End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC) - Cancer and Palliative Care Outcomes Centre

Project overview

To enable the delivery of quality palliative care for all older Australians, the Australian Government Department of Health established the End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC) project in 2017. ELDAC provides aged care providers and older Australians in all areas of the country with information, advice and practical support to enable access to high-quality palliative care and advance care planning services.

The ELDAC project is conducted by a national consortium of seven partners:

Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Flinders University of South Australia (FUSA)
University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
Palliative Care Australia (PCA)
Aged & Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA)
Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA)
Catholic Health Australia (CHA).

Linkages Program

Delivered by QUT, the Linkages Program is a key component of ELDAC that supports health and aged care workers to provide the best quality care for older Australians. Activities are designed to build linkages between the aged care sector and:

primary care service providers
specialist palliative care services.

Building such partnerships ensures we optimise the capacity of services to provide the best possible care at end of life in a timely way. This care addresses the unique needs of everyone in our community, including people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the LGBTIQA+ communities.

View this video to learn more about the Linkages Program facilitators and the importance of building linkages between aged, primary and specialist palliative care providers.

ELDAC_Facilitators Video from ELDAC on Vimeo.

Outcomes

The outcomes and achievements of the 70 aged care services that participated in phase one (2017-2020) of the ELDAC Linkages Program are showcased in:

Case Story booklet (PDF file, 13.5MB) – an overview of the activities undertaken by the participating services, and demonstration of the benefits of the facilitated model and underpinning linkage strategies.
Case Story videos.

Five videos demonstrate the breadth and reach of the program and feature compelling participant stories.

A new cohort of diverse aged care service providers across Australia will participate in phase two of the ELDAC Linkages Program (2021 – 2023).