What is the Advance Project®?

The Advance Project® is a free, evidence-based suite of practical and training resources supporting residential and community aged care professionals, GPs, and general practice nurses and support staff to initiate advance care planning conversations and assess patients’ and carers’ palliative and supportive care needs.

The resources and training are in two sections:

  • Advance Project (General Practice)
    Comprises practical, evidence-based resource toolkit and an eLearning training package, specifically designed to support Australian general practices to implement a team-based approach to initiating advance care planning (ACP) and palliative care into everyday clinical practice.
  • Advance Project (Dementia)
    Free self-paced dementia-specific training and downloadable resources for clinicians, managers, and careworkers in aged care and primary care settings. Designed to build greater confidence, capacity, and skills in identifying people with dementia who would benefit from a structured assessment of their palliative care needs, initiating discussions, and working with families to advocate for the person’s end-of-life care wishes.

The Advance Project® resources and training programs were informed by literature reviews and extensive input and feedback from expert advisory groups, GPs, aged and primary care nurses and allied health staff, aged and primary care managers, careworkers, and consumer representatives. It is one of the National Palliative Care Projects, funded by the Australian Government since 2016, and led by HammondCare working in collaboration with various health organisations and universities across Australia.

    What is the aim of the Advance ProjectTM?

    The Advance Project® aims to enable better health care outcomes in Australian general practices through:

    • enabling earlier consideration and uptake of advance care planning
    • enabling more efficient use of general practitioner and nurse time in providing palliative and supportive care
    • enabling more appropriate and timely referrals to specialist palliative care services if required
    • increasing confidence and comfort levels for primary care clinicians to initiate conversations with patients and their carers about advance care planning and palliative/supportive care
    • upskilling general practice managers to support general practitioners and general practice nurses to overcome any barriers to successful implementation of the Advance Project tools and resources into routine practice.

    If you would like more information, or to register for the free resources or training please visit: www.theadvanceproject.com.au or email AdvanceProject@hammond.com.au

    Last updated 15 November 2023