Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration
The Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration(PCOC) commenced in 2005 and is a voluntary, quality initiative to assist palliative care service providers to improve practice. The venture involves four collaborative partners, the Centre for Health Service Development, the University of Wollongong (PCOC Central), the Cancer and Palliative Care Research and Evaluation Unit, University of Western Australia (PCOC West), the Department of Palliative and Supportive Services, Flinders University of South Australia (PCOC South), and the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology (PCOC North).
The aim of the project includes developing and supporting a national benchmarking system that contributes to improved palliative care outcomes. PCOC developed a dataset to aid in data collection with information being gathered at three levels:
- Patient – demographic
- Episode – setting of care – inpatient or outpatient/community
- Phase – clinical.
By standardising palliative care assessments, PCOC has led to the development of a common language in palliative care. Clinical outcomes are able to be measured and compared, facilitating the development of benchmarking in the palliative care sector. Measures captured by the PCOC suite of tools include the time from referral to first contact, the length of time in an unstable phase, changes in pain and changes in symptoms relational to the national average. These four measures resulted from benchmarking workshops in 2008-2009 and reflect the key areas of interest identified by palliative care service providers.
Five validated assessment tools are used to obtain the information: the Palliative Care Phase, RUG/ADL, the Australian Modified Karnofsky Scale, the Palliative Care Problem Severity Score and the Symptom Assessment Scale.
The data from all services are collated by the administrative team at the University of Wollongong PCOC with results delivered back to the service provider. The six-monthly PCOC reports compare services with like-services, for example, community with community, and inpatient with inpatient services. This enables the service provider to measure their patient outcomes with other services, and also compare their progress over time and against benchmark measures. To date, ten PCOC reports have been generated and there is a steady growth of participating services nationally.
PCOC was funded under the National Palliative Care Program and is supported by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. PCOC works collaboratively with other programs including the National Standards Assessment Program (NSAP) and CareSearch.
For further information, please visit PCOC.
