ehospice captures some of the most important things about the essence of hospice and palliative care from a variety of perspectives, disciplines, and countries. Indeed, ehospice itself is a wonderful combination of stories from across the world with research findings, information, policy, best practice and innovation in palliative care.
The importance of sharing and disseminating research and development on all aspects of palliative care is equally prized by the EAPC: in fact, it is one of our stated aims and is at the heart of all we do. This autumn we are proud to host our 17th EAPC World Congress – Exploring new dimensions. As a result of the global pandemic for the second year in a row, this will be an online event. We are delighted that over 1000 people will come together next week to hear about the latest advances in palliative care, view over 600 posters and take this opportunity to network, virtually, with other delegates and speakers. We have several interesting pre-congress meetings on 5th October that are free to attend. More about those later.
From the outset, the EAPC has brought together people from a range of disciplines and countries, who share a passion and energy along with the clinical, educational and research expertise to work on specific projects. These groups – the EAPC Task Forces and Reference Groups – now number 28 and requests to establish new groups on a range of contemporaneous palliative care issues continue to be submitted. The important work and outputs of our groups include white papers, policy documents and tools for practice and research relating to many important topics in palliative care. Sharing the latest news and views on palliative care led us to launch our very own blog in January 2012, and to dip our toes into the then somewhat alien field of social media.
Like ehospice, our job is to tell the stories and share the findings of our groups, our official journals, our annual congresses, our members and supporters. Our reach is global: across all our social media platforms, blog, website and newsletter we are currently reaching about 46,000 people. Understandably, as the European Association for Palliative Care, both contributors and followers of the blog are predominantly, though not exclusively, from Europe. Viewing statistics for 2020 show that our blog was viewed by people from more than 190 countries and overseas protectorates of the world: Europe (56% views), North America (18%), Asia (10%), Oceania (7%), Latin America and the Caribbean (6%), and Africa (2%). Increasingly our reach is extending beyond Europe with EAPC group members coming from a variety of other countries and attendance at our world congresses is consistently global.
As interest in palliative care and our community grows, every little piece of information and news that ehospice and the EAPC provide has a place, and can make a difference to someone, somewhere. To countless people, particularly those in the poorest countries of the world, every article, every journal, every textbook, every edition of ehospice and every blog post can make a difference.
Significant and exciting things are happening in palliative care across the world – you’ve only to look at ehospice and our own blog (www.eapcnet.wordpress.com) for the proof. The EAPC is proud and privileged to play a part in enabling these stories to be heard through our congresses, our groups and collaborative projects, our official journals, and our blog.
Back to those free to attend sessions at the EAPC congress 2021. There are three meetings that are free to attend that will take place on Tuesday 5th October 2021. These are a WHO meeting where new documents will be launched, a meeting about the development of palliative care in CIS countries which will be available in both English and Russian, and a workshop on leadership in palliative care during the COVID pandemic. All you need to do to attend is visit https://www.eapc-2021.org/pre-congress-sessions/ and register to attend.
Avril Jackson Social Media Lead & Blog Editor, European Association for Palliative Care
Julie Ling CEO, European Association for Palliative Care & Consultant Technical Officer, Palliative Care, WHO Europe.
Copyright for the use of the photos is: EAPC World Congress 2019 / photographer: Stefan Zeitz – used with permission.
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