The smartphone app, called palliAGEDnurse, was launched in Australia on International Nurses Day this month (Thursday 12 May 2016) to help nurses give the best hands-on care for older people with palliative care needs.

Associate Professor Jennifer Tieman, director of CareSearch at Flinders University, says death may be an every-day part of life, but for many nurses it is not part of their every-day practice.

Encountering a dying patient can throw up a range of complex and challenging issues which may require additional support and information.

Associate Professor Tieman says nurses and health professionals working in a range of settings – from residential aged care to community care and general practice – can download the regularly updated app contents to recognise and prepare for the best outcomes.

“The extensive information available on the palliAGEDnurse app will support them in identifying changes and increase their confidence in being able to deliver the palliative approach to care,” Associate Professor Tieman said.

She says technology plays an important role in the increasingly complex area of delivering quality palliative care to the elderly, both within the aged-care and hospital setting and in the home.

The new app caters for Australia’s large residential aged-care workforce of (full-time equivalent) 13,939 Registered Nurses, 10,999 Enrolled Nurses, and 64,669 Personal Care Assistants. In the community care workforce there are 6544 RNs, 2345 ENs, and 41,394 PCAs (FTE positions).

palliAGEDnurse was developed by the CareSearch team at Flinders as part of the Decision Assist program, which is funded by the Australian Government to improve the end-of-life care of older Australian through advance care planning and palliative care advisory services.

It is a companion to the successful palliAGEDgp app and is available through Google Play and the App Store.

The Decision Assist Guidance and Technological Innovation Project, based at Flinders, has developed palliAGED smartphone app for GPs and now nurses, with almost 3000 downloads of the GP app since its launch in April 2015.

An offline-online solution supporting GPs who work in country and remote areas has also been developed.

“With the rapidly expanding knowledge base for clinical practice it can be challenging for health professionals – including nurses – to keep their knowledge and skills up to date,’’ Associate Professor Tieman says.

“While continuing professional development is an important professional responsibility to invest in new skills and knowledge, nurses also need to be able to access knowledge at the point of care, that is, where they practice.

“Web based resources are helpful for this, and the growing use of apps prompted Decision Assist to explore different ways to share clinical knowledge and encourage its use in practice.”

The Palliative and Supportive Services team at Flinders has been delivering online education to students in Australia and overseas for 15 years.

It manages a major web-based palliative care evidence and information resource called CareSearch for patients and their families and for health professionals.  An online data management system supports data collection from sites across the country for the clinical trials.

The team has also explored the use of telehealth to remotely monitor patients living in the community through telehealth.

palliAGEDnurse is an example of the new direction to research, technology and innovation that Flinders University is taking in its 50^th anniversary year.

Giving information on advance care planning, case conferencing, and terminal care planning via their phone at the point of care, the information can even be used in remote locations via a locally held version when out of internet range.

“When you are back in range, the app will prompt you to download any changes that have been made to the content,” Associate Professor Tieman said.

For more information on Decision Assist go to www.decisionassist.org.au