The chapter argues that joy, as a concept, challenges the stranglehold of neo-classical economics and evidence-based medical knowledge on long-term care policy and practice. The concept is necessary to address quality issues in ways that question the knowledge base used to determine how care homes are organized and regulated. Given the potential costs that quality improvements can entail for provider organizations, what and how to assess care home quality has become high stakes, involving intense lobbying from for-profit companies. What are the strengths and problems of common approaches to quality assurance? Can they assess joy? The chapter draws on research examples from Canada, the US, Norway, and the UK to provide an overview of the challenges to measuring care home quality, consider the ways that joy is ignored or missed in most quality assurance measures and processes, and provide evidence on care home conditions that make joy possible.
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
