2020 Volume 21 Issue 1 Pages 34-37
Despite the rapidly aging Japanese society, opportunities available for experts from different fields to discuss evidence-based practices and a treatment strategy for each case regarding treatment options and end-of-life care for the elderly are still limited in our hospital. In this context, the author organized an interprofessional death conference among care providers involved in a case which the author proposed. Since such conference may be useful to suggest universal implementation of interprofessional collaboration on treatment options and end-of-life care for the elderly in the future, its benefits are reported in this study. A handout with description of purpose, agenda, and discussion points of the conference, as well as hard copy of medical articles relevant to geriatric care in Japan and overseas had been distributed beforehand among care providers which complied of five occupations involved in this particular case, were then asked to check these materials before attending the conference. After the conference, a survey using self-description questionnaire was carried out to evaluate the learning effect of the conference. From results of the questionnaire, it was shown that all the participants were at least aware of importance of interprofessional collaboration on determining the treatment policy of geriatric care, and that each of the individual participants gained insights and possibilities regarding future practices in geriatric care. Providing opportunities of collaboration across different fields will potentially contribute to improve ethical sensitivity among medical practitioners and quality of professional practices in individual fields engaging in care for the elderly.
