title: Reaching common ground: a patient-family-based conceptual framework of quality EOL care.
abstract: Improvement in the quality of end-of-life (EOL) care is a priority health care issue since serious deficiencies in quality of care have been reported across care settings. Increasing pressure is now focused on Canadian health care organizations to be accountable for the quality of palliative and EOL care delivered. Numerous domains of quality EOL care upon which to create accountability frameworks are now published, with some derived from the patient/family perspective. There is a need to reach common ground on the domains of quality EOL care valued by patients and families in order to develop consistent performance measures and set priorities for health care improvement. This paper describes a meta-synthesis study to develop a common conceptual framework of quality EOL care integrating attributes of quality valued by patients and their families.
authors.affiliation: Oncology Department, University Health Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Doris
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Howell
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Brazil
mesh_terms: D001293:Attitude to Death; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D009864:Ontario; D010166:Palliative Care; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012944:Social Support; D013727:Terminal Care