Facilitating better end-of-life care

How to help your patients die well

All health professions aim to provide the best care they can for their patient. However, achieving this is easier said than done. In this issue of the Journal, Horey and colleagues document the implementation of a care pathway aimed at facilitating care at the end of life (EOL) in 14 residential aged care facilities (RACFs),1 while Thompson and Brown’s letter raises the problem of resuscitation often being the default position when elderly patients deteriorate rapidly, even though the survival rate is poor and most older people do not want that option.2