Dying healed: Transforming end-of-life care through innovation

Advances in medicine, nutrition, and other factors have allowed people to live longer. Yet one aspect of life is constant. Human mortality remains 100 percent; we all eventually die. While where and when we die is regularly studied, how we die is often avoided or ignored. This has led to an unacceptable amount of unnecessary suffering worldwide during the last year of life. Each year, over 100 million people would benefit from palliative care, yet fewer than 8 percent of those in need access it.

This is a global tragedy, but it is one that can be effectively remedied. We recognize that different countries are at different stages of establishing end-of-life care – for some the creation of 24/7 community services will be the key development. For others it will be providing access to pain and symptom-controlling essential medicines and staff trained to administer them.

This report present a five-step strategy for improving quality of life at the end-of-life with specific examples of innovations that have proven effective at reducing unnecessary suffering and improving end-of-life care in different settings and cultures.

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