People are living longer than ever before. Living longer does not, however, mean living forever, and an ageing population means we also need to consider how we support older Australians as they approach death.
80% of Australians who died in 2010-2011 aged 65 or over had used aged care services in the eight years prior to their death, and three-quarters of this group had used an aged care service during the 12 months before they died.
Australia has led the world in providing evidence-based support for palliative care in aged care. There is a need to ensure that the guidance is current and that the guidance is readily available and easily accessible when it is needed. To address these issues, a new resource funded by the Australian Government Department of Health is being developed by CareSearch. This new resource will be called palliAGED.
Built by clinical experts, academics, peak bodies and those providing direct care, palliAGED will house an Evidence Centre with a number of evidence resources (including Evidence Summaries and pathways to existing clinical evidence through Clinical Links). Evidence Summaries collate the latest high-level evidence on a range of care and service topics. Each of these pages has a companion page in the Practice Centre that highlights how the workforce can use this evidence in their practice with links to tools and resources. It makes the evidence active. The Practice Centre will also house the palliAGEDgp app and the palliAGEDnurse app, ensuring that these resources continue to be available to the aged care industry and the primary care sector.
We invite you to register for a launch pack, and to make use of palliAGED when it is launched on 25 May, during National Palliative Care Week. Until then, you can follow all the latest developments on the palliAGED Twitter account.
More information: palliAGED can be found at www.palliaged.com.au.