What
is Palliative Care?
Palliative, or
end-of-life care provides crucial services to improve the quality of life for
patients suffering from a life-limiting illness.
Specialized palliative care services are delivered in a variety of settings by
a trained, interdisciplinary team of specialists that provide pain management,
comfort care, therapies, and spiritual services. Respite care and bereavement
counselling are also available for the patient's family.
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Project Overview
Palliative care has become recognized as
a priority by health organizations in Canada. In British Columbia, the Ministry
of Health recently released a framework for palliative care in which they
outlined a dedication to providing high quality end-of-life care and support as
an integral part of the provincial health care system.
Not all citizens have equal access to health care services. A person's location
and socio-economic status are likely to determine their utilization of health
services. With growing concerns over inequality in care delivery, health
organizations are under pressure to provide equitable access to services for
all.
There is a growing body of research that examines accessibility to health
services. GIS (Geographic Information Systems) based spatial analysis methods
allow for an accurate calculation of geographic accessibility to services and
the proportion of the population within a service's catchment area.
The goal of this interdisciplinary research project is to determine the current
distribution of palliative services, and provide decision support that will
help to accurately site palliative care services to reach all citizens of
British Columbia. A novel GIS-based methodology has been developed to:
- Assess the current spatial distribution of services throughout the province
- Determine the proportion of population in each BC Health Authority that has
access to services
- Determine locations that are suitable for designation as regional hubs of
palliative care to service rural and remote regions
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