Quality Improvement Projects

There is increasing awareness of the importance of palliative and end of life care in aged care. Understanding what evidence exists can help support your project or activity. Having some understanding of implementation approaches provide a strong base to a successful change activity.

Finding out what others have done can help you plan your project and connect with others who may have done something similar. We have collected examples of projects that support quality improvement in palliative care and end of life from across Australia to share what is happening.

The examples below show a rich and diverse array of aged projects and case stories relating to quality improvement activities.

ARIIA Palliative Care and End Of Life Projects

During 2022-2024, six rounds of ARIIA Grants were offered. Each funded project delivered a 12-month translational research project in aged care. Nine projects had a palliative care focus.

They were:

• Creating an evidence base for the timely introduction of the 'No One Dies Alone' programme in Residential Aged Care
• Kutjukata ngurra nyaku ntjakula – ‘One last look’
• Emergency-Department-Initiated Palliative Care for Older People Transferred from Residential Aged Care: wrong time and place, or exactly what is needed?
• Implementation of a novel palliative care assessment toolkit (PCAT) in rural residential aged care facilities
• A pilot program: Embedding a Palliative Care Link Nurse (PC-Link Nurse) into Residential Aged Care Facilities in regional South Australia
• Improving palliative and end-of-life care, for people living in residential aged care
• Bringing Namaste Care to people with dementia at end of life in residential aged care services
• Supporting implementation of aged care staff initiated advance care planning and palliative care needs assessment for people living with dementia
• Violet Aged Care Industry Solution.

ELDAC Linkages Projects

The Linkages program supports services to navigate resources and build partnerships using evidence-based strategies to provide quality end of life care.

You can view the palliative care case stories from the 2024 Linkages showcase:

• Advance Care Planning for the culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• Anticipating our residents’ future needs
• An umbrella in case it rains
• Recognising and responding to deterioration
• Freedom
• An ELDAC journey
• Working together 'A better community for ALL’
• Bridging the gap
• Working Together a Multidisciplinary care conference approach.

CareSearch Grey Literature

Additional palliative care projects in aged care were identified through the CareSearch Grey Literature database. Below is a small selection of recent studies.

• Navigating care at the end of life: Perspectives of Australian residential aged care nurses.
• Burnout in providing end-of-life care within aged care: Balancing individual and organisational factors and responses.
• Improving end of life care for residents of residential aged care facilities: The i-matter project.
• The 'Regional Hospice in RACF Project' – Improving end-of-life care for people living in Residential Aged Care.
• Palliative Care Needs Rounds 5 years on: where are we now?
• Intersectoral partnership to integrate and implement a palliative care technology into aged care: Carinity & ELDAC Flinders experience.
• Improving care in end-stage dementia with the End of Life Care Assessment Tool for Dementia (EoLC-ATD).
• Implementing PACOP in a National Residential Aged Care Provider benefiting >8000 residents.
• Developing an evidence-based booklet to support grief and bereavement needs of families.
• Triggering palliative care referrals through the identification of poor prognosis in older patients presenting to emergency departments in rural Australia.

Page created 06 February 2025