Bridging the Gap: Delivering Palliative and End-of-life Care within Emergency Medical Services

Presented by EAPC Task Force on Palliative Care & Emergency Medical Services.

The role of emergency medical services (EMS) has evolved in recent years with paramedics responding increasingly to patients nearing the end of life. For example, in the Czech Republic, more than 50% of terminally ill patients get in contact with EMS in their last 30 days of life. Many of these patients may benefit from a palliative approach rather than hospital conveyance and admission, especially when hospitalisation and hospital death is not something they wished for. 

A number of successful projects and initiatives aimed at integrating palliative approach to care into EMS are being implemented around the world. The webinar series will present some of these initiatives, with speakers from the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The speakers are all members of the newly formed EAPC Task Force on Palliative Care & Emergency Medical Services, and their background spans paramedicine and emergency medicine, palliative care, education, research, and advocacy. There will be a Q&A session at the end of each webinar. 

All webinars will be held online and require registration. Registered participants will receive a link to join the webinar via email which will be sent one day before the webinar. Please check your spam folder in case you do not receive the link by then.

The registration deadline is 3 days before each event. After that the registration will close. The maximum number of participants is limited to 300. 

Please note that the webinars are scheduled using Central European Time (CET). 

All presentations will be in English.

All webinars in the series will be recorded. By registering to the webinar, participants agree with the recording.

If you have any additional questions, please contact Michala Chatrná at m.chatrna@paliativnicentrum.cz. 

4 February 2025, 9-10.30 CET

What time is this in my location?

The first session of the series will introduce the newly formed EAPC Task Force on Palliative Care & Emergency Medical Services, and present the current situation and ongoing initiatives in the Czech Republic and Germany. Martin Neukirchen and Eva Diehl-Wiesenecker will discuss key topics currently being addressed by the German palliative and emergency care working group. These include the development of a national curriculum on palliative care for paramedics and emergency care physicians, efforts to create a standardised emergency card with therapy goals and limitations, and strategies to integrate palliative and emergency care in the amendment to the German Rescue Service Act. David Peřan and Michala Chatrná will present a three-year national project with Czech regional ambulance services, which aims to integrate generalist palliative care into EMS, highlighting key strategies, successes and challenges so far. They will also share some national data on end-of-life patients and EMS in the Czech Republic. 

Host:

Martin Loučka is a psychologist, researcher and educator in palliative care. He is a founder of Center for Palliative Care, a Czech NGO advocating good quality palliative care in the Czech Republic. He is a board member of European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) and a co-chair of the EAPC Task Force on Palliative Care & Emergency Medical Services.

Speakers: 

Martin Neukirchen is Professor for Palliative Care and head of the Department of Palliative Care at University Hospital Duesseldorf. His research interests include the intersection and cooperation between intensive and palliative care.

Eva Diehl-Wiesenecker is a consultant in the Emergency Department at Berlin Charité University Clinic, with interest in palliative care. She works with the EUSEM (European Society for Emergency Medicine) Ethics Committee.

David Peřan is an Advanced Care Paramedic, and a deputy director for quality management and research at Emergency Medical Services of Karlovy Vary Region, Czech Republic. He works in education and training, and is a lecturer at 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague.

Michala Chatrná is a project manager at Center for Palliative Care, Czech Republic, where she is responsible for a national project which aims at integrating palliative care into ambulance services. 

More information is coming soon.

 More information is coming soon.

More information is coming soon.