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Nursing Home Without Walls

The Nursing Home Without Walls program helps nursing and LTC homes support older adults to age in place with access to essential services and support.
CARE+ NHWW Card 540X360
Topics
  • Aging in place
  • Patient engagement
  • Long-term care
Audience

  • Community organization

  • Point of care provider

  • Quality or safety improvement lead

What is Nursing Home Without Walls?

Nursing Home Without Walls (NHWW) helps nursing and long-term care (LTC) homes support older adults to age where they call home with access to essential services and support. By helping older adults stay in their homes longer, NHWW supports their independence and aims to delay premature admission to long-term care. It also helps to ease pressure on emergency departments.

Originating in New Brunswick, Nursing Home Without Walls has spread to 36 nursing homes across the province, supported by HEC, Université de Moncton and the Government of New Brunswick.

89% of older adults surveyed feel Nursing Home Without Walls helps them stay at home, fostering stronger community connections

How Nursing Home Without Walls works

Nursing and LTC homes implement NHWW models. They provide space, staff support, and valuable knowledge about the local community, available services, and aging-related needs. In some cases, they also provide direct supports to older adults living at home.

Each NHWW program is shaped by the needs of its community. Nursing homes adjust the program to fit their local context, using their unique strengths. Every program is defined by three key elements:

  1. Support for older adults in the community: Services are designed to help people stay safe, healthy, and connected while living at home.

  2. Using what’s already in place: NHWW uses the space, staff, and other resources already available in nursing homes.

  3. Focusing on aging challenges: Programs address common issues like loneliness and access to services, supporting people age in place more comfortably.

Pan-Canadian spread

Building on the remarkable success of the NHWW program in New Brunswick, and with support from the Waltons Trust, Healthcare Excellence Canada is partnering with Université de Moncton to spread and scale the NHWW model across additional provinces and territories.

HEC is taking a jurisdictional approach, with a lead organization in each province or territory serving as HEC’s primary partner to support implementation of the NHWW model across selected nursing and long-term care homes.

Through this pan-Canadian program, jurisdictions across the country will be supported to adopt and spread the NHWW model in partnership with nursing and long-term care homes, enabling older adults to age in place with access to the services and supports they need.

The pan-Canadian program will be delivered over a two-year period, with formal implementation support running from January 2026 to March 2028.

Details about participating jurisdictions will be shared as recruitment continues.

“Nothing is as rewarding as hearing our participants tell us how much our services have improved their quality of life and kept them at home longer. It reminds us of what a difference we’re making in their lives.”

Inkerman and Paquetville NHWW team

From pilot to pan-Canadian spread

This webinar provides an overview of the Nursing Home Without Walls (NHWW) program, an initiative designed to enable older adults to age in place. Developed by Dr. Suzanne Dupuis-Blanchard, this evidence-based program started out as four pilot sites in New Brunswick. Over the past two years, and through a partnership with the Government of New Brunswick’s Department of Social Development, Université de Moncton, and Healthcare Excellence Canada, NHWW has expanded to reach communities across the province.

Speakers

  • Stephanie Lagosky

  • Dr. Suzanne Dupuis-Blanchard

  • Judy Freeze

Host

  • Stephanie Lagosky

The Story of Nursing Home Without Walls

Originating in New Brunswick, this program enables nursing and LTC homes to support older adults to age in place with access to essential services and support.

Nursing Home Without Walls (NHWW) helps nursing and long-term care (LTC) homes support older adults to age in place with access to essential services and support.

Created by researcher Dr. Suzanne Dupuis-Blanchard from the Université de Moncton, this program facilitates healthy aging at home by providing access to essential knowledge, support, and services.

In 2019, four English and French-speaking rural communities began implementing the NHWW model in their local nursing homes in 2019 through the Healthy Seniors Pilot Project. Although somewhat different in their approaches, their goals were the same – to support aging in place in their local communities. Early results of the NHWW pilot programs include:

  • Increased satisfaction with levels of social interactions and outings.

  • Increased knowledge on who to contact to get information on services for aging at home.

  • 69% of older adults stating that the services received are accessible and support them to stay in their home.

  • Increased feeling of security in their home and the community.

  • 100% of older adults are satisfied with the services offered by NHWW.

  • Prevented some non-urgent visits to the Emergency Deptartment or medical after-hours clinic.

To advance the adoption of NHWW and support older adults living and aging in community, the New Brunswick Department of Social Development (Social Development), Université de Moncton and Healthcare Excellence Canada partnered together to spread and scale the NHWW initiative beyond the four pilot sites. In 2025, a funding opportunity was announced for Nursing Homes in New Brunswick to establish a Nursing Home Without Walls program within their local communities.

Over the course of the next year, Social Development, Healthcare Excellence Canada and the Université de Moncton provided support, coaching and resources to sites during the planning and implementation of their NHWW programs. Learnings and impacts from the spread and scale of this innovation are currently being measured with the plan to share, so that other jurisdictions across Canada can learn from the work being done in New Brunswick.

Nursing Home Without Walls Participating Teams

The Nursing Home Without Walls (NHWW) program, a partnership with Healthcare Excellence Canada, the Government of New Brunswick Department of Social Development and the Université de Moncton’s Research Centre on Aging is supporting sites from across New Brunswick to enable older adults to age in place.

About the pilot sites

Four nursing homes volunteered to pilot the NHWW program. These homes were in the rural communities of Port Elgin, Lamèque, Inkerman and Paquetville. Access to services is complex in rural communities -New Brunswick is composed of 49% rural communities.

All four nursing homes implemented the program at the same time and offer services to meet the needs of their communities (based on previous consultations and community needs assessment), without duplicate existing resources or services.

Lamèque

In Lamèque, NHWW initially assisted older adults with frailty at home with personal care, meals, medication and socialization. Services expanded to include transportation, community activities, home maintenance and caregiver support, reflecting a community- and person-centered approach to holistically address the diverse needs of older adults and their caregivers.

Inkerman and Paquetville

In Inkerman and Paquetville, NHWW provides home maintenance, transportation, bathing, foot care, health clinics, and socialization for older adults. Paquetville collaborates with a local volunteer organization for meal services. Sharing a coordinator, the nursing homes maintain distinct service approaches while leveraging proximity and similar needs between the communities.

Port Elgin

In Port Elgin, NHWW prioritizes community service access. The program aids older adults in accessing federal, provincial, and local services by assessing their needs and assisting with applications. Addressing social isolation, weekly coffee chats are hosted, and transportation is coordinated for appointments and errands. Expanding services, Port Elgin lends equipment and supplies to support older adults in comfortable home living.

  • "I just wanted you to know how very much I look forward to and enjoy the exercise class. It may be a senior’s class, but I assure you we all get our heart rates up and we stretch every single part of our bodies including places that we didn’t know we had! Thank you for organizing such a lovely class to enrich our lives."

    A note from a NHWW client

  • "My mother is a new person. She now smiles and has something to look forward too."

    From a daughter about her mother who lives alone

  • "Thank you for the information and links, and for all the time and care you took with us yesterday. Your visit was a huge help to us, and we are grateful to be able to benefit from NHWW."

    A couple receiving a home visit

  • "I am so happy, I can't stop crying. There is no way I could have spent another winter in that home. NHWW has literally saved my life and I cannot thank you enough, thank you very much."

    An 85-year-old man who was housing challenged

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