Healthcare Variation (Palliative Care)

Running head: HEALTHCARE VARIATION 1
Healthcare Variation (Palliative Care)
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

HEALTHCARE VARIATION 2
Introduction
Palliative care involves the specialized and comprehensive care offered by an
interdisciplinary team that constitutes GPs, DNs, and CNSs who play significant roles towards
supporting patients and families that live with life-threatening conditions. The significant
concern is on pain and symptom management, advanced care, information sharing, spiritual
support, psychosocial, and coordination of care (Quill & Abernethy, 2013). Notably, about
68% of the Medicare costs in Australia are connected to individuals experiencing chronic
conditions (Maddocks, Lovell, Booth, Man & Higginson, 2017).Palliative care or end of life
care is expected to minimize the disease symptoms that may lead the patients towards suffering
even though it is not expected to cure the illnesses (Maddocks, Lovell, Booth, Man & Higginson,
2017). Based on the case study, Mrs. Brown is a retiree who resides with her husband who is a
part-timer and she experiences acute breathlessness. In this case, the GP has a responsibility to
take Mrs. Brown through palliative approach as she experiences depression, panic attacks, and
also she is poorly nourished. While direct caregivers and health professionals have an ideal
responsibility to assist the patients, two high priority nursing strategies are considered to manage
Mrs. Brown through the palliative approach.
The graph below shows evidence about the admission of patients in palliative care.

HEALTHCARE VARIATION 3
Figure 1: Demonstrates the prevalence of patients on palliative care in public, nonprofit,
and for-profit health facilities in Australia (Indian Journal of Palliative Care 2012).
Two High Priority Nursing Strategies (Pain Management, Emotional and
Communication Support)
Symptom management is the most crucial activity that must be prioritized while
providing care to a patient. Symptoms change from a single person to another based on the
specific diagnosis or health problems (Dumanovsky, Augustin, Rogers, Lettang, Meier &
Morrison, 2016). In this case, the GP needs to listen to Mrs. Brown carefully, observe and also,
assess her changes to find the potential nursing priority strategies to incorporate in palliative
approach. Mrs. Brown encounters various symptoms in palliative care that indicates a high
degree of discomforts such as breathlessness, depression, panic attacks, chronic morning coughs
that has white sputum, rhinorrhoea, and poor nourishing. In this case, the nursing priority
strategies that can be considered in Mrs. Brown’s case are chronic pain management and
emotional and communication support. Pain management is a crucial nursing strategy in
palliative care that integrates various protocols for pain relief. From a holistic perspective of pain
management, the GP will attend the physical needs by providing adequate doses of analgesia,
narcotics, timely scheduling, and the co-analgesics use that can help relieve pain. On the other
hand, emotional and communication support is a nursing priority strategy whereby professionals
offering patients the palliative care needs to be sensitive. In this case, the health professional
should be sensitive to Mrs. Brown as she experiences panic attacks, depression, and sleep
problems that cause her health to deteriorate. This nursing strategy priority can be categorized as
emotional and social as it will guide Mrs. Brown and the family towards coping skills.