Providing Palliative Care Education: Showcasing Efforts of Asian Nurses.

Most of the world's population lives in Asia. Prevention and detection of cancer, as well as ensuring equitable access to cancer care for all Asians remains a major public health issue and requires governmental involvement and dedicated resources. Palliative care, a medical and nursing specialty, promotes holistic attention to suffering and provides compassionate and interdisciplinary care to the most vulnerable in all societies-those with serious illness.

An Innovative End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium Curriculum That Prepares Nursing Students to Provide Primary Palliative Care.

Research has demonstrated that patients facing serious, life-limiting illnesses and their families benefit from receiving palliative care. Increasingly, however, specialty palliative care has limited resources. Prelicensure nursing students who are educated to provide primary palliative care to patients with serious illness and at the end of life can fill that gap.

Promoting Palliative Care Internationally: Building Leaders to Promote Education, Practice, and Advocacy.

In February 2000, nine nursing educators, practitioners, and researchers met in Nashville, Tennessee, to develop a palliative care curriculum specifically for nurses. The following month, 22 advisors from nursing organizations across the United States convened in Washington, DC to review the recommended curriculum development and dissemination plans for end-of-life care throughout nursing schools, hospitals, hospices, home care, and geriatric settings. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided funding for curriculum and competency development and for six national train-the-trainer courses to be held from 2001 to 2003.

Providing Palliative Care to Patients with Cancer: Addressing the Needs in Kenya.

Cancer is the third highest cause of death in Kenya, preceded by infectious and cardiovascular diseases, and in most cases, diagnosed in later stages. Nurses are the primary caregivers, assessing and managing these patients in the clinic, in inpatient settings, and in rural and remote communities. While cancer rates remain high, the burden to the patient, the caregiver, and society as a whole continues to rise.

CARES: AACN's New Competencies and Recommendations for Educating Undergraduate Nursing Students to Improve Palliative Care.

Nurses spend the most time of any health care professional caring for patients and families dealing with the challenges of serious illness. The demand for nursing expertise in palliative care is growing as more people are living with chronic, life-limiting illnesses. Nursing faculty must prepare future nurses to meet this demand.

The End of Life Nursing Education Nursing Consortium project.

In 2000, the City of Hope Medical Center and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) developed the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC)-Core curriculum to educate nurses and other healthcare professionals on end of life care, so that attention to the dying could be improved and their unique needs addressed. Since its inception, over 19,500 nurses and other professionals have attended the ELNEC train-the-trainer courses. Upon course completion, the participants, often nurse educators, returned to their schools, healthcare systems, and communities and introduced the ELNEC content into nursing curricula, annual competencies, and new employee orientation.

Promoting palliative care worldwide through international nursing education.

Many challenges exist when providing international education to those who care for people at the end of life. Though issues related to culture and language may vary, the one commonality that crosses all nations is that its people die. In general, societies seek to provide the best care they are trained to give.

End-of-life care education in acute and critical care: the California ELNEC project.

Acute and critical care nurses care for an increasingly aging population in the last stages of life. Unfortunately, many of these nurses do not have adequate education to care for this population. The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) developed a critical care course, and in 2007 the Archstone Foundation provided a grant to educate critical care nurses in California.

Expanding palliative care nursing education in California: the ELNEC Geriatric project.

In the past decade, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's 2002 report Means to a Better End: A Report on Dying in America Today and other studies brought attention to deficiencies in care of the dying in the USA. Palliative care's mandate is to promote a 'good death' through expert symptom management and compassionate care that addresses the psychosocial needs and dignity of persons at the end of life. The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) Geriatric 'train-the-trainer' project was launched in 2007 to increase the knowledge and educational skills of nurses and unlicensed staff providing end-of-life care for older adults in nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, long-term care, and hospices.

The preparation of oncology nurses in palliative care.

Objectives: To address the opportunities for oncology nurses to prepare for and provide palliative care support to cancer patients and families.

Data Sources: A review of the literature as well as synthesis of the experiences of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium over the past 10 years (2000-2010) were considered in summarizing implications for palliative care education in oncology.

Conclusion: Cancer patients and their families across the cancer trajectory experience serious physical and psychosocial symptoms and spiritual concerns.

Advancing palliative care in Kenya.

Background: Life-threatening illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other disorders are prevalent in the developing world, including Kenya.

Objective: The aim of this project was to assist in the development of palliative care throughout Kenya by enhancing the knowledge and skill of faculty members in palliative care so they could integrate this content into existing nursing curricula.

Methods: In an effort to develop palliative care throughout the country, experts from the Kenya Hospices and Palliative Care Association and the Kenyatta National Hospital invited faculty from the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium with the United States to adopt the content of its training program to address the needs of nurses and other health care professionals in Kenya.

Appraisal of The Pediatric End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium training program.

Major deficiencies continue to exist in pediatric palliative and end-of-life nursing education. The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC)-Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC) train-the-trainer curriculum was developed to create a nursing education program to improve care for children and their families confronted with life-threatening illnesses (www.aacn.

End-of-life nursing education consortium: 5 years of educating graduate nursing faculty in excellent palliative care.

Since January 2001, over 4,500 nurses, representing all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, have attended 1 of 50 national End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) train-the-trainer courses.

Statewide efforts in promoting palliative care.

Background: In 2002, Means to a Better End: A Report of Dying in America Today, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) report, was issued that included grades for each state on their ability to provide end-of-life care. Most states, including California, rated as mediocre and the report called for extensive efforts at a state level to improve the quality of palliative care.

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to describe implementation and evaluation of a comprehensive statewide effort to improve end-of-life care education for 350 California nurses as an example of state-level change as recommended by the RWJF report.

End-of-life nursing education consortium for pediatric palliative care (ELNEC-PPC).

Pediatric nurses must often care for children with life-threatening illness. Although the child may be a neonate with multiple organ failure, a young adolescent diagnosed with HIV, or a 7-year-old child involved in a serious bicycle accident, pediatric nurses are an essential part of the interdisciplinary team that plans, organizes, implements, and manages the care of these children and their families. To date, more than 600 pediatric nurses have attended a national End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium-Pediatric Palliative Care (ELNEC-PPC) training program.

Oncology End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium training program: improving palliative care in cancer.

Purpose/objectives: To describe an evaluation of the oncology version of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC-Oncology) training program, which is designed to provide oncology nurses with the knowledge and materials necessary to disseminate palliative care information to their colleagues in local chapters of the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS).

Data Sources: Participant reports.

Data Synthesis: 124 nurses representing 74 ONS chapters attended the first two courses.

End-of-life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) Training Program: improving palliative care in critical care.

The integration of palliative care in critical care settings is essential to improve care of the dying, and critical care nurses are leaders in these efforts. However, lack of education in providing end-of-life (EOL) care is an obstacle to nurses and other healthcare professionals as they strive to deliver palliative care. Education regarding pain and symptom management, communication strategies, care at the end of life, ethics, and other aspects of palliative care are urgently needed.

Palliative care education for pediatric nurses.

Of all the various healthcare professionals that provide care to children and their families facing life's end, no one spends more time at the bedside observing, critically thinking, consulting, and providing direct care than the pediatric nurse. Previous research, however, demonstrates that undergraduate education has not prepared nurses to provide optimum end-of-life (EOL) care (Ferrell, Grant, & Virani, 1999; Ferrell, Virani, & Grant, 1999). Although many reasons have been cited in the literature for this inadequacy, the fact remains that when nurses complete their basic education and enter practice, they often are grossly unprepared to care for children and families in need of end-of-life care (Field & Behrman, 2003).

Evaluation of the end-of-life nursing education consortium project in the USA.

Care of patients at the end of life is contingent on adequate preparation of health care providers. Nursing, as the predominant caring profession in end-of-life (EOL) care, must achieve competence in physical and psychosocial care of patients and families facing terminal illness. Previous research has demonstrated that nursing education has not prepared nurses to provide optimum EOL care.

Appraisal of the Graduate End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium Training Program.

Background: Advanced practice nurses (APNs) are crucial in the provision of quality end-oflife care. However, little attention is devoted to palliative care in most graduate nursing curricula, leaving advanced practice nurses poorly prepared to meet the needs of those approaching the end of their lives.

Objective: The purpose of the graduate version of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC-Graduate) Training Program is to provide nursing faculty with the knowledge and materials necessary to include palliative care throughout the graduate nursing curriculum.