End-of-Life Care: End-of-Life Home

This e-book collection includes more than 600 e-books designed for use by Nursing and Allied Health staff and students in hospitals. Includes clinical guides, and evidence-based practice manuals, practical handbooks and professional growth titles. To search the eBook database contents click here.   

If you are offsite you will need an Athens account to access these eBooks.  Link to the book in ClinicalKey then use the login on the right hand top corner and select OpenAthens login.

End-of-life Essentials education is based on the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care’s National Consensus Statement: Essential elements for safe and high-quality end-of-life care. The education is free to use, evidence based and has been peer reviewed by doctors, nurses and allied health professionals around Australia.

The education modules are designed to assist doctors, nurses and allied health professionals working in acute hospitals in delivering end-of-life care. They are free to use after you have registered for an account. Register from this page

These modules are recommended for NHW staff:

• Dying, a normal part of life
• Patient-Centred Communication and Shared Decision-Making
• Recognising the End of Life
• Responding to Concerns
• Imminent Death - How to Respond

A Free, Flexible Learning Series In Palliative Care

Supplied in a partnership between St Oswald’s Hospice, Hospice UK and Together For Short Lives, CLiP is a case-based programme of self-learning worksheets that take about 15 minutes each

• NHW staff complete all the Adult worksheets

Eltaybani, S. , Igarashi, A. & Yamamoto‐Mitani, N. (2021). Palliative care in adult intensive care units. Nursing in Critical Care, 26 (5), 315-325. doi: 10.1111/nicc.12565.

Jensen, H. I., Halvorsen, K., Jerpseth, H., Fridh, I., & Lind, R. (2020). Practice Recommendations for End-of-Life Care in the Intensive Care Unit. Critical Care Nurse, 40(3), 14–22. https://doi.org/10.4037/ccn2020834

• Overview of comprehensive patient assessment in palliative care
• Overview of managing common non-pain symptoms in palliative care
• Palliative care: The last hours and days of life
• Primary palliative care
• Approach to symptom assessment in palliative care
• Pediatric palliative care
• Ethical issues in palliative care
• Palliative care: Overview of cough, stridor, and hemoptysis
• Assessment and management of dyspnea in palliative care

A GOOD LIFE TO THE END | Professor Ken Hillman, practising intensive care specialist who is a passionate advocate of improving the management of dying patients - Sep 5, 2019 - Uploaded by Happy & Well

23:52

ELDAC provides information, guidance, and resources to health professionals and aged care workers to support palliative care and advance care planning to improve the care of older Australians.

CarerHelp has been built by the Australian Family Carer Toolkit Project and provides access to high quality information and resources to support carers in a range of capacities and pathways towards the end of life.   CarerHelp Home  |   Carer Library

End of Life Law for Clinicians - Free online training course – available on the QUT website.

• National consensus statement:  essential elements for safe and high-quality end-of-life care

Advance Care Planning Australia provides online courses and face-to-face workshops nationally, specifically designed to support aged care workers, health professionals and the general public learn more about advance care planning.

To access these course you must first register for an account.  Use the link at the top right of this page.

Suggested Modules for NHW staff:

• Module One: Advance Care Planning Introduction
• Module Two: Advance Care Planning Conversations
• Module Three: Advance Care Planning Decision-Making - The Legal Implications
• Module Four: Advance Care Planning Implementation

Documents:

• Advance care planning in aged care: A guide to support implementation in community and residential settings
• Advanced care planning guide for : General Practice

Advanced Care Planning - resources from the Victorian DHHS including forms available here

The Victorian Government believes all Victorians are entitled to quality end of life care, which relieves pain and suffering, and provides compassionate support to family, friends and carers. 

On 19 June 2019 the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 came into effect. Victorians who are at the end of life and who meet strict eligibility criteria can now request access to voluntary assisted dying. 

Dying with Dignity Victoria provides on-going information, education and guidance to the Victorian community and the health sector regarding various medical and legal aspects of the new law, so that all Victorians can choose to have a good, dignified death.

The Organ and Tissue Authority (OTA) works with states and territories, clinicians and the community sector to deliver the Australian Government's national program to improve organ and tissue donation and transplantation outcomes in Australia.

The OTA leads the implementation of the national program in the collaboration with, State and Territory Medical Directors, DonateLife Agencies (one in each state and territory) and hospital medical and nurse specialists in organ and tissue donation. These people and organisations comprise the DonateLife Network.

• DonateLife resources page for Health Professionals

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Joanne Hymus  started in the role of Donatelife Nurse Donation Specialist in July 2019.  

A hospital donation specialist is responsible for raising awareness of, and providing educational services on organ and tissue donation for all medical, nursing and allied health staff that come into contact with the donation process. The position also works with hospital teams and DonateLife Network staff to identify and convert potential organ donors to actual donors.

It is current best practice to refer all planned end of life patients to Donatelife- this also applies to those patients not in CCU or ED. It is worth noting that we have had 22 potential eye and/or tissue donors on our wards this year.

Some staff may look at this process at end of life ‘as morbid” or as not wanting to upset the family any more than they already are….. You may then be interested to know that some families would have liked to be offered the chance to consent for donation, especially where their loved one has spoken about it in the past or has taken the time to sign up on the Australian Organ Donor Register. You will not have to raise donation with families- a trained specialist, like myself, will do this after a strategic process that involves a register check, assessing medical suitability and begin planning of a family donor conversation.

In early 2020, I will be coming to speak to staff on all wards about this process and will be conducting education about organ and tissue donation on specific units and at SMARTIME.

I genuinely look forward to having the opportunity to meet with all of you about this process, and am excited for NHW to maintain a positive donation culture.