Resources you can confidently recommend to your clients

Resources you can confidently recommend to your clients

A blog post written by Dr. Katrina Erny-Albrecht

Today we launch a new For Community section in palliAGED. It has depth and size and is our response to how everyone has changed and will need to change in the future.

In 2017 the palliAGED website was launched with information and resources for the aged care sector and a For Community section for older people and their families. A timely response to an increasing need for guidance in palliative care for the aged care sector. Since then, the demands for improved care at the end of life have become louder. Amplified by key events including handing down of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety report in 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic that has reshaped and brought a spotlight to our aged care experiences. The need to do better is apparent to everyone. The volume of people approaching their end of life is no longer a future projection but an urgent care priority for today. Dedicated staff under increasing pressure to provide more and better care increasingly need help to meet individual needs as they and we would expect.  Involving local services and communities in providing care is possibly the only way for us to ‘supply’ and ‘afford’ needed changes.

To be involved communities need to be prepared and informed by information they can trust. As trusted members of local communities, health and aged care professionals are well placed to recommend where this can be found. A recommendation that takes on even more meaning when it is somewhere that they themselves turn to in search of information. This is where palliAGED For Community comes into the picture.

Building on the work associated with the redevelopment of the CareSearch portal , we have mirrored relevant content from the new CareSearch sections and developed new content for the expanded and updated For Community section in palliAGED.

CareSearch provides evidence-based palliative care information and resources for across the life course and care settings. In contrast palliAGED has a focus on care of the older person. 

So, in October 2021 our first step was to map the new CareSearch community centre against current content within palliAGED. This helped us to assess relevance to the care of older people and identify gaps where more support might be needed. Based on this review, selected content was brought across from CareSearch to expand and complement existing information within palliAGED. We knew from listening to the community that aged care was for many a complex and confusing encounter. So, we developed new information packages outlining care options in aged care and government support packages.

This has meant that palliAGED now provides support for older people preparing for future care needs as well as those with current care needs at the end of life. In line with expected increased demand for at home care palliAGED also provides more support for those taking on palliative care within the setting of their own home.

The new community centre was released in January 2022 and now provides information on:

 

Connecting clients, patients, and residents with trustworthy resources to help them take an active role in their own care is empowering. Now more than ever, palliAGED represents a common source for end of life and palliative care information that can be trusted and shared by everyone. If you have any comments or suggestions for further development of the palliAGED For Community section, please contact us at palliaged@flinders.edu.au.

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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.