Essential Care Partner Practices for Hospitals 

This business case and evidence summary for hospitals are useful tools to gain leadership support for developing an essential care partner program.  

These leading practices for hospitals demonstrate the key components of an Essential Care Partner program. 

The Essential Care Partner Program Implementation Toolkit – A Guide for Hospitals includes a step-by-step process to develop or improve an Essential Care Partner program. 

Education for staff helps care providers to understand the caregiver role and learn how to include and communicate with caregivers. 

Contact the Support Hub team about tailored education sessions for your organization. 

eLearning for Healthcare Providers – Learn from three free-of-charge 20-minute modules with practical, tangible tips for providers working with caregivers. 

Health Privacy and Consent Resources – These resources help care providers better understand health privacy and consent rules when partnering with caregivers. 

Caregiving impacts the health, employment, finances, and personal relationships of caregivers as well as patient outcomes. 

Healthcare teams are well positioned to connect caregivers to support and improve the caregiving experience. 

These tips for providers can help team members to identify caregivers.

Posters and postcards can be shared with caregivers to connect them directly to support. They are available in:

• English: poster, postcard
• French: poster, postcard
• Cantonese: poster, postcard
• Mandarin: poster, postcard
• Punjabi: poster, postcard
• Tagalog: poster, postcard
• Tamil: poster, postcard

To help caregivers from rural and remote communities, here are simple strategies to support their well-being.

Care providers can also refer caregivers to the Ontario Caregiver Helpline and provide caregivers with an overview of OCO programs and services for caregivers. 

eLearning for caregivers – Explore valuable e-learning modules for caregivers to learn how to best communicate with care providers.

Caregiver Identification (ID)* is any form of official identification (i.e. card, badge, button) issued by a healthcare organization to a caregiver. 

Get our Caregiver ID badge template and “I am a caregiver” heart. 

Caregiver ID is a tool that can be used to facilitate the inclusion and meaningful participation of family caregivers in care settings. 

The benefits of using Caregiver ID include:  

• Tangible way to show organizational commitment to caregivers 
• Enhanced caregiver experience and empowered essential care partners 
• Better staff awareness of the role and importance of essential care partners 
• Greater mutual trust and dialogue between caregivers and care providers  
• Enriched patient care 

* Adapted from materials originally created by The Change Foundation