End of life care is integrated into existing organisational, safety and quality systems, such as:
- morbidity and mortality review
- enterprise risk register
- systems for monitoring patient outcomes.
Systems for end of life care align with national standards:
- National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards(opens in a new window), especially:
- Standard 1: Governance for Safety and Quality in Health Service Organisations
- Standard 9: Recognising and responding to clinical deterioration.
- National consensus statement: essential elements for safe and high-quality end-of-life care.
The Safe and high-quality end-of-life fact sheet(opens in a new window), with its table of links between actions in the consensus statement and the NSQHS Standards, will help your acute health service provide evidence to meet the requirements of NSQHS standards.
Processes of end of life care that should be integrated into existing systems include:
- use of triggers for recognising the last 12 months of life and introducing end of life care
- validated tools, such as those of the Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) (opens in a new window)
- access to specialist palliative care clinicians for patients with complex needs
- access to allied healthcare
- initiation and review of advance care plans
- round-the-clock access to essential palliative medicines
- communication with community health services
- access to interpreters
- targeted bereavement support.
See Therapeutic Guidelines Palliative Care 2016 Version 4 on the Clinicians Health Channel at your health service
Updated