LTC-Covid19; Facility organizational and staffing characteristics associated with the COVID-19 outbreak

COVID-19 Research Area(s): Healthcare Delivery & Policy

The purpose of this project is to explore facility ownership and organizational characteristics associated with outbreaks of Covid-19 in British Columbia's long-term care facilities. Our primary hypothesis is that for-profit ownership is associated with shorter time to an outbreak, more frequent outbreaks, and a longer time to resolution compared to facilities that are non-profit, or publicly owned and operated. Our secondary hypotheses are that lower direct care staffing levels and the presence of sub-contracted out staff services are associated with the Covid-19 outcomes, after adjusting for other factors (for example, age of building, size of facility). We will use publicly available data sources to conduct this investigation, and our study will include all long-term care facilities in British Columbia. Our data analysis will utilize various quantitative methods.