PROFESSOR ADRIAN BARNETT Principal Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation (AusHSI), Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
MS ALISON FARRINGTON Research Project Manager, AusHSI, QUT
When are medicine and technology not enough? Advances in medicine are important. They mean
they care for or may care for in the future.
that health care professionals can prolong life and
They are unlikely while fit and healthy to wonder
cure disease. Who doesn’t want access to the latest
if they will be one of the 50% of people who die
technology and cutting-edge practice for themselves
in hospital, or whether they will be in the one-third
and their families?
of patients estimated globally to receive
However, some procedures, investigations or
non-beneficial treatment at the end-of-life3.
treatments have a low chance of providing tangible
Few people contemplate if it will be someone
benefit to some patients, especially older patients
they know who, according to a recent study, will
at the end of their lives .
be in the 12% of older-age Queensland patients
1
Australia’s healthcare system is dealing with an
who experience up to 15 days of non-beneficial
ageing population, with more people living with
treatment or up to 5 days in the Intensive Care
frailty and physical and cognitive disabilities, and
Unit in their final hospitalisation4.
rates of hospitalisation for those older-aged patients
Caring for this older-aged patient population in
increasing2. Further, dying in Australia is becoming
acute care settings is a challenging area of practice
increasingly institutionalised and medicalised,
for clinicians. It can be harder to stop or withdraw
with more than one-half of Australians now dying
treatment than to just continue, even if the
in hospital.
outcome does not always benefit the patient.
Most people don’t think much about the end of-life phase, whether their own, or someone 34
The Health Advocate • DECEMBER 2019
Barriers in transitioning to a less active treatment pathway include: the characteristics
