Innovative Applications of ELNEC Curriculum: Eighteen Years Equipping Nurses to Deliver Palliative Care in Diverse Care Settings (FR413)

Abstract

•Define primary palliative care and name three reasons why primary palliative care is important for all patients and families.•Describe the ELNEC program and model for dissemination of primary palliative care education and give three examples of how ELNEC curriculum has been adapted in diverse care delivery settings to provide clinicians with primary palliative care education The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) was established in 2000 as a national education initiative to expand the capacity of nurses in diverse care settings to integrate palliative care into practice. ELNEC uses a train-the-trainer model and adaptable curriculum materials. ELNEC has expanded to offer multiple specialty courses; and in 2017, the ANA and HPNA recommended that all nurses have ELNEC training as the basis of primary palliative nursing practice. We use case examples to demonstrate how ELNEC curriculum has been successfully adapted for diverse learners. ELNEC curriculum has been implemented to educate acute care nurses, graduate students in a palliative care certificate program, and care managers and social workers within a health plan:1.A metropolitan medical center administered a needs assessment survey to all inpatient nursing staff. Based on the survey results, multiple 30-minute unit-based educational sessions using portions of ELNEC modules are being piloted to increase nurses’ knowledge of palliative care.2.Clinical staff at a community hospital wanted to better support families after they had received bad news. ELNEC Core curriculum was used to provide a 3-hour training on communication.3.Learning strategies from the ELNEC modules are being threaded throughout graduate level interdisciplinary palliative care courses housed within the School of Nursing at a university.4.An ELNEC Course was offered to more than 250 care managers and social workers for a health plan to increase awareness of the comprehensive needs of members with serious illness and encourage early referral to palliative and community resources. Across care settings, nurses, care managers, and social workers are ideally positioned to identify and address unmet palliative care needs in the populations they serve. These examples demonstrate how ELENC curriculum can be adapted to disseminate primary palliative care knowledge, enabling clinicians to improve quality of life for their patients living with serious illness.