening or home care intake processes

CIHI supports reporting systems for home care data. Client information is entered into a computer at the point of care. Real-time reports flag client risks and inform care planning. The information then flows to CIHI’s reporting systems. With no additional collection effort, evidence is available to guide care and system-wide planning, as well as quality improvement.

CIHI is moving to the Integrated interRAI Reporting System (IRRS), and it’s time to retire our legacy home care and long-term care systems

CIHI is excited to announce that IRRS will be the new standard and reporting system for long-term care (LTC) and home care data. This change is being made in response to stakeholder interest and in alignment with CIHI’s mission to provide comparable and actionable information to accelerate improvements in health care, health system performance and population health across the continuum of care. As a result, CIHI will decommission the previous reporting systems for home care (HCRS and HCRS-CA) by March 2025, and the reporting system for LTC (CCRS) by March 2026. 

Please contact us at specializedcare@cihi.ca with any questions regarding this announcement.

Home Care Reporting System

The Home Care Reporting System (HCRS) contains demographic, administrative, clinical, functional and resource utilization information on individuals served by publicly funded home care programs in Canada.

HCRS accepts information from interRAI’s RAI-HC and interRAI CA.

Integrated interRAI Reporting System

The new Integrated interRAI Reporting System (IRRS) contains demographic, administrative, clinical and resource utilization information on individuals who receive home care and long-term care services in Canada.

IRRS accepts information from 2 home care assessments: the interRAI HC and the new interRAI CA.

This page contains media releases, bulletins and podcast episodes about home care.

Through our Learning Centre, CIHI provides opportunities for health professionals to understand our evolving reporting systems and the application of our standards, data and analytics. We offer many courses and resources for a variety of audiences, including clinicians, assessors, data submitters and analysts, decision-makers, policy planners and researchers.

Courses and resources are available in a variety of formats, including eLearning modules, PDF and page-based documents, live and recorded web conferences, and videos.