Lien Centre for Palliative Care

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Lien Centre for Palliative Care

The Lien Centre for Palliative Care (LCPC) is a leading palliative care research and education centre

The Lien Centre is established by Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore (“Duke-NUS”) in collaboration with the Lien Foundation with active involvement from National Cancer Centre Singapore and Singapore Health Services. The Lien Centre is a research and education centre of Duke-NUS and under the purview of the Duke-NUS Academic & Research Committee (“ARC”).

22/08/2025

✨ We’ve just concluded the 49th LCPC-SHC Postgraduate Course in Palliative Medicine — a meaningful 3 days of learning and reflection on delivering compassionate and evidence-based care for patients and families.

🧑‍⚕️The course saw active participation from a group of 38 professionals, both local and from the region, united by their dedication to supporting patients with serious illness or those reaching the end-of-life.

🔑Some key takeaways from participants:

“I am now more conscious of identifying patients who may benefit from palliative care early on - that serious illness not only affects patients but their families as well.”

“I hope to pay more attention to treating the whole person, giving heed to how symptoms can be multifactorial and multi-faceted.”

“I will be more confident in managing the different palliative symptoms and not be afraid to up titrate or even switch opioids.”

♥️Heartfelt thanks to our faculty and the participants for their commitment and dedication to making the July run of the LCPC-SHC Postgraduate Course in Palliative Medicine a resounding success.

📢 Up next: the 50th edition of the course will be happening this November!
If you’re looking to strengthen your expertise in palliative medicine and gain practical skills to provide compassionate care for patients with serious illness, do stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks!

🔗For more information, check out our website - link in the comments!

Singapore Hospice Council Duke-NUS Medical School

13/08/2025

What defines quality in Advanced Illness Care?

We created the Quality of Care for Patients With Advanced Illness (QCPAI) scale to measure it—directly from the patient's perspective.

Using a 15-item questionnaire and best-worst scaling, we identified what patients prioritise most:

💊 Treatment quality
😌 Symptom control
💰 Affordability

The QCPAI scale exhibits robust validity and reliability in measuring the quality of advanced illness care. Healthcare organisations and policy makers are encouraged to adopt the QCPAI scale as a standard tool for systematically evaluating and enhancing care quality.

🔍 Authors: Gandhi, M., Ang, F. J. L., Neo, S. H. S., Gonzalez, J. M., Cheung, Y. B., Finkelstein, E. A., & QCPAI Study Group

📖 Journal: Value in Health

🔗 Link to the full abstract and article in the comments!

07/08/2025

💡 Curious about what you’ll be learning in RSC? Read on to hear directly from our faculty!

“High pill burden is common in persons with chronic kidney disease and it is usually a common goal for both healthcare providers and patients for medications to be optimized and deprescribed in a safe manner. In this course, I will cover the systematic approach to deprescribing as well as share the practice at Singapore General Hospital.”

— Dr Mui Hian Sim, Principal Clinical Pharmacist

“In the RSC course, I share a systematic framework for organising compassionate discharges, addressing a critical need in end-of-life care. This framework guides healthcare professionals through key steps: assessing family readiness, managing symptoms effectively, providing emotional support, and coordinating community resources to ensure continuity of care. During the teaching, I foster a collaborative approach by sharing challenges encountered and strategies to overcome them.”

— APN Lee Chen Na, Nurse Clinician

✨ Key concepts in renal supportive care are purposefully woven into the learning journey — enabling participants to gain meaningful insights into providing holistic care for CKD patients before translating them to real-world impact in their clinical practice.

📋 Registrations for the Renal Supportive Care Course (Oct 2025) are open till 5 September 2025, or when maximum capacity has been attained. Sign up now to be part of Singapore’s first and only interprofessional course in Renal Supportive Care!

🔗 Visit our website to learn more and register — link in the comments!

31/07/2025

⚡Back for more LCPC Insights?

This week, the RSC faculty members share their motivations for joining the workgroup:

“My passion for renal-palliative psychosocial care stems from the realization that medical treatment alone isn’t enough; addressing the emotional and practical challenges of living with advanced CKD is just as critical. This course offers a platform to share that perspective and empower healthcare professionals to make a difference.”

— Mr Clinton Shi, Senior Medical Social Worker

“The need for renal supportive care is expected to increase with the rising number of persons with chronic kidney disease. The workgroup is a wonderful platform to share expertise, knowledge and best practices with others, so that collectively, we can achieve positive patient outcomes and/or experience.”

— Dr Sim Mui Hian, Principal Clinical Pharmacist

🫂Care for patients with advanced CKD goes beyond simply treating their physical symptoms, by bringing together dedicated professionals from various disciplines, RSC enables participants to support patients holistically, understanding the complexity of living with advanced CKD

📋Registrations for the Renal Supportive Care Course (Oct 2025) are now open until 5 September 2025, or when maximum capacity has been attained. Don’t miss the opportunity to participate in Singapore’s first and only interprofessional course in Renal Supportive care!

🔗 Visit our website to learn more and register — link in the comments!

🔎 Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we share more insights from the RSC faculty.

28/07/2025

⚡We are pleased to share the upcoming courses for our Graduate Certificate Programme in Health Economic Evaluation (GCP-HEE)!

🔎Designed to deepen your expertise and support your continued professional growth in this dynamic and impactful field. Whether you are in academia, government, or the private sector, these courses will provide you with the practical tools and critical insights needed to navigate and lead effectively in today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.

✅GMS5223: Advanced Health Econometrics

Dates: 18 Aug–17 Nov 2025

✅GMS5224: Advanced Health Technology Assessment Methods

Dates: 20 Aug–19 Nov 2025

📍 Singapore citizens & PRs are eligible for SkillsFuture discounts of up to 90%

📍 Register now to secure your spot at: myapplications.nus.edu.sg

📣We would appreciate it if you could help us share this opportunity with your community. You may also visit our website (link in the comments) or contact our dedicated program advisors at HEEcert@duke-nus.edu.sg.

25/07/2025

🎉 Registration Opens: Renal Supportive Care Course October 2025!

We’re excited to share that registration is now open for the October run of the Renal Supportive Care Course (RSC), Singapore’s first and only interprofessional course!

e-learning: 23 September to 24 October 2025
Face-to-Face teaching sessions: 08 to 10 October 2025, 8am to 5pm.

💡As part of the LCPC Insights series, we spoke with three members of the RSC faculty to hear what makes this course unique:

“Due to the rising global prevalence of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), healthcare professionals are increasingly likely to encounter patients with CKD.

The RSC course goes beyond basic kidney disease knowledge—it emphasises understanding the patient’s journey, integrating palliative care principles to enhance quality of life, and building essential communication skills for difficult conversations.”

— APN Lee Chen Na, Nurse Clinician

“Patients with advanced CKD or End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) face unique physical, emotional, and psychosocial challenges. This course integrates the expertise of healthcare professionals from various disciplines to address complexities such as:

• Navigating serious illness conversations
• Appreciating the psychosocial impacts of renal failure
• Providing holistic care including grief and bereavement support.”

— Mr Clinton Shi, Senior Medical Social Worker

⚡Their reflections underscore RSC’s strength: equipping clinicians not only with essential supportive care skills, but also with the confidence to deliver compassionate, person-centred care for CKD patients.

📢 Don’t miss this opportunity to join a dynamic, interdisciplinary community of learners. Registrations close on 5 September 2025, or when maximum capacity has been attained.

🔗 Visit our website to learn more and register — link in the comments!

🔎 Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we share more insights from the RSC faculty.

15/07/2025

🧠 Why are community dementia care services still underused?

In our recent study, we spoke to caregivers, healthcare providers, and policymakers to understand the full picture.

🔍 We uncovered 5 key challenges:
- Lack of information & awareness
- Cultural stigma & norms
- Long wait times & complex processes
- High costs & financial strain
- Misaligned expectations & weak family support

💡 What can we do?
- Public education to reduce stigma
- Digital health tools to connect and support caregivers
- Revisit policies to ease the financial burden

👉 It’s time to redesign dementia care to be more accessible, inclusive, and compassionate—for both persons with dementia and those who care for them.

🔗 Read the full article to find out more— link in the comments!

📝 Authors: Chandrika Ramakrishnan, Chetna Malhotra

📖 Journal: BMC Health Services Research

03/07/2025

⚡Proactive symptom monitoring to initiate timely palliative care for patients with advanced cancer: a randomized controlled trial

🎇The "Supportive and Palliative care Review Kit in Locations Everywhere" (SPARKLE) was developed to deliver timely palliative care in response to supportive and palliative care needs as they arise.

📊It comprises regular remote symptom monitoring using the Integrated Palliative care Outcome Scale (IPOS); early identification and prompt treatment; and referral to specialist palliative care when required.

📋A prospective randomized controlled trial of SPARKLE versus usual care was conducted among patients with advanced cancers.

🔗Read the full article to find out more— link in the comments!

📝Authors: Grace Yang, Yu Ke, Hui Xin Ng, Patricia Soek Hui Neo, Yin Bun Cheung

📖Journal: Supportive Care in Cancer

30/06/2025

⚡Check out the upcoming courses for our Graduate Certificate Programme in Health Economic Evaluation (GCP-HEE)!

🔎Designed to deepen your expertise and support your continued professional growth in this dynamic and impactful field. Whether you are in academia, government, or the private sector, these courses will provide you with the practical tools and critical insights needed to navigate and lead effectively in today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.

✅GMS5223: Advanced Health Econometrics

Dates: 18 Aug–17 Nov 2025

✅GMS5224: Advanced Health Technology Assessment Methods

Dates: 20 Aug–19 Nov 2025

📍 Singapore citizens & PRs are eligible for SkillsFuture discounts of up to 90%

📍 Register now to secure your spot at: myapplications.nus.edu.sg

📣We would appreciate it if you could help us share this opportunity with your community. You may also visit our website (link in the comments) or contact our dedicated program advisors at HEEcert@duke-nus.edu.sg.

27/06/2025

🚑Incidence of adverse outcome events rises as patients with advanced illness approach end-of-life. Exposures that tend to occur near end-of-life may therefore be found associated with the incidence of adverse outcomes.

⏱️A concept of reverse time-to-death (rTTD) and its use for the time-scale in time-to-event analysis based on partial likelihood to mitigate the time-varying confounding was proposed.

🏨The results of using the rTTD as the time-scale in time-to-event analysis was compared against that of the common practice of using time-on-study (TOS) as time-scale and found that it provided a simple and robust approach to control time-varying confounding in studies of advanced illness, even if the confounders are unmeasured.

🔍 Authors: Yin Bun Cheung, Xiangmei Ma, Isha Chaudhry, Nan Liu, Qingyuan Zhuang, Grace Meijuan Yang, Chetna Malhotra, Eric Andrew Finkelstein

📖 Journal: Statistics in Medicine

🔗 Link to the full abstract and article in the comments!

24/06/2025

🎉Celebrating a fruitful first half of 2025 with LCPC Education!

⚡LCPC would like to appreciate the dedicated faculty for their commitment to advancing quality palliative care education and empowering healthcare workers in their practice.

✨We look forward to more opportunities to build knowledge, foster collaboration, and spark conversations that improve care for patients and families.

📢 From profession-specific courses like LCPC-SHC Postgraduate Course in Palliative Medicine for Doctors to interdisciplinary courses like the Renal Supportive Care Course and Serious Illness Conversations Workshops, and even our online courses, there is something for everyone!

🔗 Discover our upcoming courses— link in the comments!

20/06/2025

Can we measure pediatric care quality in 10 items? Yes.

Meet PRECIOUS-SF—a short, reliable tool for evaluating care in children with serious illnesses.

📊 Key findings:
✅ Strong validity and reliability
✅ Consistent internal consistency and test-retest reliability
✅ Practical tool for routine care assessments

🎯 Why it matters:
PRECIOUS-SF provides healthcare providers with an efficient way to evaluate and improve care for children with complex medical needs.

🔗 Read the full article to find out more — link in the comments!

Authors: Felicia Jia Ler Ang, Mihir Gandhi, Truls Ostbye, Chetna Malhotra, Rahul Malhotra, Poh Heng Chong, Zubair Amin, Cristelle Chu-Tian Chow, Teresa Shu Zhen Tan, Komal Tewani, Eric Andrew Finkelstein

Journal: Journal of Patient-Reported Outcomes

Address

8 College Road
Singapore
169857

Website

https://www.duke-nus.edu.sg/lcpc

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