Collaborative and participatory approaches to building community capacity for palliative and end of life care.

People living in rural and smaller urban areas near Calgary experience difficulty accessing palliative care services which are concentrated in metropolitan areas. The Cumming School of Medicine, Alberta Health Services and community hospice palliative care societies in two rural communities have been working to develop a partnership that incorporates local health system resources and community initiatives in supporting individuals and families living with progressive, life-limiting illnesses. This presentation will provide an understanding of how academic institutions and health services can collaborate with community members to enhance capacity for end of life care, and enrich communities in the process.

OA58 Community capacity development for enhanced hospice palliative care: exploring the value of community engagement.

Background: Over time, palliative care has become "professionalised", placing a burden on health care systems to manage the suffering of individuals and families with advancing, life-limiting illness. The need to develop resources, infrastructure and policy to enhance the capacity for communities to facilitate and support individuals and families can add value to communities, enrich hospice-palliative care and reduce health care system burden.

Aim: Few examples of communities developing such capacity exist, however, this oral presentation will describe the results of one study that examined, in one rural community in western Canada, key factors that influenced their ability to address their own hospice palliative care needs.

Treatment of genotype 2 and genotype 3 hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in human immunodeficiency virus positive patients.

Approximately 25 % of persons living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are coinfected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). In cohort studies of HIV-HCV coinfection, HCV genotypes 2 and 3 account for 15 %-64 % of disease. Compared with HCV monoinfection, liver disease is accelerated in coinfected patients, and anti-HCV treatment is less successful.

Development of quality indicators of care for patients undergoing hepatic resection for metastatic colorectal cancer using a Delphi process.

Background: Very few quality indicators of care exist for surgical procedures. These may be used to both score the quality of care received, and as a method of improving the quality of care delivered (quality improvement initiatives).

Materials And Methods: The goal of this study was to develop a set of evidence-based quality indicators by expert consensus for patients undergoing hepatic resection of colorectal metastases to the liver.