COMPLETE
Lead organisation
Ambulance Victoria
Partners
Alfred Health Palliative Care, Banksia Palliative Care, Barwon Health Community and Palliative Care, Bellarine Community Palliative Care, Bethlehem Community Palliative Care, Djerriwarrh Health Service Community Palliative Care Team, Eastern Palliative Care, Goulburn Valley Hospice Care Service, Lower Hume Palliative Care, Melbourne City Mission Palliative Care, Mercy Palliative Care, Palliative Care South East, Peninsula Health Supportive Palliative Care Team, Wimmera Palliative Care Team
Summary
A growing number of people with palliative and end-of-life care needs are choosing their home as their preferred place of care and anticipated place of death.
Previous scoping identified that paramedic staff and services have an important role in providing palliative and end-of-life care. While there are several excellent local initiatives, concern about paramedic palliative care experience, communication and documentation needs has led to an inconsistent approach and significant variation in providing care.
The WAVE project explored these issues through a scoping report and the development of a set of key principles of engagement to inform improvement conversations with palliative care services. In future work, the SCV continuous improvement methodology can be applied to identify improvement ideas for community palliative care services and paramedics to improve people's end-of-life care outcomes.
Aim
To improve the engagement between community-based palliative care services and Ambulance Victoria paramedics by establishing an expert working group and developing a set of key principles for the provision of end-of-life care by 30 June 2021.
Outcomes
- Developed an expert working group, a leadership group and a clinical review group to engage 54 people including consumers and clinicians
- Enabled networking opportunities across the sector
- Developed and finalised a scoping report, principles of engagement and two improvement conversation worksheets
- Hosted improvement conversations with 14 community palliative care providers and local representatives from Ambulance Victoria to discuss local issues and change ideas
- Established the WAVE Community Group for ongoing information sharing and networking
- Shared project findings including two conference abstracts and other related project work.
Update
Based on strong interest from members to maintain ongoing connection, the Centre of Clinical Excellence Older People team has established a WAVE Community Group. This informal, optional group is held on the first Thursday of each month and is open to people interested in improving the collaboration between paramedics and palliative care service providers. Group discussion will be facilitated as needed by A/Prof Mark Boughey, WAVE Project Lead, with a focus on information sharing and networking.
If you are interested in joining this informal group, or have any other questions about the project, please contact palliativecare.clinicalnetwork@safercare.vic.gov.au.