End-of-Life Care Pathways
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Tips for Careworkers:
End-of-Life Care Pathways

What it is: A care pathway is a tool to plan best care for a person with a disease or condition where we know what to expect. End-of-life care pathways guide the care you will provide to the person who is dying.

Why it matters: Care pathways aim to:

  • guide clinical decisions
  • start care as soon as possible
  • make sure everyone works to the same plan
  • prevent unnecessary emergency treatments
  • make care more efficient
  • give you confidence that you are providing the right care.

What I need to know: A care pathway is different from a care plan. A care pathway represents the ideal way to manage most people with a specific problem or long-term condition. A care plan is made for an individual person and might not be the same as a care pathway.

The Residential Aged Care End of Life Care Pathway (RAC EoLCP) guides the provision of good quality terminal care in residential aged care.

Care pathways use documents, sometimes flowcharts, to outline the steps of care to be followed by members of multidisciplinary teams.

Do

Look out for changes in a person’s physical condition and mental and emotional state.

 

Do

Report to nursing/supervisory staff any changes in the person’s

  • skin, eyes, ear, nose, throat
  • mobility
  • eating, sleeping, or toilet habits
  • odours, discharge, itching, swelling, burning
  • hands or feet (if numb or cold)
  • mood or behaviour (agitation, restlessness).
 

Do

Discuss regularly with nursing/supervisory staff what you should do to support the person on their care pathway.

 

My reflections:

 

Name two aims of care pathways?

 

What changes in a person should I report to nursing staff?

See related palliAGED Practice Tip Sheets:

Advance Care Planning

Case Conferences

Continuity of Care


 

For references and the latest version of all the Tip Sheets visit www.palliaged.com.au/PracticeTipSheets

 

CareSearch is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.
Updated July 2022

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