Patient Outcomes in Palliative Care, Report 13 (January - June 2012) - Victoria

PCOC aims to assist services to improve the quality of the palliative care they provide through the analysis and benchmarking of patient outcomes. In this, the thirteenth PCOC report, data submitted for the January - June 2012 period are summarised and patient outcomes benchmarked to enable participating services to assess their performance and identify areas in which they may improve. This report is broken into four sections: Section 1 provides a summary of the data included in this report. Section 2 summarises each of the four outcome measures and presents national benchmarking results for a selection of these measures. Section 3 presents a more detailed analysis of the outcome measures and benchmarks. Section 4 provides descriptive analysis at each of the patient, episode and phase data levels. In each of the four sections, data and analysis for services in VIC is presented alongside the national figures for comparative purposes. The national figures reflect all palliative care services who submitted data for the January - June 2012 period. A full list of these services can be found at www.pcoc.org.au The four outcome measures included in this report were first introduced in the reporting period January to June 2009 (Report 7). There is strong sectoral support for national benchmarks and a consensus that such benchmarks can drive service innovation regardless of model of care. Benchmarking provides opportunities to understand the services that are provided, the outcomes patients experience and also to generate research opportunities focused on how to demonstrate variations in practice and outcomes