Palliative care portal opens
This week Palliative Care Australia helped launch a new global online information network all about palliative, hospice and end-of-life care. A wealth of interesting and informative content is accessible through a website or mobile app.
Above: Dr Yvonne Luxford, CEO of Palliative Care Australia.
This week, Palliative Care Australia (PCA) and other like-minded groups from around the world have launched ehospice, a global news and information network all about palliative and end-of-life care.
The news, feature articles, inspirational stories, jobs, events and photo galleries from around the world are accessible through the ehospice website, or a soon-to-be-released app for mobile devices.
PCA is responsible for the Australian edition, which sits alongside ehospice editions from countries and regions around the world such as Africa, Canada, India, the UK and Kenya, as well as an international and international children’s edition. More are planned and will join the global network throughout the year.
Through the website and mobile app, ehospice aims to improve palliative care by “transferring knowledge between clinicians, policy makers, hospice leaders and supporters, encouraging exploration and learning, and building global partnerships”, according to the chair of the World Palliative Care Alliance, David Praill.
“The vision of ehospice is to be part of a networked world, collaborating and communicating to improve patient care,” Mr Praill said in one of the first news articles posted in the international edition.
Along with interesting and informative articles, ehospice also features a directory of hospice and palliative care services worldwide, which website users can search through on an interactive 3D globe.
It is also intended to become a key tool to raise awareness of issues around palliative care, to support advocacy at the national, regional and global levels.
PCA’s chief executive officer, Dr Yvonne Luxford, said ehospice would “revolutionise how we access information about palliative and end of life care”.
“The website and app bring together the expertise and experience of the global hospice and palliative care community for the first time in one place,” Dr Luxford said.
“There have been some excellent advances in palliative care over the past 50 years, but we still have a long way to go to reach our goal of quality care at the end of life for all. We hope that having one platform where we can share knowledge and learn from each other will go some way to improving end of life care here in Australia and around the world.”
“I encourage everyone to visit the website and download the app, and we look forward to hearing from the palliative care sector and sharing their innovations with the rest of the world.”
According to PCA, the target audience for ehospice is very broad and includes “anyone with a professional or human interest in hospice, palliative and end-of-life care”.
This includes all health professionals – whether working in palliative care or not – as well as hospice and service managers, educators, researchers, academics, fundraisers, volunteers, carers, patients, family members, pastoral care workers, social workers, aged care workers, support staff, public supporters, advocates, policy and decision-makers, politicians, program managers and the general community.
