Jan 01, 2008

Open Society Foundations;

Examines the state of palliative care for AIDS patients worldwide, approaches to palliative care as a human right and a public health issue, legal foundations, challenges to its promotion and provision, and strategies and mechanisms for enhancing access.

Jul 29, 2008

Open Society Foundations;

Outlines the role of palliative care for HIV/AIDS patients, its availability, and barriers, including a lack of drug policies and awareness among healthcare professionals. Lists keys steps to making palliative care part of a national agenda.

Apr 26, 2013

California HealthCare Foundation;

In the event of serious illness, Californians strongly indicate that they would want to have care that adequately addresses pain and discomfort as well as providing spiritual, social and cultural support - all of which are hallmarks of palliative care. Unfortunately, most patients at the end of life do not receive these services or only receive them much later in the course of care than is considered optimal. Among the factors affecting access to palliative care is health insureer reimbursement. Most benefits for these services are patterened on the Medicare Hospice Benefit (MHB), which is limited to patients with an expected prognosis of six months or less and prohibits reimbursement for curative care once patients choose palliative-focused care. This report describes the findings of a scan conducted from August through October of 2012. The study was designed to: Investigate and describe the spectrum of palliative care and hospice benefits and services that California's largest health plans are currently offering or plan to offer soon.Explore the attitudes of health plans and palliative care stakeholders toward coverage of concurrent care (access to hospice or palliative care concurrently with curative or disease-modifying care).Information for this report was gathered through review of published reports and academic literature, interviews with key stakeholder, and interviews with physician leaders of six of the largest health plans (in terms of enrollment) in California.

Apr 09, 2013

Trinity College School of Social Work and Social Policy;

In the context of limited resources, evidence on costs and cost-effectiveness of alternative methods of delivering health-care services is increasingly important to facilitate appropriate resource allocation. Palliative care services have been expanding worldwide with the aim of improving the experience of patients with terminal illness at the end of life through better symptom control, coordination of care and improved communication between professionals and the patient and family.The aim of this paper is to present results from a comprehensive literature review of available international evidence on the costs and cost-effectiveness of palliative care interventions in any setting (e.g. hospital-based, home-based and hospice care) over the period 2002 -- 2011. Key bibliographic and review databases were searched and the quality of retrieved papers was assessed against a set of 31 indicators developed for this review.A total of 46 papers met the criteria for inclusion in the review, examining the cost and/or utilisation implications of a palliative care intervention with some form of comparator. The main focus of these studies was on direct costs with little focus on informal care or out-of-pocket costs. The overall quality of the studies is mixed, although a number of cohort studies do undertake multivariate regression analysis.Despite wide variation in study type, characteristic and study quality, there are consistent patterns in the results. Palliative care is most frequently found to be less costly relative to comparator groups, and in most cases, the difference in cost is statistically significant.

Dec 01, 2011

Milford Care Centre; University of Limerick;

Milford Care Centre is the lead organisation that provides a comprehensive range of services for the elderly and palliative care patients in the Mid West Region. In tandem with the growing requirement for specialist palliative care in the community, it expanded its existing and limited community-based services in 2006 to include a specialist 'Hospice at Home' service for patients who require palliative care in their own homes. With inputs from a multi-disciplinary clinical team, the Hospice at Home Service delivered by Milford Care Centre represents the first service of its kind within the Republic of Ireland.The Hospice at Home Service is supported by funding from the HSE and donations from the public, as well as a significant donation from The Atlantic Philanthropies. A condition of the funding from The Atlantic Philanthropies was that the Service would be evaluated, thus providing Milford Care Centre with research information regarding various of aspects of the service, including the viewpoints of carers and patients.In 2009, Milford Care Centre commissioned the University of Limerick to undertake an independent evaluation of the Hospice at Home Service, with the aim of examining whether it offered a viable and effective model for delivering a range of palliative care services to patients and their families in the community. The evaluation was conducted between February 2009 and June 2011. It should be noted that an evaluation of the cost effectiveness of the Service was also commissioned and will be undertaken by another group.

Oct 01, 2011

Health Service Executive; Milford Care Centre;

This document reviews the progress made in the implementation of the recommendations of the Seven Year Strategic Plan for the Development of Specialist Palliative Care Services in the Mid-West Region. The Seven Year Strategic Plan for the Development of Specialist Palliative Care Services in the Mid-West Region (2004-2011) is a progressive and ambitious document. As the Review will indicate, very much progress has been achieved and a platform has been put in place for further development and expansion of services. This progress has been made possible by the long-standing partnership between the HSE (formerly MWHB) and Milford Care Centre. The continuing focus on the strategic approach, evidence-based practices, research initiatives, supported by continuing evaluations and reviews have been the hallmarks of what is a progressive and forward-looking service.

Mar 15, 2006

Marymount Hospice;

This report details the recommendations of the Advisory Group and it should be considered in conjunction with the NAC Report and the Design Guidelines for Specialist Palliative Care Settings. It is hoped that this report will be a useful resource to all individuals and groups interested in developing high quality specialist palliative care services both in Ireland and abroad.

Aug 01, 2010

Hospice Friendly Hospitals; Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Institute of Leadership;

The Hospice friendly Hospitals Programme (HfH) commissioned this study to assess the quality of end-of-life care in acute and community hospitals from the perspectives of bereaved relatives. A major rationale for the study was to develop and test methodology to survey bereaved relatives' views of end-of-life care that covers the HfH Programme themes of Integrated Care, Communication, Patient Autonomy and Design & Dignity. Another driver was to inform the set-up of a Nationwide Audit of End-of-Life Care (McKeown et al., 2010).The overall aim of the study was to assess the quality of end-of-life care in two acute and two community hospitals from the perspectives of bereaved relatives. Study subobjectives were to conduct a literature review to ascertain important ethical and methodological issues; to describe a census of deaths across study sites; to field test a survey instrument aimed evaluating the impact of the Hospice friendly Hospitals (HfH) Programme; to collect data about HfH Programme themes; and to establish if there were any differences in the pattern of results between acute and community hospitals.