Interdisciplinary palliative care communication for quality palliative care: Outcomes of a statewide train-the-trainer course.

Abstract

83 Background: Expert communication skills are essential for the delivery of effective palliative care across the domains of care. However, few healthcare providers receive formal communication training. The purpose of this presentation is to describe a train-the-trainer course for interprofessional hospital-based palliative care teams to prepare them to teach other healthcare professionals palliative care communication skills. Methods: This project was organized by the eight domains of the National Consensus Project (NCP) guidelines for quality palliative care and provided communication skills training for California-based teams. Funded by the Archstone Foundation, this 2-day train-the-trainer course included skill-building exercises and interactive discussions to assist participants in integrating communication skills-building into their clinical settings. Using a goal-directed method of teaching, the faculty assisted teams in developing three institutional goals for providing palliative care communication training to other healthcare professionals. Evaluation of the course included immediate post-course evaluation and follow-up evaluation at 6 and 9 months. Results: The first statewide interprofessional communication training took place in January 2018 with 26 palliative care teams consisting of primarily nurses, followed by social workers, chaplains and physicians. The 46 course participants’ post-course evaluations demonstrated high satisfaction with the course. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = lowest), the course met participants’ expectations and objectives (4.8). The teams’ pre-course goals focused on: 1) staff education, training and mentorship, and 2) institution-wide system changes involving communication with palliative care. Conclusions: A 6 and 9 month follow-up will evaluate team progress on institutional goals (e.g. status and implementation) and provide an update on the additional healthcare professionals trained by course participants and changes implemented within their health system.