PCOC is an internationally recognised program. It is one of the very few national palliative care outcome programs in the world. Participation in PCOC is growing internationally.
Australia is one of the few countries that has a national integrated outcomes program like PCOC. This is despite national integrated outcomes systems, such as PCOC, being described as a “key indicator of likely success of palliative care in any country”.
Collaborating internationally on improving palliative care outcomes and benchmarking in palliative care can help ensure the full and adequate integration of palliative care into universal health systems. International palliative care outcomes benchmarking can help drive improvements in national performance.
PCOC has shown that national palliative care outcome programs are feasible, desirable and useful in identifying needs and outcomes in patients receiving palliative care, at local, sub-national and national levels. PCOC has shown that nationally agreed-upon measures can identify unwarranted variations in outcomes, and support systems-level improvements. We welcome international collaboration. Join us in improving palliative care outcomes.
PCOC in Europe
Representatives from Milford Care Centre, Dr Martina O'Reilly, Jacinta Kelly, Dr Feargal Twomey, Siobhain Coffey and Dr Brian Creedon, at the 2019 PCOC Outcomes & Benchmarking Conference
PCOC in East Asia
Cathy Shu-Chen Wang, Yu-Ling Hsieh, Li-Lui Lin, Dr Barbara Daveson, Sabina Clapham and Jane Connolly visiting Taiwan
PCOC's international conference
Dr Barbara Daveson, Dr Deborah Dudgeon, Professor Claudia Bausewein, Professor Katherine Clark, Professor Fliss Murtagh and Professor Claire Johnson discussing opportunities for the international community
The PCOC model is being adopted in countries in Europe. An example of this is the PCOC-Ireland (PCOC-I) team that are leading its implementation in Ireland.
The process of the introduction of PCOC in Ireland began in 2017. It began with palliative care service providers increasingly recognising PCOC as an opportunity to measure outcomes and drive improvements in palliative care in Ireland. This recognition led to a visit to PCOC in January 2018 by Dr Michael Lucey and Dr Brian Creedon, and a team at Milford Care Centre, Limerick Ireland.
This led to the creation of PCOC-I that aims to introduce and embed PCOC practice within palliative care services across the Republic of Ireland and ultimately to enable benchmarking of each service against other palliative care provider organisations nationally and internationally. In Ireland, the PCOC program started at Milford Care Centre. At Milford, PCOC was rolled out in their community service. This was followed by the rollout of the program in the inpatient unit six months later. As part of its implementation, education and facilitation was provided to all nursing, health and social care professionals. The PCOC website in Australia was used for guidance, regular feedback sessions to staff and ongoing support provided. A number of services in Ireland are now using PCOC, and receiving PCOC reports. PCOC-I and the PCOC team in Australia meet regularly.
In 2019, Dr Ying-Wei Wang the Director General of the Health Promotion Administration in the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taiwan invited PCOC to visit Taiwan to learn and share experiences about PCOC. The aim of the visit was to collaborate with the palliative care providers in Taiwan to introduce PCOC to Taiwan, and support Taiwan in leading on the implementation of a PCOC program. Dr Wang was first introduced to PCOC in 2014 when he was the Chief in the Heart Lotus Hospice in East Taiwan. Currently, PCOC is being piloted in a handful of services in Taiwan, with a commitment to build capacity in local improvement facilitators to help drive forward the implementation of PCOC throughout the country for the benefit of patients and their families.
In November 2019, the inaugural PCOC Outcomes & Benchmarking Conference was held in the beautiful city of Sydney, Australia. The theme of the conference was: Using evidence on patient outcomes to improve the future of palliative care.
The international conference brought together representatives from Canada, England, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and Mexico. The majority of the World Health Organization regions were represented at the conference, including the regions of Europe, the Americas, South-East Asia and the Western-Pacific.
The conference program progressed international best practice and outcome measurement across settings and sectors of care. It allowed for presentations focusing on palliative care patient and carer outcomes in hospitals, hospices, residential aged care facilities, and aged care, primary care, community and paediatrics. Patient outcomes were advanced through a focus on the development of data, and innovations in technology, and a presence of patients and carers to help ensure the relevance of the PCOC program and its priorities.
The conference built upon and showcased key initiatives and developments in outcome measurement for patients and families affected by life-limiting illness, and marked an exciting new direction for outcome measurement in palliative care in Australia and internationally.
This welcome to country is not just from a traditional perspective, but both an Australian and Aboriginal perspective.
I am delighted to welcome each and every one of you to this international conference and to the vibrant city of Sydney.
There are so many friends in the room, this is fantastic, and it’s like an old school reunion. Thank you for your participation and for being with us on this 14 year journey.
So welcome to our panel. We’ve got some questions that we want to put to the panel and a conversation I want to encourage between our panellists.
Good morning everybody, welcome to day two of the conference. We’ve got a really exciting program today and I’m thrilled to see everybody back.
I have very much enjoyed the conference, the two days have been wonderful, particularly the opportunity to discuss with colleagues both in Australia and from different countries and together we can find solutions to the challenges.
Thank you for what you’re doing, your advocacy, your campaigning, and your professional health care is to be admired and we are a very grateful government for it, on behalf of the Australian people.
I feel honoured to be here to be able to participate in the conference but also to give a presentation and I think Kathy and the whole team and really all the palliative care service are doing a great job with people, not only improving patient care on the ground but showing that the whole country is moving on and that you have been able to improve the quality over the years in palliative care, and I think that is really outstanding.
Implementation of the PCOC Model has led to significant improvements in care, but there is more for us to do. Let’s celebrate what’s been achieved, but continue to work together to further advance palliative care.Professor Kathy Eagar PCOC Outcomes and Benchmarking Conference
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PCOC is a national palliative care project funded by the Australian Government Department of Health.