What can my organisation do?
Support staff to develop high-level communication skills and the ability to successfully conduct case conferences.
Provide staff with tools to facilitate and document case conferences.
Ensure that residents and clients, their family and substitute decision-maker(s) have information to understand the objectives and benefits of case conferences and, when one is arranged, that they know how to prepare for a case conference.
The following (where appropriate) can be incorporated into practice as useful prompts to arrange and conduct a case conference:
- admission to residential aged care facility (RACF)
- return to RACF following discharge from hospital
- increase in falls
- change in clinical status
- new/worsening symptoms
- poor appetite or skin integrity
- annual management review plan
- receipt of a complaint
- family disagreement about care
- family distress
Consider creating partnerships with researchers to improve the evidence base and strengthen the understanding of how case conferences can benefit older people receiving palliative care and the validation of tools which assist the conduct of case conferences.