Check – Assessing and Revising
The “Check” module focuses on monitoring your progress in achieving your palliative care service delivery goals, responding to obstacles, and evaluating your partnership with other care providers and consequent outcomes.
After working through this module, you will be able to:
- Track progress and complete an activity report documenting palliative care and advance care planning improvement strategies and outcomes
- Generate solutions for challenges experienced when implementing your palliative care delivery strategies
- Check the health of your partnership utilising the Linkages Audit and the VicHealth Partnership Analysis Tool
- Re-assess your current palliative care and advance care planning performance and compare across time
Report on progress in achieving your palliative care delivery and advance care planning objectives utilising an Activity Report:
- Keep your comments succinct.
- Link your Activity Report to the activities and actions listed in your Action Plan.
- Ask participants to list any issues or problems in implementing your palliative care plans in a centrally held risk registrar – and implement your Risk Plan strategies as required. Document the actions taken and the outcome.
View the sample Activity Report template (445kb pdf). (This interactive pdf can be completed online, downloaded and printed for your organisation’s records.)
- Corrective action is required if you are deviating substantially from your action and communication plans
- Equipping staff with problem-solving skills can assist your partnership team in recognising, addressing, and managing any hurdles along the way.
- Problem-solving tools such as the Plan-Do-Check-Act process, communication tools, flow charting and systems mapping, along with teaching, coaching and specialised advice are recommended
- Review how well your partnership is working (consider your communication strategies, partner performance, and so on) in obtaining your palliative care and advance care planning objectives.
- Utilise the Linkage Audit (756kb pdf) to assess your mastery of the seven key linkage strategies. (This interactive pdf can be completed online, downloaded and printed for your organisation’s records.)
- Utilise the Vic Health Partnership Analysis Tool to understand you and your partners’ perceptions of the partnering arrangement.
Analyse the outcomes to ensure you are achieving your palliative care and advance care planning objectives. Repeat the ELDAC audits or the simple measurements you conducted prior to partnering, and compare your outcomes across time.
Remember the PDCA is a cycle – when you revise you will need to collect data, analyse and review again.
TIP: Continue to measure your palliative care outcomes to ensure a change has become embedded.