Two regional atlases and a book on building integrated palliative care programs have been added to the portal.
Building Integrated Palliative Care Programs and Services
In 2014 all members of the World Health Assembly (WHA) approved a resolution on “strengthening of palliative care as a component of comprehensive care throughout the life course.” Published by former members of the Technical Advisory Group supporting the WHO Palliative Care Initiative, Building Integrated Palliative Care Programs and Services book is one of the important outcomes of this resolution in that it is designed specifically to assist governments and providers to build and strengthen palliative care in individual countries. This book is a guide to designing, implementing, and evaluating palliative care programmes and services, moving a focus on integrating palliative care into mainstream healthcare systems. It includes the latest definitional, organisational, and clinical aspects of palliative care, and is a great resource for countries wanting to begin or to build palliative care. The authors recommend that the book is used by policy makers and practitioners to improve palliative care service delivery for people accessing care and their families.
The two regional Atlases, one for the African continent and another for the Eastern Mediterranean region, have been developed in close collaboration with local, regional, and international institutions.
The APCA Atlas of Palliative Care in Africa
The current APCA Atlas provides the most up-to-date information of palliative care development in nearly all countries in Africa, using indicators derived, rated, and chosen by in-country African experts followed by a thorough Delphi consensus process with a panel of international experts on palliative care indicators. Therefore, the current APCA Atlas also provides an up-to-date base of indicators specific to the African context, chosen by African experts. The Atlas offers a panoramic view utilising the World Health Organization’s (WHO) palliative care public health strategy dimensions and palliative care professional activity (vitality) through a combination of methods including data collection from national experts in the field and peer-reviewed literature, ensuring data quality. These results provide the most comprehensive and reliable information on palliative care development, to date.
Atlas of Palliative Care in the Eastern Mediterranean Region
The Atlas of Palliative Care in the Eastern Mediterranean Region is the first systematic attempt to assess the status of resources, activities, and needs of palliative care in the region. It provides a comparative picture of the current state of palliative care in simple and clear graphics, utilising texts, tables, figures and maps that reproduce information given by national palliative care leaders in the Eastern Mediterranean. This information is essential for the appropriate planning of the development of palliative care for this region.