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Published in: BMC Health Services Research 1/2012

Open Access 01-12-2012 | Research article

Development of a set of process and structure indicators for palliative care: the Europall project

Authors: Kathrin Woitha, Karen Van Beek, Nisar Ahmed, Jeroen Hasselaar, Jean-Marc Mollard, Isabelle Colombet, Lukas Radbruch, Kris Vissers, Yvonne Engels

Published in: BMC Health Services Research | Issue 1/2012

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Abstract

Background

By measuring the quality of the organisation of palliative care with process and structure quality indicators (QIs), patients, caregivers and policy makers are able to monitor to what extent recommendations are met, like those of the council of the WHO on palliative care and guidelines. This will support the implementation of public programmes, and will enable comparisons between organisations or countries.

Methods

As no European set of indicators for the organisation of palliative care existed, such a set of QIs was developed. An update of a previous systematic review was made and extended with more databases and grey literature. In two project meetings with practitioners and experts in palliative care the development process of a QI set was finalised and the QIs were categorized in a framework, covering the recommendations of the Council of Europe.

Results

The searches resulted in 151 structure and process indicators, which were discussed in steering group meetings. Of those QIs, 110 were eligible for the final framework.

Conclusions

We developed the first set of QIs for the organisation of palliative care. This article is the first step in a multi step project to identify, validate and pilot QIs.
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Metadata
Title
Development of a set of process and structure indicators for palliative care: the Europall project
Authors
Kathrin Woitha
Karen Van Beek
Nisar Ahmed
Jeroen Hasselaar
Jean-Marc Mollard
Isabelle Colombet
Lukas Radbruch
Kris Vissers
Yvonne Engels
Publication date
01-12-2012
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Health Services Research / Issue 1/2012
Electronic ISSN: 1472-6963
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-381

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