Development of provincial clinical standards for the province of Ontario.

117 Background: The province of Ontario is committed to improving palliative care services. This commitment to change is outlined in The Declaration of Partnership, the provincial roadmap for improving palliative care. To help drive this change in the clinical environment, a Clinical Council for Palliative Care was established to be responsible for providing direction on clinical implications of policy, and advancing clinical improvement in palliative care in Ontario. To this end, Clinical Council has articulated a set of 12 interrelated provincial clinical standards which outline priority areas for clinical change and improvement in the province. Methods: Key stakeholder engagement was undertaken to identify evidence-based, best practices for delivery of palliative services. A consensus process was used to identify the priority set of essential clinical standards for high quality care that is both practical and scalable. Expert working groups were established to refine the standards based on evidence and leading or best practice to the Ontario context. Response was solicited from stakeholders, and qualitative analysis was conducted; standards will be refined based on feedback. Results: Based on the results of the stakeholder engagement, a “Clinical Change Strategy” was identified and a set 12 “clinical imperatives” were identified. Through the consensus process 12 Provincial Clinical Standards were endorsed. Conclusions: Engaging in an evidence informed process with key stakeholders has enabled the creation of a set of 12 interconnected Provincial Clinical Standards for palliative care in Ontario. These standards will help to advance high quality palliative care in the province. The standards represent a population health based strategy for change, which can have a positive impact at the systems level. Stakeholder feedback will result in further refinement of the standards, which will ultimately provide the foundation for standardized approaches for palliative services across Ontario.