Enhancing rural community engagement through palliative care networks: A scoping review.

Palliative care is a crucial discipline that alleviates suffering and enhances the quality of life for patients with life-limiting illnesses and their families. However, there is gap globally between the need for and availability of these services. Integrated health service networks offer a promising solution to address this gap in rural areas, by coordinating care across different levels and sectors.

Comparing the Need and Development of Pediatric Palliative Care in Mexico: A Geographical Analysis.

Context: The Global Atlas of Palliative Care (GAPC) ranked Mexico's palliative care services at a preliminary integration stage into mainstream healthcare services. However, this data does not reflect pediatric palliative care (PPC) development.

Objectives: To analyze the current need and level of development of PPC within Mexico.

Palliative care national plan implementation through stakeholder analysis.

Background: National palliative care plans depend upon stakeholder engagement to succeed. Assessing the capability, interest, and knowledge of stakeholders is a crucial step in the implementation of public health initiatives, as recommended by the World Health Organisation. However, utilising stakeholder analysis is a strategy underused in public palliative care.

Accessibility to palliative care services in Colombia: an analysis of geographic disparities.

Objectives: Due to the increase in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases and the Colombian demographic transition, the necessity of palliative care has arisen. This study used accessibility and coverage indicators to measure the geographic barriers to palliative care.

Methods: Population-based observational study focused on urban areas and adult population from Colombia, which uses three measurements of geographic accessibility to services: a) density of palliative care services per 100,000 inhabitants, b) analysis of geographic distribution by territorial nodes of the country, and c) spatial analysis of palliative care services using Voronoi diagrams.

Palliative care education in undergraduate medical and nursing programs in Colombia: a cross-sectional analysis.

Background: The number of people suffering from chronic diseases requiring palliative care (PC) is increasing rapidly. Therefore, PC teaching in undergraduate health science programs is necessary to improve primary PC based on international recommendations and available scientific evidence.

Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted.

Building an action plan to tackle palliative care inequality through multi-stakeholder platforms.

Background: To achieve universal care and overcome existing barriers, the most effective strategy is to devise an action plan that incorporates palliative care into primary health care (PHC), as recommended by the World Health Organization's (WHO) Astana Declaration. In Colombia, a country with an upper-middle-income status, about 128,000 individuals experience severe health-related suffering (SHS) that necessitates palliative care. Although the country's healthcare system has made steady strides in the integration and development of palliative care, there is still no national plan in place for palliative care.

Effectiveness of Subcutaneous Administration of Antibiotics to Control Infections in Elder Palliative Patients: A Systematic Review.

: Infections are common in patients with advanced illnesses for whom the intravenous or oral route is not possible. The subcutaneous administration of antibiotics is a promising alternative, but there is not enough theoretical support for its use. This study aims to explore the effectiveness and safety of subcutaneous antibiotic therapy in the context of palliative care in elderly patients.

Rural Palliative Care Telemedicine for Advanced Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review.

Telemedicine offers the opportunity to provide remote palliative care for patients to control symptoms and improve quality of life, even for patients with advanced diseases. Establish a telemedicine model of rural palliative care for advanced cancer patients with difficulties in accessing standard care. This review comports with the minimum standards described in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) and uses the palliative care literature review iterative method (PALETTE) proposed by Zwakman et al in 2018.

Barriers to Access to Palliative Care in Colombia: A Social Mapping Approach Involving Stakeholder Participation.

This study aimed to identify barriers to access to palliative care through a social mapping approach. In Colombia, the barriers to access to palliative care denote an enormous geographic disparity of resources and health needs, making it necessary to conduct community-based participatory research using an approach such as social mapping. A qualitative research design was used.

Palliative care in the Eastern Mediterranean: comparative analysis using specific indicators.

Background: Monitoring the development of palliative care (PC) illustrates the capacity of health systems to respond to the needs of people experiencing serious health-related suffering.

Aim: To analyse comparatively the situation of PC in the countries of the Easter Mediterranean region using context-specific indicators.

Method: An online questionnaire with 15 context-specific PC indicators investigating service provision, use of medicines, policy, education, and vitality was designed.

Development of an atlas of palliative care in the Eastern Mediterranean Region through a stakeholder participative process.

Background: The increasing number of people experiencing serious health-related suffering due to severe illness is an urgent issue in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR). Although palliative care can mitigate much of this suffering, its current development and indicators to measure progress remain unknown.

Aims: To describe the development of the Atlas of palliative care in the Eastern Mediterranean Region 2021.

Inclusion of essential components of the World Health Organization palliative care development model in national palliative care plans: A documentary analysis in 31 countries.

Context: The World Health Organization has proposed a new model for the development of palliative care. Whether the current national palliative care plans of Member States are aligned or need to be reformed to meet the new model is unknown.

Methods: We conducted a documentary analysis of national palliative care plans based on an analytic framework structured with the elements recommended by the World Health Organization: (a) building a plan, (b) plan components, and (c) plan implementation.

Feasibility of using death certificates for studying place of death in Latin America.

Objective: This paper assesses the availability and quality of death certificate data in Latin America and the feasibility of using these data to study place of death and associated factors.

Methods: In this comparative study, we collected examples of current official death certificates and digital data files containing information about all deaths that occurred during 1 year in 19 Latin American countries. Data were collected from June 2019 to May 2020.

Palliative Care Coverage across European National Health Systems: Proposal of a Synthetic Indicator.

Background: The coverage of palliative care (PC) may be understood as a country's capacity to offer prevention and relief from serious health-related suffering in relation to an existing need. The aim of this study is to estimate European countries´ coverage capacities.

Method: Secondary analysis of three indicators, including the number of specialized services (SSPC), integration capacity scores (ICS) and the PC needs.

Population's Potential Accessibility to Specialized Palliative Care Services: A Comparative Study in Three European Countries.

Background: Palliative care is a priority for health systems worldwide, yet equity in access remains unknown. To shed light on this issue, this study compares populations' driving time to specialized palliative care services in three countries: Ireland, Spain, and Switzerland.

Methods: Network analysis of the population's driving time to services according to geolocated palliative care services using Geographical Information System (GIS).

Palliative care integration indicators: an European regional analysis.

Objective: To estimate the capacity of European countries to integrate palliative care (PC) into their health systems through PC service provision for patients of all ages, with different care needs and diseases, in various settings and by a range of providers.

Methods: Secondary analysis of survey data from 51 countries with 22 indicators explored the integration of available PC resources for children, for patients of all ages, at the primary care level, for oncology and cardiac patients, and in long-term care facilities. We also measured volunteer participation.

Evaluating the integration of palliative care in national health systems: an indicator rating process with EAPC task force members to measure advanced palliative care development.

Background: Palliative care (PC) development cannot only be assessed from a specialized provision perspective. Recently, PC integration into other health systems has been identified as a component of specialized development. Yet, there is a lack of indicators to assess PC integration for pediatrics, long-term care facilities, primary care, volunteering and cardiology.