Palliative care for patients with malignant digestive tract diseases in Primorje-Gorski Kotar and Istria Counties

Abstract:

There is a ten-year experience of systematic development of a professional palliative care network in the Countiesof Primorje-Gorski Kotar and Istria. CISPAL, the counties‘ own IT application was developed to support the professional communication, management, and decision-making in palliative care. In special cases, ICD-10 code Z02.8 is used as an alternative to Z51.5 for informational monitoring of the palliative patients. As pain is a leading problem in many patients, especially those with malignant digestive tract disease, subcutaneous infusion has been introduced to provide continuous, high-quality analgesia in home care. An extensive amount of professional materials was created in cooperation with the School of Public Health „Andrija Štampar“ and stored on the internet repository: www.palijativna-skrb.hr..

Key words:
capacity building; health information management; infusions; subcutaneous; palliative care; SPICT