A Program to Reduce Emergency Department Transfers and Build Long-Term Care Home Capacity: A Mixed-Methods Study

Transfers to acute care hospitals expose long-term care residents to potential harm. We implemented Long-Term Care Plus (LTC+) at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce emergency department (ED) transfers and improve access to urgent medical services by providing virtual specialist consultation, system navigation, and diagnostic and laboratory testing to 54 long-term care homes (LTCHs).