NOW UPDATED: Ontario Health’s Palliative Care quality standard (updated in 2024, originally published in 2018) addresses palliative care for adults with a serious illness, and for their family and care partners. It focuses on palliative care in all health settings, for all health disciplines, and in all health sectors. It includes information about general palliative care that applies to all health conditions. This update aligns the quality standard with the most recent clinical evidence and with current practice in Ontario. See page 7 of the quality standard for a summary of updates.
Palliative care can benefit individuals and their care partners from as early as the time of diagnosis of a serious illness through to the end of life and bereavement. The quality standard includes 13 quality statements addressing areas that have a high potential for improving the quality of care in Ontario for people with a serious illness, families, and care partners.
Below is a sample of tools and resources that may help you implement the quality statements in your practice, organized according to purpose. Some of these tools and resources will help to support multiple quality statements.
Are there other tools or resources you use? Do you have experience in implementing these or other tools? If so, please use the comments section below to share!
General Tools and Resources
The following tools and resources may apply to more than one quality statement in the Palliative Care quality standard:
- Palliative Care Toolkit: A toolkit from the Ontario Palliative Care Network that includes best practice tools to support primary care clinicians in the delivery of palliative care.
- Palliative Care Health Services Delivery Framework: This model of care developed by the Ontario Palliative Care Network is a guide for the continued evolution of palliative care across Ontario. The framework builds on existing capacity and supports local flexibility. It has the goal of establishing sustainable, equitable, and coordinated palliative care for people with a serious illness, as well as families and care partners.
- Tools to Support Earlier Identification for Palliative Care: A resource from the Ontario Palliative Care Network aimed at supporting clinicians and system-level leaders in the earlier identification of patients who would benefit from palliative care.
- Palliative Care Toolkit for Indigenous Communities: A toolkit from Cancer Care Ontario that includes resources for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis families and communities. It can be used to support people with cancer who have palliative care needs.
Tools and Resources to Support Clinical Practice
- Digital Health Supports for Palliative Care: A suite of tools based on the electronic medical record. These tools have been developed by the eHealth Centre of Excellence to assist primary care clinicians, patients, and care partners with advance care planning and end-of-life supports.
- Clinical Support Tools for Long-Term Care: A resource repository from Think Research that supports health care professionals. It provides leading clinical guidance to help standardize care planning for residents of long-term care homes.
- South East Regional Palliative Care Network, Clinical Tools: A resource repository from the South East Regional Palliative Care Network that supports health care teams in planning and delivering palliative care
Educational Resources for Clinicians
Tools and Resources to Support People With a Serious Illness, Families, and Care Partners
- Quality Standard Patient Guide: A plain language summary of the Palliative Care quality standard. It helps people with a serious illness, families, and care partners to better understand what high-quality palliative care looks like and what to discuss with their health care team.
- Ontario Renal Network, Palliative Care Tools: A resource repository from the Ontario Renal Network that supports clinicians in delivering high-quality palliative care services for people with chronic kidney disease; see Resources to Share with Patients.
- Advance Care Planning Canada, Resources and Tools: A library of resources developed by Advance Care Planning Canada; see the Individuals and Families resource group.
Other Tools and Resources
- Quality Standards: Other Ontario Health quality standards may also be useful in addressing care for adults with a serious illness, including Transitions Between Hospital and Home.
- Recorded webinars: A list of webinars (between 2019 and 2021) developed by Ontario Health’s Palliative Care Implementation Support Community of Practice that supports knowledge translation and exchange, and implementation of the Palliative Care quality standard across Ontario.