Feedback Requested

Your insights and suggestions are being sought as a means of improving Alberta’s Palliative and End-of-Life Care (PEOLC) website. By perusing the website and completing a short survey, you will be helping to ensure that the information provided is applicable, accessible and easy to understand. Please see below for additional details.

The provincial Palliative and End-of-Life Care (PEOLC) website has been available to all Albertans since May 2015. This provincial online resource allows Albertans and health care providers convenient access to trusted, evidence-based palliative and end-of-life care information that supports and enhances quality of life and quality of care. Creation of this website was one of the recommendations that came out of the PEOLC Alberta Provincial Framework (2014) and was supported by the Provincial Palliative and End-of-Life Care Innovations Steering Committee (PPAL/ EOL ISC). Implementing an evaluation plan for this website is a deliverable on the provincial PEOLC timelines and planning document for the 2017/18 fiscal year. We have developed an online feedback survey as part of the provincial PEOLC website evaluation plan.

We want to hear, for example, did you find information you were looking for, is the website easy to navigate, did you notice any gaps in the content? Actions requested:

  1. Please visit our provincial PEOLC website: https://myhealth.alberta.ca/palliative-care
  2. Please complete the brief online feedback survey by Oct. 5 by clicking on the following link: https://survey.albertahealthservices.ca/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=PEOLC_website

We will use this information to continue to enhance the website for all Albertans.

I have no words. I have a thousand words.

In a recent blog post, Anon456, a former ICU nurse, describes her typical day in the palliative unit. In the midst of paperwork, administration of medicine and providing patient care, Anon456 recognizes what an honor it is to be part of the end-of-life journey.

It’s 0653. I pull up to the hospice unit, clock in, fill my coffee mug, and get my nursing brain printed out. At 0700, I count narcotics and take report on six patients. It’s going to be a busy day, one of those days where I must control the chaos, take the time to support patients, complete as many of the thousand tasks set before me as I can, and be prepared to deal with the unexpected.

I work in a palliative/hospice inpatient unit, a place where patients come when they are in crisis,can’t be cared for at home, or simply have no place else to go. One of my patients today is in indigent man who has no one in the world.We cannot locate his family. We don’t even know his real name. He slipped into a coma yesterday and is non-responsive. We take care of him, call him by the name we think he has, and witness his last hours or days.

Click here to read the full blog post.