Combating Social Isolation is a Phone Call Away

The health impacts of social isolation are a current and growing challenge faced by clients and service providers. COVID-19 further isolated many older Canadians and highlighted how many were already suffering from depressive symptoms and loneliness.

See Companion Call Program featured in Global Heroes

“Those who were socially isolated, experiencing poorer health and of lower socioeconomic status were more likely to have worsening depression as compared to their pre-pandemic depression status collected as part of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging since 2011,” says co-author Parminder Raina, a professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and scientific director of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging.

To reduce isolation among our clients, Nucleus launched the Virtual Companion Call (VCC) program earlier this year. In partnership with CompanionLink and the Seniors Life Enhancement Centre (SLEC), the program created virtual social connections between isolated, frail seniors and trained volunteers through technology (phone, tablets).

Clients were matched with volunteer companions provided by CompanionLink, based on common interests and languages spoken. To date, 60 clients have participated in weekly connections, dramatically increasing the hours of engagement that clients received and providing them with newfound social interactions.

The program successfully recruited not only Nucleus clients, but seniors from across Central Region through our community partners. The program also enhanced access to care delivery for frail seniors transitioning to home from hospital by onboarding clients residing on the Central Registry waiting list awaiting service.

We are in the process of conducting an impact evaluation of the program. The interim data suggests that clients feel the program has reduced their feelings of loneliness. At the start of the program, the majority of clients said they felt lonely “occasionally or a moderate amount of time” or “all of the time.” At the interim evaluation, of the clients surveyed so far, fewer rated their loneliness at those higher levels, while more of them reported feeling lonely ‘rarely or none of the time.” In addition, all clients surveyed so far have said they were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with the program, that they have received social interaction through the program and that their companion has become an important part of their life. Client testimonials reinforce these preliminary findings:

“This program makes me feel so good. I am very thankful and very excited to be a part of it. It helps me have contact with other people and being connected with younger people helps me understand what is going on in the world in a different way," said a Nucleus client.

Clients were also provided tailored activity kits that included stretching and mobility exercises as well as social recreation activities supported by tablet-based applications. To encourage the use of the activity kits, volunteers received the same content digitally and participated in training provided by SLEC.

To prepare and empower volunteers, CompanionLink, in partnership with leading experts from the University of Toronto, designed and delivered six eLearning modules:

Volunteer Rights and Responsibilities (Risk Management)
Introduction to Companion Calls
The Art of Conversation with a Senior
Identify, Assist, Refer – recognizing and assisting crisis/needs of seniors.
Overcoming common Communication Challenges with Seniors.
Socialization and Communication with Seniors with Dementia.

Volunteers’ “aging literacy” – their knowledge of challenges facing older adults – is reinforced by monthly Community of Practice events hosted by CompanionLink, where volunteers share experiences, ask questions, and often hear from guest speakers. Of note, a preliminary evaluation has also shown benefit for the volunteers:

"CompanionLink has brought me so much joy. Not only have I formed a new connection with a different generation but I have also brought joy and happiness to someone who has been socially isolated. I have weekly calls with my companion and I look forward to them. I always learn something new and it brightens my day," says a CompanionLink volunteer. A longer-term study on tablet adoption and loneliness is underway and the program continues to connect new clients with volunteers.

Want to make a referral to the Virtual Companion Call Program? Access our referral form.

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Building a Scalable Digital Health Ecosystem

October 23, 2026

Over the past four years, Nucleus has moved from using digital systems mainly as administrative tools to using them as part of daily decision-making, service oversight, communication and organizational planning. The shift is not about the tools themselves. It is about how the tools are embedded into operations. “Nucleus has been investing in staff digital literacy, process redesign and change management, recognizing that digital transformation is as much about people and culture as it is about technology. This thoughtful, practical approach positions Nucleus not just to adapt to system changes, but to help shape them,” shared Lori Holloway, CEO, Ontario Community Support Association. “The fundamental change is that Nucleus has shifted from reactive, manual and system-dependent work toward a more proactive, datainformed, digitally enabled operating model. Teams can now monitor and respond to issues – double-booked shifts, scheduling gaps, service-code exceptions, before they become larger problems.” - Shiva Vosoughi, Lead of Digital Health & Privacy A few examples from this year tell the story. 1. The Integrated Decision Support (IDS) platform: administered by the Ontario Hospital Association, gives Nucleus the ability to link internal records with regional data, including hospital admissions and emergency department visits. The result is a sharper picture of clients’ health system journeys and an ability to identify risk earlier. 2. Department-specific dashboards: give frontline managers real-time access to operational and quality indicators. Care Team Leads, Care Coordinators and managers now use data to support attendant performance review, Hospital to Home journey monitoring, scheduling oversight and operational issue identification, moving from reactive problem-solving to proactive operational management. 3. Service code data entry accuracy was sustained at less than 1% error throughout fiscal year 2025- 2026, with an average error rate of approximately 0.17%. It reflects data quality monitoring, staff accountability and operational checkpoints working in concert. 4 . Family Portal: Nucleus’ client and family-facing AlayaCare interface, added a major feature on February 23, 2026: clients and families can now access their personalized care plans through the portal app. The launch followed a careful cross-functional planning effort. The feature represents the next phase of Family Portal evolution: clients move from viewing schedules to seeing their own care goals and care planning information directly. 5. Dial My Calls , a new mass communication system, allows Nucleus to deliver pre-recorded, standardized voice messages to clients and staff in inclement weather and other emergencies. Expanded use cases are being explored. 6 . Custom applications and integrated data: Nucleus has built its own applications and linked previously siloed systems - incident reporting, finance, human resources, scheduling and hospital data - into a single picture spanning client assessments, service utilization and acute-care use. The result is a clear line of sight from frontline service to system-level outcomes like avoidable hospital visits and alternate-level-of-care days, and the ability to map a client's journey before and after Nucleus to advocate for funding and inform regional service planning. 7. Sandbox Initiative : In partnership with the University of Toronto's Sandbox program - a model that brings real organizational challenges into academic-applied research - Nucleus continued its food-insecurity geo-mapping and Adult Day Service business case work, and went further this year by sharing de-identified data on roughly 4,000 clients with student research teams in statistics and human biology. Their independent analyses found that clients rely on the hospital system less after starting with Nucleus, with the strongest effects among the highest-need clients: unscheduled admissions for clients with mental health conditions fell by roughly 40%, and clients with cardiovascular conditions saw inpatient admissions, readmissions and costs drop by 35–55%. These are exploratory analyses that describe patterns rather than prove causation, but they offer external, data-grounded support for what Nucleus sees in practice - that home- and community-based care keeps people healthier at home and eases pressure on acute care. For Nucleus, building a scalable digital health ecosystem means connecting people, processes, and information in ways that strengthen care today and create capacity for tomorrow. By pairing practical technology with staff expertise, strong partnerships, and a commitment to continuous improvement, Nucleus is turning data into action - helping clients remain healthier at home while contributing to a more responsive and sustainable health system.