PCOC National Report on Palliative Care in Australia July to December 2010

The Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) was established in mid-2005 and is funded under the National Palliative Care Program and is supported by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. It is a voluntary, quality initiative which aims to assist palliative care services to measure the standard and quality of care which is a stated goal of the National Palliative Care Strategy. The current PCOC dataset (Version 2) evolved after consultation with services and approval by PCOC\u27s Scientific and Clinical Advisory Committee (SCAC) and went live on 1 July 2007. The dataset includes the clinical assessment tools - Phase of Care, PC Problem Severity Score (PCPSS), Symptom Assessment Scale (SAS), Australia-modified Karnofsky Performance Status Scale (AKPS) and Resource Utilisation Groups – Activities of Daily Living (RUG-ADL) – which provide measures of quality and outcomes of care. PCOC provides analysis of each service\u27s data and compares this to the national data. Four benchmark measures are routinely included in each report. For this PCOC Report 10, 91 palliative care services submitted data and are included in this report. The reporting period is July to December 2010