Background
Since
the discovery of penicillin in the 1940s, the experience of illness has
been changing. Modern medicine has been very successful fighting
disease, other conditions, and aging. In the 21st century,
people are living with illness for much longer than ever before. Today,
they must deal with many complex issues: How can they get relief from
their symptoms? How can they carry on with life as they have known it?
How will the illness affect their roles and relationships? What can be
done to change the illness experience? How can they restore or maintain
their capacity for meaningful and valuable experiences that give quality
to their lives?
Each
of these issues creates expectations, needs, hopes and fears, which must
be addressed in order for the ill person to adapt, continue living, and
find opportunities for growth. For many years, the approach used in
hospice palliative care has helped patients and their families address
these issues while they were dying. Now, all the skills and strengths
developed in hospice palliative care can be applied throughout the
experience of illness and bereavement to help patients and families
improve the quality of their lives, increase their ability to
participate in therapy to fight their disease and, potentially, prolong
their lives.
The
practice of hospice palliative care is relatively young. In Canada, it
began in the 1970s and has evolved rapidly. The term “hospice
palliative care” was coined to recognize the convergence of hospice
and palliative care into one movement that has the same principles and
norms of practice.
In
a consensus–building process led by the Standards Committee of the
Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, providers, organizations
and consumers joined to share their experiences and develop a clear
vision for hospice palliative care that everyone could use. The
resulting model represents more than 10 years of collaboration by
individuals, committees, associations and governments across Canada and
is based on the nationally accepted principles and norms of practice.
This document includes the:
-
rationale for a national model, and the process used to develop it
-
definition, values, guiding principles and foundational concepts that
form the basis for hospice palliative care
-
frameworks, principles and norms of practice to guide patient/family
care, and organizational development and function
-
application of the model to other activities, such as education, quality
management, research, policy and funding, and consumer advocacy and
marketing.
Everyone
is encouraged to use the model to guide all activities related to
hospice palliative care, and develop local standards of practice.
Ultimately, it is hoped that instead of being seen as “care for the
dying,” hospice palliative care will be known as “care that aims to
relieve suffering and improve quality of life throughout the illness and
bereavement experience, so that patients and families can realize their
full potential to live even when they are dying”.
Download
The
new Model to Guide Hospice Palliative Care is now available for free
on-line.
Full Version
(2002) (Version
1.1 – URL Updates: August 2005)
(4.5 Mb)
If you would prefer to view only a specific chapter please use these links:
Additional References (2005)
The Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association (CHPCA) would like to track
the presentations and dissemination of the above-mentioned Norms of
Practice. We are asking that you fill in a "Report
Back" form once now and then whenever you have presentations,
training or information sessions.
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