The Interprofessional Education Exchange: The Impact of a Faculty Development Program in Interprofessional Palliative Oncology Education on Trainee Competencies, Skills, and Satisfaction.

The interprofessional education exchange (iPEX) provides education, training, and mentoring to select interprofessional faculty trainee teams for development and implementation of interprofessional education (IPE) in palliative oncology. To evaluate the impact of the iPEX project on trainees' self-efficacy in IPE skills and IPE competencies. A pre-/post-test design was used to evaluate trainees' progress.

Insights and experiences of chaplain interns and social work interns on palliative care teams.

Interdisciplinary palliative care teams provide critical, comprehensive end-of-life care, although the accumulated literature points toward barriers that impede their effectiveness. The current phenomenological qualitative study presents perceptions of chaplaincy interns ( = 24) and social work interns ( = 23) after a semester-long end-of-life clinical training experience with interdisciplinary palliative care teams. Analysis of the end of semester reflections resulted in seven themes, which are fairly consistent with the literature base.

Which Critical Communication Skills Are Essential for Interdisciplinary End-of-Life Discussions?

Conversations about dying and end-of-life (EOL) care are the most challenging of all communication scenarios. These conversations include discussions about diagnosis and prognosis, treatment goals, and EOL wishes, goals of care, and plans for the future. Research has identified critically important skills involved in holding such conversations, and protocols have been established that can assist those discussing these important issues.

Palliative Nursing Summit: Nurses Leading Change and Transforming Care: The Nurse's Role in Communication and Advance Care Planning.

Advance care planning (ACP) is an essential component of quality palliative care that requires expert communication skills. Nurses are often the health care provider patients and families rely on when exploring their values and preferences and making treatment decisions. Therefore, communication and ACP was one of the 3 areas of practice addressed during the Palliative Nursing Summit.

Overcoming barriers to interprofessional education in gerontology: the Interprofessional Curriculum for the Care of Older Adults.

A fragmented workforce consisting of multiple disciplines with varying levels of training and limited ability to work as a team often provides care to older adults. Interprofessional education (IPE) is essential for preparing practitioners for the effective teamwork required for community-based, holistic, person-centered care of the older adults. Despite numerous programs and offerings to advance education and interdisciplinary patient care, there is an unmet need for geriatric IPE, especially as it relates to community-dwelling older adults and caregivers in medically underserved areas.

Medicine as It Should Be: Teaching Team and Teamwork during a Palliative Care Clerkship.

Background: Interprofessional Education (IPE) is an important component of medical education. Rotations with palliative care interdisciplinary teams (IDTs) provide an optimal environment for IPE and teaching teamwork skills.

Objective: Our objective was to assess the learning of senior medical students during a palliative care rotation.

Advancing Hospice and Palliative Care Social Work Leadership in Interprofessional Education and Practice.

The importance of interprofessional collaboration in achieving high quality outcomes, improving patient quality of life, and decreasing costs has been growing significantly in health care. Palliative care has been viewed as an exemplary model of interprofessional care delivery, yet best practices in both interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional practice (IPP) in the field are still developing. So, too, is the leadership of hospice and palliative care social workers within IPE and IPP.

Use of Contemporary Film as a Medium for Teaching an Online Death and Grief Course.

Online education is becoming commonplace in the academic world. Schools now offer totally online degree programs or provide a hybrid of face-to-face and online courses for fulfilling academic requirements. Developing courses and teaching online requires instructors to rethink the educational paradigms they have relied upon in the past.

Improving medical graduates' training in palliative care: advancing education and practice.

The needs of an aging population and advancements in the treatment of both chronic and life-threatening diseases have resulted in increased demand for quality palliative care. The doctors of the future will need to be well prepared to provide expert symptom management and address the holistic needs (physical, psychosocial, and spiritual) of patients dealing with serious illness and the end of life. Such preparation begins with general medical education.

Preparing Nursing Students for Interprofessional Practice: The Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Oncology Palliative Care Education.

Interprofessional educational experiences for baccalaureate nursing students are essential to prepare them for interprofessional communication, collaboration, and team work. Nurse educators are ideally positioned to develop and lead such initiatives. The purpose of this article is to describe the development and implementation of an interprofessional education (IPE) project involving students in nursing, medicine, social work, and chaplaincy.

A Systematic Review of Telehealth in Palliative Care: Caregiver Outcomes.

Objective: Telehealth interventions have proven efficacy in healthcare, but little is known about the results of such interventions in palliative care. We conducted a systematic review to evaluate caregiver outcomes related to palliative telehealth interventions.

Materials And Methods: We searched multiple databases for articles published between January 2003 and January 2015 related to telehealth in palliative care.

Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Curriculum Teaching Team-Based Palliative Care Integration in Oncology.

For students of the health care professions to succeed in today's health care environment, they must be prepared to collaborate with other professionals and practice on interdisciplinary teams. As most will care for patients with cancer, they must also understand the principles of palliative care and its integration into oncology. This article reports the success of one university's effort to design and implement an interdisciplinary curriculum teaching team-based palliative care in oncology which was mandatory for medical, nursing, social work, and chaplaincy students.

Enhancing collaborative leadership in palliative social work in oncology.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Report-Cancer Care for the Whole Patient: Meeting Psychosocial Health Needs-provided recommendations for meeting the palliative care needs of our growing population of older Americans. The IOM report highlights the demand for social work leadership across all aspects of the health care delivery system. Social workers are core interdisciplinary members of the health care team and it is important for them to be well prepared for collaborative leadership roles across health care settings.

The Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Oncology Palliative Care Education (iCOPE): meeting the challenge of interprofessional education.

Unlabelled: Background: Interprofessional education is necessary to prepare students of the health professions for successful practice in today's health care environment. Because of its expertise in interdisciplinary practice and team-based care, palliative care should be leading the way in creating educational opportunities for students to learn the skills for team practice and provision of quality patient-centered care. Multiple barriers exist that can discourage those desiring to create and implement truly interdisciplinary curriculum.

Job satisfaction, intent to stay, and recommended job improvements: the palliative nursing assistant speaks.

Background And Objective: There are few studies specifically focused on the job satisfaction of hospice and palliative nursing assistants (NAs). The goal of this study was to ascertain factors contributing to NAs' job satisfaction and intent to remain with their current employer, garner suggestions for improving NA jobs, and inform hospice and palliative care providers concerned about retaining qualified, satisfied NAs.

Methods: A nonexperimental, cross-sectional survey design was used to collect data from a broad sample of NAs employed in hospice and palliative care settings between December 2010 and May 2011.

Evaluation of the English version of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Questionnaire.

Background: End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) train-the-trainer workshops prepare participants to teach ELNEC content to others. In 2010, researchers in Japan developed and validated the End-of-Life Nursing Education Questionnaire (ELNEQ) to measure the impact of ELNEC workshops on participants' readiness to teach the content.

Objective: The study's objective was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the English version of the ELNEQ.

"I will never forget": what we learned from medical student reflections on a palliative care experience.

Purpose: To use reflective writing to evaluate a new required palliative care experience for third year medical students.

Method: The authors used a constant comparison method based on grounded theory to conduct a thematic analysis of reflective writings produced by third-year medical students completing a mandatory week-long clinical rotation in palliative care during academic year 2010 at the University of Louisville.

Results: Two broad thematic categories were identified: what the students learned and what the students experienced.

Just give me hope: lived experiences of Medicaid patients with advanced cancer.

The purpose of this phenomenological exploration was to describe the lived experiences of persons diagnosed with advanced cancer who receive Medicaid. Themes emerged from the transcribed interviews of 10 participants in accordance with the cancer trajectory. Before diagnosis, participants were uninsured or underinsured and had more severe symptoms prior to late diagnosis.

Use of the Distress Thermometer to discern clinically relevant quality of life differences in women with breast cancer.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the ability of Distress Thermometer (DT) scores to discern important differences in quality of life scores among women with breast cancer.

Methods: The National Comprehensive Cancer Network's DT, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B), and a demographic questionnaire were completed by 111 women recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

Results: Patients considered moderately to severely distressed (score ≥ 4 on DT) scored significantly lower on FACT-B QOL scales and subscales when compared to those in the group scoring 3 or below.

Feasibility and Acceptance of a Telehealth Intervention to Promote Symptom Management during Treatment for Head and Neck Cancer.

Patients undergoing treatment for head and neck cancers have a myriad of distressing symptoms and treatment side effects which significantly alter communication and lower quality of life. Telehealth technology has demonstrated promise in improving patient-provider communication by delivering supportive educational content and guidance to patients in their homes. A telehealth intervention using a simple telemessaging device was developed to provide daily education, guidance, and encouragement for patients undergoing initial treatment of head and neck cancer.

The relationship between weight loss and health-related quality of life in persons treated for head and neck cancer.

Purpose: This study explores the relationship between weight loss, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and symptom burden in patients treated for head and neck cancers.

Methods: Participants completed the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Head and Neck (FACT-H&N) and the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS) pre-treatment, mid-treatment, and post-treatment. Weights were recorded prior to treatment and at the post-treatment follow-up visit, and percentage weight loss was tabulated.

Palliative care case management: increasing access to community-based palliative care for Medicaid recipients.

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot project was to integrate palliative care principles and practices into the day-to-day operations of a Medicaid managed care provider. This was accomplished through the following five activities: (1) employment of an experienced palliative care nurse and social worker to serve as expert role models and consultants to the case management staff; (2) development of a palliative care training curriculum for case managers; (3) provision and evaluation of the training; (4) identification of appropriate patients, provision of palliative care case management (PCCM), and tracking of outcomes; and (5) development of a resource/reference manual for case managers.

Primary Practice Setting: The project involved a managed care organization providing Medicaid services to patients residing in both urban and rural settings.

Engaging nursing students and community partners in the development of decision cases.

Decision case method teaching uses open-ended cases to stimulate decision making and critical thinking skills in the classroom. The cases are taken from actual practice experience and are developed in great detail with the goal of engaging learners in the actual dilemma as encountered by the case protagonist. This method has proven effective in preparing students for actual practice in fields such as medicine, nursing, and social work, but one barrier to this pedagogical approach is the lack of available relevant cases.