New National Toolkit will improve Long Term Care
January 20, 2014 — Thunder Bay, ON
The Quality Palliative Care in Long Term Care Alliance held a national launch for its new toolkit on Monday, January 20th.
“The Alliance’s primary goal was to develop sustainable, person-focused palliative care programs consistent with the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association's Square of Care using a capacity development process,” said Dr. Mary Lou Kelley, Principal Investigator of the Quality Palliative Care in Long Term Care Alliance.
In 2009, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded the Quality Palliative Care in Long Term Care Alliance (QPC-LTC) for five years to develop formal palliative care programs in LTC homes.
The Quality Palliative Care in Long-Term Care Alliance was comprised of 30 researchers and 50 organizational partners who contributed their expertise to the research project entitled, Improving Quality of Life for People Dying in Long-Term Care Homes.
The major finding of this research was the need for a palliative care program that considers the unique setting and context of care delivery in long term care. The result is a program framework and toolkit for implementation of the framework.
“The Quality Palliative Care in Long Term Care Framework includes three core components: a philosophy of palliative care, a program description and organizational policy, and a process for organizational change,” said Dr. Kelley.
“These core components are supported by 40 tools, modules, in-services, and innovations for direct care, education, and community partnerships which were also created by the Alliance,” Dr. Kelley said.
The Quality Palliative Care in Long-Term Care Alliance is based at the Centre for Education and Research on Aging & Health (CERAH) at Lakehead University. The toolkit was launched through a webinar in partnership with the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association.
The objectives of the launch were to orient participants to the QPC-LTC toolkit – which includes a framework and over 40 additional operational resources – and to describe a three-year recommended process of change for long term care homes wanting to implement the toolkit and develop a formalized palliative care program.
For further information please see the project website www.palliativealliance.ca.
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Media: To arrange an interview, please contact Brandon Walker, Media Relations Officer, at (807) 343-8177.
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