Electronic Palliative Care Co-ordination Systems (EPaCCS) National Data Project

Electronic Palliative Care Co-ordination Systems (EPaCCS) enable the recording and sharing of people’s care preferences and key details about end of life care. Last year NEoLCIN undertook a study to better understand the impact of EPaCCS nationally, look at geographical variations in EPaCCS data, understand the potential challenges/barriers and opportunities associated with collating EPaCCS data. The study also explored the effectiveness of EPaCCS in achieving people’s preferences for care and supporting the co-ordination of care and advance care planning.

Key findings from the study include:

more than one-third of people on EPaCCS are aged 85 and over with a further 44% aged 65 to 74 years
just over half (56.5%) are female
cancer is the most common diagnosis for patients on EPaCCS; patients often had multiple diagnoses
one-third of patients on EPaCCS dies at home and under 20% died in hospital
of patients expressing a preferred place of death, half preferred to die at home; of these 30% died in their preferred place of death (home)
data completeness for any given item of information ranged from over 90% to under 1%

Download the report Electronic Palliative Care Co-ordination Systems (EPaCCS) National Data Project