The Western NSW Primary Health Network (WNSW PHN) SHARE project is funded by the Department of Health under the Primary Health Networks Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care.
The project builds on system change achieved through a Decision Assist Linkages project led by the Far West Local Health District Specialist Palliative Care Team in partnership with Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs).
The WNSW PHN SHARE Project’s clinical champion Dr Sarah Wenham’s vision to advance the Far West Palliative Approach Framework into an electronic Palliative Approach Framework (ePAF) has led to the development of a Web Resource Centre. The Resource Centre is a repository for not only ePAF, but also readily available resources in digital format to support clinicians in any setting apply ePAF to assist in the provision of a comprehensive yet streamlined patient-centred palliative approach to care in a non-specialist setting.
As the only Specialist Palliative Care Physician in the far west of NSW, Dr Wenham serves 32,000 people across a region of 195,000 square km, which shares borders with Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. Sarah is a strong voice in palliative care for rural and remote Australia. She has learnt that you can make a difference from the beginning, by learning good communication skills and by connecting with and really caring for patients as fellow human beings. This is what drove her to train and specialise in palliative care. Sarah has experienced firsthand over many years the importance of giving people choice in enabling the right care, at the right time, in the right place.
The Palliative and End of Life Model of Care (refer to attachment below) is an individualised yet standardised needs-based approach for the care of patients with life-limiting disease in the last year of life. This ePAF aims to assist carers and healthcare professionals to assess, plan and care for patients with advancing life-limiting illness. The Web Resource Centre is housed on the Western New South Wales Primary Health Networks website www.wnswphn.org.au/epaf and includes sections for patients as well as health professionals.
The ePAF has been developed to build capacity and improve provision of comprehensive, consistent, patient-centred, needs-based, high-quality palliative and end of life care for all, irrespective of diagnosis, care location or care provider. The ePAF suite of clinical and educational tools and resources is designed to achieve sustained improvements in advanced care planning, care coordination and quality of palliative and end of live care in line with patient wishes in RACFs and Multi Purpose Services, as well as reduction in unnecessary hospital admissions. When translated into all care settings, including community, primary health, General Practice and hospital services, it will provide a shared framework to provide genuine choice that enables the right care, at the right time, in the right place.
The aim of ePAF is to achieve improvements in clinical outcomes for patients, workforce skills and communication between aged care facilities, general practice and specialist palliative care services. The Web Resource Centre allows easy access to the framework and resources from all digital devices.
We invite you to take 30 minutes of your time to watch an information webinar educating you in the use of the Web Resource Centre: https://www.wnswphn.org.au/epaf/epaf-healthcare-professionals/epaf-webinars-healthcare-professionals