Victorian palliative care services will be able to regularly monitor and compare their measure results against like services and the state average for the first time, with the launch of the inaugural Palliative Care interactive dashboard on the Victorian Agency for Health Information (VAHI) Portal.
The dashboard enables services to interrogate their results through use of filters, and compare with like services, to prompt and support discussions regarding service and system improvement.
Theresa Williamson, Manager, End of Life Care & Palliative Services with the Department of Health, said the included measures focus on patient choice, decision-making about their care and responsive care. This aligns with what the Victorian community said was important during the extensive consultation for development of Victoria’s end of life and palliative care framework 2016.
For some services, particularly smaller services, the new tool will provide a reporting capability that they otherwise do not have themselves.
The new dashboard is designed to give palliative care executives and clinical leads a shared view of how services are tracking against selected measures from Victoria’s Monitoring Strategy for Palliative Care.
It will also help VAHI and the Department of Health understand progress towards the goals of Victoria’s end of life and palliative care framework, 2016.
John Doran, Senior Manager Palliative Care at Melbourne City Mission, said the dashboard will improve the sector’s capacity to monitor and compare against the range of measures within the Department’s monitoring strategy for specialist palliative care.
“The visibility and availability of information and data will be a welcome change as this has been a regular concern for the sector,” Mr Doran said.
“The dashboard will enable users to explore data with a whole new level of interactivity and detail which will be an important tool in supporting improvement, and, quality of care outcomes for clients and carers.”
“The palliative care measures in the report are being introduced without benchmarks or targets. Measures are developmental, based on the data we have available now, and will be adjusted over time,” Theresa Williamson said.
VAHI intends to continuously improve the Palliative Care interactive dashboard, guided by user feedback. We’re committed to the interactive dashboard delivering accurate and easy-to-digest information.
This is the first time non-admitted community palliative care data has been used in this way. We will continue to work with the sector to ensure data and measures appropriately reflect activity.
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