Palliative care seeks to improve quality of life through the management of symptoms in a life-limiting illness while providing practical, emotional, and spiritual support.
Prioritising palliative care is an important part of St Hedwig Blacktown’s holistic care of residents.
St Hedwig is a 137-employee, co-located residential aged care community with a Memory Support Unit and two levels of high-care aged care.
‘In 2022, our regional manager told us about the End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC) Linkages Program and encouraged us to apply,’ said St Hedwig’s residential aged care manager, Helen Roberts.
The ELDAC Linkages Program is a facilitated palliative care and advance care planning initiative that aims to improve the quality of end of life care for aged care recipients.
‘We already supported our dying residents with dignity and love, but we wanted to improve,’ Helen said.
ELDAC has helped to demystify palliative care for St Hedwig employees, empowering them to communicate the benefits of Comfort Care (non-curative medical treatment that focuses on relieving symptoms and optimising comfort) to residents and their families.
Before ELDAC’s introduction, residents were inclined to opt for hospital admissions specifying ‘for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)’ upon need rather than seeking Comfort Care.
Fewer residents are now choosing CPR and are more freely discussing advance care planning.
‘A resident’s family had an Advance Care Plan (ACP) requesting hospital admission for any deterioration in the resident’s health, but after a multi-disciplinary case review, we could explain the limited benefit of hospital care for their relative,’ said Helen.
‘Together, we were able to help bring the family to a place of understanding and acceptance with the resident’s son changing the ACP to ‘hospital admission only in the event of a fall resulting in fracture,’ she said.
Pain management has also improved with St Hedwig’s employees learning to identify early signs of pain, allowing for a faster treatment response.
‘In the event of deterioration in the resident’s health, we connect with the nurse practitioner or general practitioner for medication management.
‘We have also been educated on the Surefuser pump (a comfortable, lightweight, single-use device for the safe delivery of IV-administered medications) to better set up infusions on time,’ said Helen.
‘We have also developed a palliative care kit for the resident’s room which helps us engage families in end of life care,’ she said.
Registered nurses and care workers have undertaken spiritual care and mindfulness training to help support each resident in their spiritual journey as well as their own faith in the provision of end of life care.
‘Our team has adhered to Catholic Healthcare’s Mission of promoting the dignity, life and spirituality of our residents through our work with the ELDAC project,’ said Helen.
‘We have resolved the ‘fear factor’ around palliative and end of life care, building knowledge and confidence in our team, to promote the simple need for love and comfort at the end of life,’ she said.