Value at end of life: driving the outcomes that matter in palliative care

While there are multiple definitions, theories and approaches to driving value in care, there is collective agreement that achieving value requires placing consumers at the centre to understand and drive the outcomes that matter to people and communities.

Palliative care is a leading area of health that has this strong focus on person-centredness, recognising the autonomy needed to achieve a good death. Evidence demonstrates that earlier access to palliative care can improve quality of life, symptom control, mood, illness understanding, end-of-life care and survival, and reduce low value, non-beneficial therapies and health system costs.

Despite this, palliative care service delivery models vary significantly between jurisdictions, sectors and local contexts, contributing to increased demand, complexity and costs, which is challenging sustainable service delivery and undermining improvements in outcomes.

Value-based health care (VBHC) presents one possible solution to these challenges, enabling services to deliver high quality, evidence-based care through restructuring and redesigning to focus on driving improvements in the outcomes that matter to people at end of life for the resources available.

Directly faced with an increasing number of clients referred and admitted into their care year on year, with a higher acuity and greater complexity in needs and no new funding available to account for these increases, Eastern Palliative Care (EPC) has embraced a VBHC approach to palliative care provision.

Focused on delivering high quality services that truly make a difference in the lives of those they serve, join us in our next VBHC webinar to hear from the team at EPC about their journey to VBHC. Hear how they have utilised the wisdom, knowledge and experience of staff, volunteers and consumer representatives through co-design and consultation to develop and re-design models of care, the lessons they have learned along the way, and where they are headed on the iterative, long-term journey that is VBHC implementation.

SPEAKERS:

• Adjunct A/Professor Gaylene Coulton, Chief Executive Officer, Eastern Palliative Care 
• Maria Logan, General Manager Nursing & Medical Services, Eastern Palliative Care 
• Tania King, General Manager Allied Health & Volunteer Services, Eastern Palliative Care 
• Debra Mitchell, Innovation and Projects Lead, Eastern Palliative Care