PCOC national report on palliative care in Australia: July to December 2009

The Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) was formed in mid-2005 and is funded by the Australian Government. It is a voluntary, quality initiative which aims to assist palliative care services to measure the standard and quality of care which is a stated goal of the National Palliative Care Strategy. The development of the PCOC dataset has evolved after broad consultation with services and representatives of peak organisations and approval by PCOC's Scientific and Clinical Advisory Committee (SCAC). The clinical assessment tools - Phase of Care, PC Problem Severity Score (PCPSS), Symptom Assessment Scale (SAS), Australianmodified Karnofsky and RUG-ADL - provide measures of quality and outcomes. PCOC provides analysis of each service's data and also compares this to the national data.