Palliative Care-Promoting and Improving Clinical Excellence (PC-PAICE): Bringing a Cross Border Quality Improvement (QI) Collaborative to Australia.

Abstract

In 2021, the Palliative Care - Promoting and Improving Clinical Excellence (PC-PAICE) collaborative was adapted in Australia after an initial run in India. PC-PAICE partners global experts with local palliative care centers to improve care by fostering quality improvement (QI) capacity. PC-PAICE is a guided QI and mentorship curriculum delivered to interdisciplinary teams working on a relevant project, and each team develops salient project measures. The program has been offered to three Australian cohorts and has trained participants to mentor subsequent participants to build local QI capacity. Qualitative evaluation has shown teams tackled specific and immediate challenges facing their clinics that were not otherwise recognized without increasing overall work burden. Teams have presented their projects at conferences, and a number have published their work in journals. PC-PAICE is uniquely suited to improving palliative care via equitable global partnerships among diverse practitioners. Given its promise, the team is planning to implement the model more widely.