Mapping the terrain: A strategic view of the palliative care landscape in Australia
An article written by Dr. Seth Nicholls (Research Fellow) and Professor Jennifer Tieman (Director), Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying (RePaDD), Flinders University
Recent research published in Australian Health Review provides a strategic view of the palliative care landscape that can be used to support informed, context-sensitive decision-making in the sector. Dr Seth Nicholls and Prof Jennifer Tieman from the CareSearch Project explain.
Between December 2022 and February 2023, we conducted a series of interviews with senior leaders, researchers, policymakers, advocates, and service providers from key national palliative care organisations in Australia.
These interviews were one component of a three-part study exploring the benefits of online palliative care information in general, and the value of the CareSearch website in particular. To help address the growing palliative care needs of an ageing population, the research explored how clinicians and consumers engage with online information as a means of informing the design and development of more effective digital resources.
During the interviews, participants were asked about the evidence sources used by their constituencies, how their organisations find and apply palliative care evidence, and the types of evidence they value most. They were asked about the importance of open access information, barriers to evidence use, and challenges faced by health professionals and the community. The role and value of CareSearch were also explored, and participants were asked to identify what they believed to be the main issues confronting palliative care in Australia over the next decade.
To help the research team zero in on common themes and better understand the relationship between findings emerging across the interviews, a reflective thematic map was constructed during the analytical phase of the study. This map provided a bird’s eye view of the data and enabled us to highlight issues that were disproportionately emphasised by participants across the interviews.
While originally designed to enhance conceptual clarity and provide an overarching, visual snapshot of the data for the authors, the map was ultimately included in a report to the CareSearch National Advisory Group. In addition to serving as a powerful vehicle through which to intuitively communicate key insights and ‘tell the story’ of the data as a whole, it was evident from the Advisory Group’s feedback that the map resonated with a key audience for whom the research was intended. In view of this response, the decision was made to include the map in a research article containing the interviews’ key findings. [1]
Though partial and provisional, the map provides policymakers, clinicians and others involved in the planning and delivery of palliative care (and related resources) with a strategic view of the palliative care landscape in Australia. It offers a high-level, diagrammatic overview of some of the critical issues facing palliative care, and captures key elements of the cultural, demographic, institutional and technological eco-system from within which palliative and end-of-life care are being delivered.
This matters because the quality of the decisions made by policymakers, clinicians and others are only as high as the quality of the information on which those decisions are based. The complex, multidimensional nature of the contemporary palliative care landscape, however, means that basing those decisions on a clear understanding of that landscape can be challenging. By presenting a conceptual scaffold that communicates key elements of that landscape ‘at a glance’, our map makes a modest but meaningful contribution to the sector; by providing a tool that can be used to support high-quality decision-making that is sensitive to the overarching context in which those decisions are being made.
To view the map and explore the full article in which our findings are presented, click here. Use of the map (with attribution) is encouraged, and we invite you to consider how it might be used to support and inform your own work.
References
- Nicholls S, Tieman J. Assessing the value of online palliative care information. Aust Health Rev. 2025;49(3).
Authors
Dr. Seth Nicholls
Research Fellow
Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying (RePaDD)
Professor Jennifer Tieman BSc(Hons) MBA PhD FAICH
Matthew Flinders Professor
Director, Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying (RePaDD)