The Palliative Care Healthy End of Life Planning Brief Intervention (HELP BI) builds on nine years of research and practice. Based on the Healthy End of Life Program, HELP BI is a new model for services to incorporate evidence-based ‘networked-centered care’ into their everyday practice. HELP BI, via the HELP App, is able systematically collects real-time data on informal care networks, with capability to report community impact data in service catchment areas. 

HELP BI aims to complement the existing clinical interventions of the palliative and end-of-life care sector to incorporate valuable informal social and practical supports for families that sustain caring in diverse settings. From a research perspective, HELP BI addresses the challenge of generating a community-based dataset on the social dimensions of end-of-life care in Australian communities.  

Data is collected via the HELP App through consumer use, with reports generated by the research team. Examples of data collection fields include demographic data (gender, age, location), the nature and function of the network (numbers, configuration, interaction), reasons for use (dementia, frail aged, cancer), and the types of help provided (social, household, meals, transport, emotional).  

Although relatively new, the HELP App is successfully mobilising informal end-of-life care networks across Australia. It is most successful when referred implemented by a trusted source of referral (palliative care), with facilitated uptake (health/allied health/volunteers) and implemented early in the care trajectory. Integrating HELP BI as part of routine care planning and service provision, significantly improves the confidence of carers and families to ask for and accept help when it is suggested as part of their recommended treatment plan. 

Palliative care services incorporating HELP BI into their practice can catalyse informal networked-centered care for the people they support, and access associated impact data on networks generated in their service catchment area.