Services producing their own caring@home resources
Tips for services to produce resources in local regions
Many services around Australia are successfully reproducing caring@home resources in their local areas. The project team thought it would be useful to share others’ experience and ideas on how resources are being reproduced. Everyone’s solutions will be different, and that is ok.
How you reproduce resources will depend on characteristics of your individual service, for example the number of patients cared for annually and whether there is a state-wide solution in place for producing resources.
What are the resources that need to be reproduced?
1. Resources for families and carers
Resources needed to teach carers include printed resources, training videos and a practice demonstration kit.
Printed resources for carers and families that can be downloaded from the website include:
Standard caring@home resources
Resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
- Relevant Tip Sheets
- Step-by-Step Guides
- Information flyer - Common symptoms expereinced at end of life
- Medicines Book and Wall Chart
- Short Training Videos
Translated Resources
- Translated resources for carers are available in nine common languages
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Printing Tips
- Resources can be professionally printed or printed on your office printer/photocopier.
- It is often more cost effective to print large numbers of resources (above 100 copies) using a professional local printer to reduce the cost per item. Items can then be stored or shared across service sites.
- If relevant, speak with the communications department of your organisation about producing the printed resources at a cheaper cost.
- All printed materials can be printed on regular paper and, where needed, simply stapled. Your local printer can advise on reducing the cost using different binding techniques and paper types.
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Tip
- Instead of producing individual copies of the short training videos on USBs, it may be more economical for a nurse to:
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Practice demonstration kit
- An instruction sheet on how to assemble the practice demonstration kit can be downloaded from the website.
- The components of the kit are most probably already available in your service. The service will be able to bulk purchase these items for a lower cost.
2. Resources for nurses
Printed documents can be downloaded from the website and printed internally or professionally:
Syringe Labels Printing Tips
- There are two ways to produce the caring@home syringe labels:
- Internal print – best for small amounts of labels. Print the labels internally on your office printer as needed using the Avery label files and instructions on the caring@home website.
- Professional print – best for large amounts of labels. Use a professional printer to produce large amounts of labels that can be stored and used over time. Contact caring@home to obtain the printing files and further advice.
- Each patient/carer will not need a complete set of syringe labels. To reduce costs, only take the relevant syringe labels to the home.
- Printed label pages can be cut in half if only a limited number of syringe labels are needed.
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3. Resources for clinical services
Resources can be downloaded from the website and include:
Using volunteers
- One large health district is utilising its volunteers to assemble resources for carers, e.g. stapling documents and compiling them into boxes/bags.
A large specialist palliative care service example
Metro South Palliative Care Service is a large specialist palliative service with a catchment area of more than one million people. Its staff care for more than 2,000 patients per year.
The service is presenting the resources to carers in the following way:
A cloth bag is used to transport the resources to the home, containing:
- A plastic sleeve with the printed carer resources and the USB with training videos
- A second plastic sleeve with resources for nurses – training and competency checklist, syringe labels
- The practice demonstration kit and the sharps container
Tip: The communications department of the HHS assisted with reproducing copies of each printed resource in colour on regular paper – handbook (stapled), diary (stapled), step-by-step guides, fridge chart, information brochure.
The resources are assembled and stored in a central location and clinical sites within the service access resources as they need them.
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Image below shows the Metro South Palliative Care Service carers package reproduction.
Need help?
The caring@home project team are available to assist you with any queries you may have regarding reproducing resources. Call 1300 600 007 or email caringathome@health.qld.gov.au for more information.