Listen to the conversation
- 🎧 Full episode: Listen to the full episode - Shaye Ganam Show
- ▶️ Listen Here:
- ⏱️ Recorded: Wednesday August 26 2025
Quick summary (TL;DR)
- Care is shifting home: Advances in clinical protocols and logistics now allow more complex care at home, reducing hospital stays and improving patient experience.
- Physician‑led teams matter: Clear clinical direction with strong care‑management keeps home care safe, consistent, and outcome‑oriented.
- Continuity beats patchwork: Fewer faces and smarter scheduling lead to better clinical outcomes and calmer homes.
- Families need transparency: Expect clarity on care plans, communication pathways, and what’s included (and not) in services.
What you’ll learn in this episode
1) Why care is moving home
Shorter hospital stays, hospital capacity pressures, and patient preference are accelerating a long‑term trend: delivering more care safely at home. Dr. Wong outlines which scenarios are appropriate for home, and the red flags that still warrant hospital care.
2) How physician‑led home care works in practice
Dr. Wong explains how a physician‑led model guides assessment, care‑planning, escalation pathways, and communication, while empowering caregivers to focus on great human care.
3) The role of technology and data
From vitals tracking to secure documentation, technology creates visibility without overwhelming the family. The emphasis: right signal, right person, right time.
4) What families should expect from providers
Clear care plans, respectful communication in the home, simple scheduling, and a focus on continuity. Fewer hand‑offs, more relationship.
5) The policy and funding landscape (in brief)
How public programs, benefits, and private-pay options fit together—and why navigation support matters.
Full transcript
Shaye Ganam: We haven’t talked about healthcare in a while on the show. We always come back to the same fundamental issue: access. Once you’re in the system, the care is excellent—we have wonderful people working in it—but getting in can be hard. Surgery wait lists can be incredibly long, ER waits can be hours, and finding a family doctor isn’t easy in parts of the province. The system can’t handle the demand, so maybe we need to do things differently.
Shaye: Our guest is Dr. Charles Wong, a Calgary‑based emergency physician, health‑systems innovator, and medical director for a home‑care business. Dr. Wong, thanks for joining us.
Dr. Charles Wong: Very glad to be here—thanks for having me.
Shaye: This conversation fundamentally comes down to freeing up beds and getting things flowing the way the system is designed to. Why are we constantly facing the bed crunch?
Dr. Wong: Hospital beds—regular wards, ER, and ICU—are the central currency of acute care. When one type of bed is full, it overflows into the rest of the system. If general ward beds are full, patients in the ER who need admission can’t go upstairs. Downstream, paramedics can’t off‑load new patients into the ER. One bottleneck affects almost every patient in the system.
Shaye: So flow stops—you can’t move from one level to the next because of a hold‑up. Are there ways to do it differently? Are hospital beds the only option we use?
Dr. Wong: Many patients coming into hospital—and many waiting inside—don’t actually need hospital‑level care. That sounds counter‑intuitive, but it’s because viable alternatives aren’t available fast enough. A very common scenario from the ER: a family brings in an older loved one, 70s, 80s, or 90s, with a mild medical issue—say a simple fall causing a bad hip bruise. No fracture, no surgery needed. Medically, they don’t need to be in hospital, but they can’t manage activities of daily living (ADLs)—walking to the bathroom, preparing meals, the basics. Because short‑notice, unscheduled community supports aren’t available, the only place to get those simple services is the hospital, where clinicians end up doing them.
Shaye: Some would say a continuing‑care centre could handle that, but many seniors see that as a non‑starter.
Dr. Wong: Continuing care has its role—24/7 nursing for residents who need it—but it isn’t optimal for someone with fairly basic, temporary needs. The best place for that person is home, with the right support to keep them out of hospital and out of long‑term care, leaving those beds for people who truly need them.
Shaye: So how do we make “home with support” actually work?
Dr. Wong: It sounds simple, but people are complicated. I use a car analogy: for routine needs—an oil change or seasonal tires—you can go almost anywhere and get good service. That’s like most home‑care visits for simple, scheduled tasks. But when your engine needs a rebuild, you need specialized tools and expertise. In home care, complex situations need specialized supervision. That’s why we built Medically Supervised Home Care—a physician‑led model that customizes care at home for more complicated cases.
Shaye: Where is Alberta on this? Are we moving toward a publicly funded, privately delivered model?
Dr. Wong: Alberta is at the forefront. Alberta Health Services created [Client‑Directed Home Care Invoicing (CDHCI)], which lets clients ask their AHS home‑care case manager for an assessment. If they qualify, they receive publicly funded support—expressed as dollars or as hours per week/month—and then they can choose a private provider that best meets their needs.
Shaye: How much difference could that make?
Dr. Wong: Potentially massive. It’s under‑utilized, in my opinion. Relieving a hospital bed that can cost $1,200–$2,000 per day might only require $100–$200 per day of home care—cents on the dollar. And remember, there’s always been a public‑private divide in this stage of life. Accommodation in a public long‑term‑care facility still has out‑of‑pocket charges—about [$60–$70 per day] as listed on Alberta Health/AHS websites. The same applies if you’re waiting in hospital for a long‑term‑care [bed]. Home care has long been privately delivered but publicly funded. Our medically supervised approach brings long‑term‑care‑level oversight into the home, saving the system—and families—money while keeping people where they want to be.
Shaye: You make a compelling case. Thanks for your time, Dr. Wong.
Dr. Wong: Thank you for having me. Have a great day.
About HomeFree Care
HomeFree is a physician‑led home‑care company. We’re caregiver‑centered and human‑centered, focused on simplicity, continuity, and excellent clinical oversight—so families can feel more at ease at home.
Interested in support? Book a conversation: Book Here • Email: hello@homefree.care • Phone: 403-902-2180
