PainChek®’s digital pain assessment scores have been included in the Palliative Aged Care Outcomes Program (PACOP) assessment framework as one of a suite of tools to assess pain in people receiving palliative aged care. Caregivers using PainChek® may elect to incorporate the PainChek® score of residents within their PACOP clinical assessments, supporting consistent, standardised pain assessment.
PACOP is a national palliative aged care program funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care and is led by the University of Wollongong, working to improve resident, family, and carer outcomes for palliative aged care in Australia.
In light of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality & Safety, aged care facilities must ensure they comprehensively identify, understand, and address the palliative care needs of residents. PACOP does this by helping aged care homes to embed the use of standardised outcomes assessments and tools, and to use the information gathered to respond in a timely way.
Through providing a consistent and nationally-agreed framework to drive resident, provider, policy, and system-level improvements in palliative and end-of-life care, PACOP aims to directly contribute to the overall strengthening and resilience of Australia’s aged care system.
Opportunity for reporting residents’ PainChek® scores within the PACOP assessments extends on the 2019 Australian Government-funded rollout of PainChek®. The $5 million rollout saw PainChek® implemented across 58% of the nation’s aged care facilities and has resulted in significant positive outcomes for the sector.
“We at PainChek are very pleased to have been included in the suite of pain assessment tools within the PACOP framework. PACOP’s mission, to improve the palliative and end-of-life care outcomes for all residents in aged care, their families and loved ones, aligns closely with PainChek’s own.
“The inclusion of the PainChek® tool within the PACOP assessment framework adds to users’ opportunity to effectively leverage industry tools across the continuum of care. We look forward to continuing to support the aged care industry at every level and maximising quality of life for those receiving care.”
– Philip Daffas, CEO & Managing Director, PainChek
