In four New Brunswick communities, long-term care facilities extended services beyond their walls
The Nursing Home Without Walls concept was tested in four communities in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
ResearchPolicyElder Care
·Pulse issue · July 27, 2026
In four New Brunswick communities, long-term care facilities extended services beyond their walls
The Nursing Home Without Walls concept was tested in four communities in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
The read
The New Brunswick pilot is the one supply-side answer in today's selected evidence — an existing institution pushing services outward to older adults in the surrounding community, rather than a caregiver working down the National Institute on Aging's list of the Eldercare Locator, area agencies, state and tribal offices, and clinicians to find what exists nearby. Read it narrowly: what the published abstract reports is participant experience across four communities in one province — feeling supported, accessible services and information, satisfaction with social interactions, feelings of security, and the degree to which sites became age-friendly communities. And what underwrote it was a $75 million Canadian federal investment through the Public Health Agency of Canada, in a pilot project that ran to March 2024 — financing that says nothing about who would pay for the same design in the United States, where, as the Commonwealth Fund notes, Medicare's home health benefit is not a long-term care benefit.
The lead
A mixed-methods evaluation of the Nursing Home Without Walls program, published online July 22, 2026 by the Canadian Journal on Aging, reports that long-term care facilities in four New Brunswick communities extended services beyond their own residents to older adults living nearby, with the goal of supporting those adults and their caregivers to age in place. The authors conclude the approach "was successful in supporting older adults to age in place."
The program was announced in May 2019 as the first of 66 peer-reviewed studies funded by New Brunswick's Healthy Seniors Pilot Project, which a $75 million investment in the February 2018 Canadian federal budget underpinned through the Public Health Agency of Canada; the project was initially a 3-year endeavour, extended to March 2024 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The National Institute on Aging directs caregivers to the Eldercare Locator at 800-677-1116 and to Area Agencies on Aging to locate local services, and describes deciding whether an older adult should move from home as often difficult and emotional. The Commonwealth Fund, examining declining use of Medicare's home health benefit, attributes it primarily to misaligned payment and quality incentives, Medicare Advantage plan practices, and workforce shortages.
1 brief · 3 cited sources
What to watch next
- Will New Brunswick extend Nursing Home Without Walls beyond the four pilot communities, after the Healthy Seniors Pilot Project that funded it ran to March 2024?
Briefs in this issue
Reference paths
01GiveCare WikiEvergreen caregiver guides, source notes, and research synthesis.02GiveCare BenefitsSource-backed benefit records and program search.03GiveCare ScoreCaregiver load assessment and scoring context.04InvisibleBenchCare AI benchmark method and findings.05GiveCareProduct home and official GiveCare positioning.