About The Rehabilitative Care Alliance
The Rehabilitative Care Alliance (RCA) works with partners across Ontario to strengthen and standardize rehabilitative care through better planning, performance management and evaluation and by integrating best practices across the care continuum. The RCA is a provincial collaborative funded by Ontario Health.
The North West Regional Rehabilitative Care Program (RRCP) implements the work of the provincial RCA at the local and sub-region levels. The North West RRCP partners include patient advocates, publicly-funded providers of rehabilitative care. The rehabilitative care programs included are provided or supervised by regulated health professionals (RHPs). As of April 1, 2017, the North West partners adopted the new provincial standardized definitions and eligibility criteria for bedded and community rehabilitative care which includes rehabilitative care provided in hospital-based designated inpatient rehab beds, complex continuing care and convalescent care beds located in long-term care (LTC) as well as rehabilitative care provided in a person’s home or at a community program. This will help patients, families, and referring partners including primary care providers, understand what rehabilitative care is and what to expect.
The Referral Options Tool for Bedded Rehabilitative Care Programs/Services was developed by the RCA to assist referrers when looking for rehabilitative care programs provided in hospital and within convalescent care programs located in LTC. The Referral Options Tool is a standardized provincial tool that provides information for health service providers on the level of rehabilitative care provided, the target population, the location of the program and information on how to refer; this information is outlined below.
Levels of Bedded Rehabilitative Care
Rehabilitation (high and low intensity)
Activation Restoration
Short-Term Complex Medical Management
Long-Term Complex Medical Management
Standardized provincial definitions for each of these levels of rehabilitative care as well as eligibility criteria have been developed by the RCA. Key features of each of the bedded levels of rehabilitative care are described on the second page of the tool (linked below by sub-region). The eligibility criteria for bedded levels of rehabilitative care can be found in the Appendix section. For full details, see the complete RCA Framework for Bedded Levels of Rehabilitative Care.
While this resource was developed as a standardized provincial tool, each LHIN has adapted the tool, such as the North West Referral Options Tool for Bedded Rehabilitative Care Programs, to provide information on rehabilitative care within each region.
Community-Based Referral Option Tools
Some community rehabilitative care programs in the North West provide both a Progression and Maintenance level of rehabilitative care. Standardized provincial definitions for Progression and Maintenance levels as well as eligibility criteria have also been developed by the RCA. For full details, see the complete Definitions Framework for Community Based Rehabilitative Care.
