Authors
- David Currow1,
- Sam Allingham2,
- Patsy Yates3,
- Claire Johnson4,
- Katherine Clark5,
- Kathy M Eagar2
- Flinders University1,
- University of Wollongong2,
- Queensland University of Technology (QUT)3,
- University of Western Australia (UWA)4,
- Calvary Mater Newcastle5
2014
Excerpt
Every health care sector including hospice / palliative care needs to systematically improve services using patient defined outcomes. Data from the national Australian Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration aims to define whether hospice / palliative care patients' outcomes and the consistency of these outcomes have improved in the last three years.
Data were analysed by clinical phase (stable, unstable, deteriorating, termin I). Patient-level data included the Symptom Assessment Scale and the Palliative Care Problem Severity Score.
Nationally collected point-of-care data were anchored for the period July-December 2008 and subsequently compared to this baseline in six six-monthly reporting cycles for all services that submitted data in every time period (n=30) using individual longitudinal multi-level random coefficient models.
Data were analysed for 19,747 patients (46% female; 85% cancer; 27,928 episodes of care; 65,463 phases). There were significant improvements across all domains (symptom control, family care, psychological and spiritual care) except pain. Simultaneously, the inter-quartile ranges decreased, jointly indicating that better and more consistent patient outcomes were being achieved.
These are the first national hospice / palliative care symptom control performance data to demonstrate improvements in clinical outcomes at a service level as a result of routine data collection and systematic feedback.
Data were analysed by clinical phase (stable, unstable, deteriorating, termin I). Patient-level data included the Symptom Assessment Scale and the Palliative Care Problem Severity Score.
Nationally collected point-of-care data were anchored for the period July-December 2008 and subsequently compared to this baseline in six six-monthly reporting cycles for all services that submitted data in every time period (n=30) using individual longitudinal multi-level random coefficient models.
Data were analysed for 19,747 patients (46% female; 85% cancer; 27,928 episodes of care; 65,463 phases). There were significant improvements across all domains (symptom control, family care, psychological and spiritual care) except pain. Simultaneously, the inter-quartile ranges decreased, jointly indicating that better and more consistent patient outcomes were being achieved.
These are the first national hospice / palliative care symptom control performance data to demonstrate improvements in clinical outcomes at a service level as a result of routine data collection and systematic feedback.