End of Life Care
End-of-life care is the care and services given to people and their families who are facing the end of their life. End-of-life care is an important part of palliative care.
End-of-life care is for people of any age. It often involves bringing together a range of health professionals to help people live out your life as comfortably as possible.
CPG Guidelines
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Drug Compatibility in Subcutaneous Infusions Chart is a printable colour pictorial chart with indicators of drug compatibility.
Click here to download this chart.
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The Management of clients with automatic defibrillators and pacemakers at end of life guideline provides best practice guidelines for the deactivation of ICDs in hospital and community settings.
Click here to download these guidelines.
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Anticipatory prescribing is designed to enable prompt symptom relief at whatever time the client develops distressing symptoms.
Click here to download these guidelines.
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The Palliative Sedation guideline is to guide the use of continuous palliative sedation therapy in clients undergoing end of life care.
Click here to download these guidelines.
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This Rapid admission for imminently dying patients from the community palliative care to inpatient setting flowchart guides the process for an imminently dying registered community palliative care patient in need of direct admission to hospital.
Click here to download these guidelines.
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When an imminently dying patient expresses a wish to die at home, their request should not be simply viewed as impractical or impossible. Rather, a realistic evaluation of the feasibility of different options should be undertaken.
Click here to download these guidelines.
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The Symptom Control Algorithm is a companion document to the Care Plan for the Dying Person. It is based on the PICD algorithm and updated with the most recent evidence from the therapeutic guidelines and palliative care formulary.
Click here to download these guidelines.
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The Verification and Certification of Death outlines the requirement that all patients within Gippsland will have a death certificate signed by a qualified Medical Practitioner within 48 hours of the death, unless they are required to report the death to the Coroner.
Click here to download these guidelines.
External Guidelines
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Safer Care Victoria’s Care Plan for the Dying Person will help explore and document someone’s wishes, requests and preferences in the last days and hours of life.
It will step the health professional through recognising someone who is dying, reviewing medications and interventions, planning and delivering individualised care, and providing care after death.
Click here to view the Safer Care Victoria’s Care Plan for the Dying Person.
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The Blueprint has been developed to provide a flexible guide for health services to meet the needs of people approaching and reaching the end of life, their families and carers.
Essential Component 8 - There is quality care during the last days of life includes resources for
Physical / functional assessment
Carers
Case conference and family meetings
Additional tools for specific populations
Medication
Outcome measures
Education
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The Time of Dying Forums, hosted by Gippsland Primary Healthcare Network and the GRPCC, was sectioned into four, one-hour sessions presented over four weeks in October 2020. Recordings of the webinar are available to view at any time.
Session 2: Anticipatory Prescribing
Session 3: A Walk on the Webside
Session 4: Management of Decisions & Plans in the Dying Time
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Concerns over managing challenging symptoms can be alleviated with appropriate knowledge and support. A palliative perspective will be applied to the most common palliative care symptoms to give a broad overview.
Each video looks at the pharmacological intervention specific to each symptom from an Advance Practice Pharmacist, palliative care and pain management specialist point of view. It recognises the importance of non-pharmacological interventions either prior and/or in addition to medications.Click here for more informaition
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End of Life Law for Clinicians (ELLC) is a free online training program for all medical practitioners about Australian
law on end of life decision-making. Knowing end of life law can help medical practitioners to manage legal issues in
practice, and deliver optimal end of life, palliative, primary and aged care.
Click here for more information
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Peter Mac has a new VAD learning module.
The module is free and takes around 30 minutes to complete. It is open to all health care professionals, and depending on your discipline, it can attract 1 hour of CPD points. The module provides a solid foundation on:
Assessing whether a patient is making a specific request to explore VAD as an end-of-life option
Understanding key aspects of the Victoria VAD legislation
Identify the eligibility criteria for people exploring VAD in Victoria
Outline the key steps involved in the VAD assessment pathway
Know how to respond appropriately to a patient’s request for VAD using the CARERR approach
Understand how to escalate a patient’s VAD request through the appropriate channels
Understanding how to refer a patient to the VAD care navigator service
Accessing the module:
For non-Peter Mac staff:
Select “All other new users – Register”
Complete your registration details and click “Create my new account”
Follow the prompts to login to your Learning Hub account
Log in → Explore courses → Search the catalogue
Search “VAD” and enrol yourself into the module or add to cart
Begin the course