Health and social care experts convene in Salzburg to discuss best practice in palliative care
As health care systems all over the world face crisis and undergo change, end of life care for vulnerable and palliative patients is often on the sharpest end of these issues. This uncertainty in the health care sector, and increasingly strained resources across many wealthy, middle, and lower income countries, means there is a need to continually reassess how we deliver health care, and ensure we are providing the care that the patient wants rather than structuring care as legacy systems dictate.
The Salzburg Global session, Rethinking Care Toward the End of Life, part of the long-running series Health and Health Care Innovation, taking place at December 14-19 at Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, Austria, will address the issue of best practice in this field of health and social care through a collaborative and participatory program.
Rethinking Care Toward the End of Life will build on not only past previous session in the Health and Healthcare Innovation series, but also Salzburg Global's other programs, such as the 2015 session Aging Societies: Advancing Innovation and Equity. Past Health and Health Care sessions have focused on an array of topics, such as mental health, increasing patient engagement, and designing better strategies for better health.
End of life care is a hotly debated topic by ethicists and politicians alike. Patients should be engaged in shared decision-making but what is to be done once the patient is no longer able to express that preference? No expert or politician can solve this issue alone – public engagement and debate is necessary. Discussions at Rethinking Care Toward the End of Life will transcend the traditional boundaries of health care, and blur the lines between health and social care, especially when considering how best to serve palliative patients and ensure care focuses on their individual wants, needs and values.
The December 2016 session will bring together over 60 figures from fourteen different countries, hailing from across health and social care, policymaking, ethics, the media and other sectors. They will collaborate in session-wide discussion, and smaller country- or area-specific groups to discuss in depth the issues raised, and to answer key questions, such as “What is best practice in ascertaining patient preferences and goals towards the end of life and in acting upon them?”; “Which are the most promising innovations in care towards the end of life?”; “What yields greatest value to patients in low resource settings?” and more.
The goal of these collaborative sessions, and the whole program, is to pool the experiences of this wide array of experts, network across industrial and global boundaries, and ultimately develop a Salzburg Statement of key principles guiding care towards the end of life.
The Salzburg Global Seminar session Rethinking Care Toward the End of Life, part of the long-running series Health and Health Care Innovation, is being held in partnership with the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice and the Mayo Clinic. Follow online on Twitter with the hashtag #SGShealth.
