Introduction: The aged care sector has come under increasing pressure to improve the standard of care received by residents and clients. Care at the End-of-Life is core business for aged care, and it follows that ensuring availability of quality palliative care is a part of meeting community expectations. palliAGED was launched in 2017 with funding from the Australian government to provide evidence-based guidance in palliative care for the aged care sector. The online format ensured 24/7 access to information and resources including evidence-based guidance on care issues likely to be encountered in the aged care context.
Problem: It is known from experience with health care guidance documents that making evidence available is of itself often not enough to ensure improved practice. Diverse training and scopes of practice across the aged care sector workforce also means that a single solution is unlikely to be sufficient in this context.
Approach: To address this palliAGED has been exploring different formats and approaches to disseminate evidence-based information resources and encourage aged care workers to engage with best practice palliative care. A particular emphasis has been on supporting careworkers and nurses new to palliative care and/or the aged care sector. Our palliAGED Practice Tip sheets and associated modules are key resources in this endeavour. Allowing for modules to be embedded within local learning systems or accessed via the palliAGED website was an important approach to dissemination that acknowledges aged care needs.
Outcomes: We discuss here the strong uptake and positive response to these palliAGED resources and the key attributes that we believe have encouraged uptake by the aged care sector.
Discussion: Collaboration between all stakeholders will be necessary to improve the standard of aged care in line with community expectations. The experience of palliAGED demonstrates that recognition of the diverse needs and training backgrounds of the aged care workforce when developing resources is essential. Resource flexibility that allows for integration within established processes for education and training is also important and acknowledges the work already being done by the sector to improve care.