Instituting a Life-Changing Emergency Response Plan: Because Life Happens to All of Us (FR478)

Abstract

•Recognize the importance of supporting co-workers when they experience a life changing event.•Describe an action plan to acknowledge and support faculty and staff during challenging and/or celebratory life-changing events in an empathetic, personalized, yet non-intrusive way, respecting the personal boundaries involved.•List current strengths and areas of improvement of one's own program's response to life-changing events and create a list of at least two next steps for their team's consideration upon return home from Annual Assembly. As palliative care professionals, we pride ourselves on advocating for and supporting our patients, their families and even other staff members during challenging times. While providing excellent care to others, however, we can overlook the needs of our own team members. Prior to our dedicated action plan, the spouse of a team member died. When our leadership team's uncoordinated response to this tragic event fell short, a member within one of our teams approached her site director. She calmly stated: “We can do better. We do this every day for our patients and families. Why don't we do at least as much for each other?” This was our call to action. As programs grow in size, it can be easy to assume that someone is reaching out. How do we know what the needs are for the individual experiencing a personal life event? How can we best support our co-workers when they experience personal challenges? Should we visit a hospitalized colleague? How do we support the team that is left behind while their co-worker attends to his or her personal needs? Without an intentional and organized approach, how can we be sure that the support we have provided is enough, yet not too much? In an attempt to answer these questions, the Life-Changing Event Response Plan (LCERP) was born. We will use actual cases from before and after implementation of LCERP to illustrate how an intentional response improved satisfaction of both team members and team leaders. Our panel will share details of how to implement such a program and invite participants to consider next steps within their own settings. With the ever increasing demands from patients, families, learners, and the C-suite, we, as palliative care professionals, must ensure that we first take care of our own.