Website intended for a NZ health professional readership
GP Jo Scott-Jones discusses the importance of end-of-life care planning and how to raise the topic in conversation with your patients
1. Detering KM, Hancock AD, Reade MC, et al. The impact of advance care planning on end of life care in elderly patients: randomised controlled trial. BMJ 2010;340:c1345.
2. Thomas K, Corner H, Stobbart-Rowlands M. National primary care audit in end of life care and ACP and recommendations for improvement. BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care 2012;2:192.
3. RACP. Pomegranate Health [podcast]. Ep1: Recognising Death. 29 June 2015. https://www.racp.edu.au/pomegranate/view/episode-1-recognising-death
4. Woelk C, Harlos M. Prognostic Scoring: The Karnofski, Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) and Palliative Prognostic Indicator (PPI). August 2005. https://bit.ly/3sGm1qW
5. British Geriatrics Society. End of Life Care in Frailty: Identification and prognostication. 12 May 2020. https://www.bgs.org.uk/resources/end-of-life-care-in-frailty-identification-and-prognostication
6. Brayne, AB, Brayne, RP, Fowler, AJ. Medical specialties and life expectancy: An analysis of doctors’ obituaries 1997–2019. Lifestyle Med 2021;2:e23.
Pharmacist prescribers Linda Bryant and Leanne Te Karu discuss positive polypharmacy for heart failure. Current evidence shows the intensive implementation of four medications offers the greatest benefit to most patients with heart failure, with significant reductions in cardiovascular mortality, heart failure hospitalisations and all-cause mortality
