Student team: Mia Mo, Robyn Carino, and Samiha Essakhi

University: NORC Innovation Centre/University of Toronto

Country: Canada

Canada's rapidly aging population demands innovative housing and care solutions to support older adults' desire to age in their communities. Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) is an innovative model that integrates health, social, and physical supports directly within apartment buildings, community housing and condominiums with a high density of older adults. NORCs present an alternative with the potential to lower healthcare costs for older adults while improving healthcare outcomes and satisfaction.

We addressed this challenge by collaborating with frontline care providers and backstage support staff. We mapped and blueprinted the new service while developing a digital tool to empower NIC’s frontline staff and easing data collection and coordination for backstage staff. The project centered on a digital employee portal, however the team applied Service Design coursework and co-op experience from Bridgeable to expand beyond the silo of traditional UX. The portal served as a site for negotiating and tangibilizing key components of the new service model and the work extended to non-digitial touchpoints and broader service processes and policies.

The Approach consisted of researching and mapping the service experience of frontline staff, codesigning touchpoints, focussed design sprints and finally building and launching an employee portal and service supports which are currently being used live in a beta launch.

Once fully implemented, the portal is projected to serve 3,783 residents across 15 sites in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), streamlining tasks for 8 frontline team members (with the team actively expanding). Additionally, the NIC's operations and research teams are supported through improved data collection, outcome tracking, and service delivery. As the NIC validates their NORC model at early adopter sites within the GTA, their pilot is scaled nationally, promising Canadawide impact as early as 2027.

Currently, the platform is being successfully rolled out and actively used by staff in multiple NORC sites. Feedback from frontline staff during the platform’s beta launch has been overwhelmingly positive, with comments like "I feel like this is going to be so useful, make life so much easier. And it is overall really easy and intuitive to look at and to use."

This project has the potential to significantly impact Canada's approach to senior care. By cocreating the service, we aim to enhance frontline staff efficiency and effectiveness in delivering care within NORCs. From this, improved communication and collaboration among care providers will ultimately empower older adults to age in place with greater independence, dignity, and access to the care they need.