Cantonal Hospital, St Gallen

The Center for Palliative Care at the Kantonsspital St.Gallen is the largest service in Palliative Care placed at an academic teaching hospital in Switzerland. Due to a relatively long history in hospital based Palliative Care in Switzerland, the center has taken over a lead position within Switzerland not only for clinical care, but also in multiprofessional education, research and service development. In 2005 the LCP has been adopted and integrated into a national framework for quality in Palliative Care (collaboration Swiss Society for Palliative Care "Palliative ch" and the major Quality management institution in health care in Switzerland "SanaCERT"). Since 2005 the St.Gallen group has taken over the lead and coordination of the dissemination of LCP in the German speaking countries (Germany, Switzerland, Austria). Our Center for Palliative Care and the department of oncology at the hospital have been nominated a designated center for comprehensive Cancer Care by ESMO (European School of

Oncology). Our center is regularly involved in the national strategy for comprehensive cancer care under the umbrella of ONCOSUISSE.

Examples of Previous Relevant Collective Experience

National level:

• National survey on the needs of severely ill and dying patients (funded by the Swiss government)
• National survey on Palliative Care and Hospice Services in Switzerland (funded by Oncosuisse)
• Care of the dying: integration into the national quality standard program for Palliative Care (with SanaCERT Suisse)
• Integration of the Liverpool Care Pathway into the German HOPE - documentation system

Regional level:

• Collaborative work with UK (Liverpool) colleagues to translate the LCP into German and to lead a German collaborative group on LCP
• Implementation of the national quality standard "Palliative Care" of SanaCERT into the Kantonsspital St.Gallen (including LCP and decision making tools)
• Start of research projects in geriatrics and intensive care to study criteria for diagnosing dying in different care settings