OPTIMIZING COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS AND CAREGIVERS TO SUPPORT PERSONALIZED CARE: MOVING BEYOND MEDICAL DATA BY INTEGRATING FUNCTIONAL, SOCIAL AND PERSONAL DATA 

AUTHOR(S) & CREDENTIALS: Mireille Gagnon-Roy, OT, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, Véronique Provencher, OT, PhD, Associate Professor, Bessam Abdulrazak, PhD, Full Professor 

AFFILIATED INSTITUTION(S): Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke (QC), Research Center on Aging, Sherbrooke (QC) and Centre de recherche Charles-Le Moyne, Longueuil (QC) 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The authors thank AGE-WELL and the Réseau Québécois de recherche sur le vieillissement (RQRV) for funding support. Mireille Gagnon-Roy is also supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) postdoctoral scholarship.

About the Authors 

Mireille Gagnon-Roy is a postdoctoral researcher at the Université de Sherbrooke with a longstanding interest in how technology can support individuals with cognitive impairments in their daily lives. After completing master’s and doctoral studies in Rehabilitation Sciences at the Université de Montréal, she now works under the supervision of Prof. Véronique Provencher and Prof. Bessam Abdulrazak to improve care for older adults with dementia through innovative technologies. 

Her work is part of a collaborative team that brings together clinical, technological, and caregiving perspectives to enhance person-centred care. 

Inspiration & Problem Statement 

Before launching this project, Mireille participated in research aimed at delivering evolutive and personalized care in a seniors’ residence to delay or avoid moves to long-term care. This experience highlighted a persistent challenge: families and care teams often lacked the right information at the right time. 

Providing truly personalized care requires a holistic understanding of an older adult’s life story—their values, interests, and past roles—not just their medical data. Yet existing digital tools focus mainly on clinical records and seldom enable meaningful communication between health care providers and family caregivers. 

The team identified an opportunity to co-create a solution that integrates not only medical information but also functional, social, and personal data. By involving older adults, including those with cognitive impairments, in designing and implementing such a tool, the project aims to foster their engagement while capturing what matters most to them. 

Project Overview 

Using a living lab approach, the project brings together older adults, family caregivers, staff from a private seniors’ residence (personal support workers, nurses, managers), and the research team to co-develop, implement, and evaluate an electronic portal designed to: 

• Facilitate the collection and sharing of health information—including functional, social, and personal details 

• Enable seamless communication between caregivers and health professionals 

• Support personalized care planning that reflects each resident’s identity and preferences 

The process involves co-design workshops to document user needs, create a user-friendly interface, and determine what information should be shared and with whom. The resulting portal will be piloted in the seniors’ residence and refined based on user feedback. 

Ultimately, the portal is intended to help care providers tailor interventions to residents’ values and life stories while actively engaging family caregivers in ongoing care decisions. 

Importance of the Research 

This research advances person- and family-centered care by: 

• Engaging family caregivers in their loved ones’ care and reducing the need for repetitive assessments 

• Empowering older adults to share meaningful information about their life history and daily functioning 

• Supporting holistic care planning, giving providers a complete picture beyond medical charts 

• Improving management of challenging behaviors, by linking observed actions to life experiences (e.g., connecting frequent hallway walking to a former physician’s work routine) 

• Enhancing continuity of care, ensuring smooth transitions between care settings and providers 

By broadening communication beyond medical data, the project promotes dignity, autonomy, and more responsive care for older adults. 

Policy & Practice Implications 

The work highlights the urgent need for integrated communication systems across health care settings. Key implications include: 

• Interoperability between private and public electronic medical records, ensuring that medical, functional, social, and personal data can be shared securely and efficiently 

• Bidirectional communication with caregivers and older adults, positioning them as active participants in care planning 

• Reduced assessment burden through shared, up-to-date information accessible to all members of the care team 

Embedding these principles in policy and practice would strengthen collaboration, improve care continuity, and support the aging population more effectively. 

Next Steps 

The project will move forward through ongoing co-design sessions and pilot testing within the seniors’ residence. Feedback from residents, caregivers, and care staff will guide refinements, with the ultimate goal of making the portal a scalable solution for person-centered care across diverse care environments. 

Click here to read Mireille’s full Policy Brief!