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The views and opinions expressed in our blog series are those of the authors and are not necessarily supported by CareSearch, Flinders University and/or the Australian Government Department of Health.
Seventy per cent of older Australians are still without an Advance Care Directive. Given the expected increase in our older population and the focus on person-centred care at the end of life, our aged care workforce requires support. Julia Todd from Advance Care Planning Australia discusses the importance of ongoing education and training for the aged care sector, and insights from their initiative.
ELDAC has developed a framework that helps aged care staff and services to consider and manage key issues in the last phase of life when a person progresses toward death. In her blog, Professor Jennifer Tieman discusses the ELDAC Care Model, its development, and how it can be used by aged care staff and services (working both in and beyond the ELDAC project) to provide quality care at the end of life.
Providing end-of-life care to residents with advanced life-limiting illnesses can be challenging for clinicians and health care workers. In this blog, Professor Deborah Parker and Dr Holly Mack from the University of Technology Sydney discuss how the ELDAC Residential Aged Care toolkit can assist you and your organisation in meeting the new Aged Care Quality Standards.
General practices provide ongoing care for a large number of patients with chronic, progressive, and eventually fatal illnesses, and so have an essential role in providing palliative care to patients and their families. Professor Josephine Clayton, Senior Staff Specialist Physician in Palliative Medicine and Associate Professor Joel Rhee, General Practitioner, discusses the Advance Project and how it aims to support general practices with the tools to identify people early who might need a palliative approach to their care and enables general practice teams to thoroughly assess the persons’ symptoms, concerns and priorities as well as the needs of their carers.
National Advance Care Planning Week is an annual initiative by Advance Care Planning Australia that encourages all Australians, regardless of their age or health status, to make their future health care preferences known. Jennifer Tieman Director of CareSearch discusses the importance of advance care planning and the need to start more conversations about death and dying.