The underlying philosophy of a palliative approach is a view that death, dying and bereavement are all an integral part of life
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The underlying philosophy of a palliative approach is a view that death, dying and bereavement are all an integral part of life

A blog post written by Alison Stoker

Western NSW Primary Health Network’s Shared Health and Advance care Record for End-of-life choices, affectionately known as (SHARE) is funded by the Department of health under the Primary Health Networks Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care measure.


The SHARE project builds on earlier work done by the very competent Far West Local Health Districts Specialist Palliative Care team and the Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health.


The goals of the SHARE project are to:

  • Improve access to the best palliative care at home
  • Support palliative care services in primary health and community care
  • Make sure you get the right care, at the right time and in the right place to reduce unnecessary hospital visits
  • Generate and use data to improve services
  • Use technology to provide flexible and responsive care, including after-hours care


The electronic Palliative Approach Framework (ePAF), has been designed to build capacity and improve provision of comprehensive, consistent, patient-centred, needs based, high-quality palliative and end of life care for all, irrespective of diagnosis, care location or care provider.


The ePAF is made up of 3 major components:

  • The Web Resource Centre was built and launched in May 2019 and is housed on the WNSW PHN website. This Web Resource Centre holds the electronic Palliative Approach framework and model of care and the documents required by both health care professionals and clients or their carers to access end of life care information in a timely manner. A one stop shop for palliative care information www.wnswphn.org.au/epaf
     
  • The Shared Locality Record is being develop to provide relevant clinical information in real-time, giving timely access to key information to improve access to safe, quality palliative care.
     
  • A Data Dashboard built using Power BI, monitors clinical care using the End-of-Life Minimum Universal Tool (EMU). EMU is consistent KPIs and data collection items that are outcome focused for palliative care, enabling tracking and benchmarking of patterns of care and informing future service development.
     

The ePAF aims to achieve improvements in clinical outcomes for patients, workforce skills and communication between RACFs, general practice and specialist palliative care services.  The translational impact begins by changing the local policy and practice of sites and services through the adoption of a palliative approach through the Framework and optimising care to context.

Over the past three years our web resource centre has been a one stop shop for general palliative care information. For more information, please contact our communications manager Anthony Thompson at: Anthony.thompson@wnswphn.org.au


 

Alison Stoker,
Program Manager Chronic Disease
Western NSW Primary Health Network

 

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The views and opinions expressed in Palliative Perspectives are those of the authors and are not necessarily supported by CareSearch, Flinders University and/or the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.