The International Observatory on End of Life Care (IOELC): an information resource for palliative care

Although millions of people die each year throughout the world, and a large proportion of these would benefit from palliative care services to provide care for dying people are underdeveloped, particularly in resource-poor regions. This article describes the development of an information resource on the World Wide Web, the International Observatory on End of Life Care (IOELC), to provide information on palliative care services in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The article describes the development of the IOELC, the structure of the resource, and how data were collected. It concludes with a discussion of plans to evaluate the website and to expand it to include other world regions, with the aim of developing it into a global information resource for the development of palliative care services.