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

LTC encompasses a range of health and personal care services provided to individuals, primarily seniors, with complex support needs living in designated LTC homes. These are also known as nursing homes, personal care homes, residential care facilities, lodges, assisted living facilities and supportive housing.

LTC homes offer different levels of care and may be free-standing or co-located with other types of care or hospitals. CIHI’s definition of LTC includes hospital-based continuing care, which provides ongoing professional services to individuals with complex health needs who may not be ready for discharge from hospital but who no longer need acute care services. This is also known as extended care, chronic care or complex continuing care.

Resources for Long-term care interRAI Assessors page

This page lists long-term care reports, stories, infographics and release summaries.

This page lists data tables that provide information about long-term care.

This page lists CIHI’s indicators on long-term care.

This page lists CIHI’s performance reporting tools that contain long-term 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 LTC data standards are currently in use across Canada:

• Resident Assessment Instrument–Minimum Data Set (RAI-MDS 2.0): Identifies the preferences, needs and strengths of individuals in LTC home and continuing care hospital settings
• interRAI Long-Term Care Facilities (interRAI LTCF): Enables comprehensive, standardized evaluation of the needs, strengths and preferences of individuals living in LTC home settings

CIHI supports reporting systems for LTC 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. 

Continuing Care Reporting System

The Continuing Care Reporting System (CCRS) contains demographic, administrative, clinical and resource utilization information on individuals who receive continuing care services in hospitals or LTC settings in Canada. Participating organizations also provide information on facility characteristics to support comparative reporting and benchmarking.

CCRS accepts information from interRAI’s RAI-MDS 2.0.

Integrated interRAI Reporting System

The new Integrated interRAI Reporting System (IRRS) contains demographic, administrative, clinical and resource utilization information on individuals who receive LTC services in Canada. Participating LTC organizations also provide information on facility characteristics to support comparative reporting and benchmarking.

IRRS accepts information from interRAI’s LTC assessment, the interRAI interRAI LTCF.

This page contains media releases, bulletins and podcast episodes about long-term 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.