Promoting Perinatal, Neonatal, and Pediatric Palliative Care Nursing Education (510)

Abstract

1.Identify a national project to coordinate nursing efforts in perinatal, neonatal, and pediatric palliative care.2.Identify models of excellence in implementing palliative care in perinatal, neonatal, and pediatric settings.3.Describe barriers to implementing palliative care across perinatal, neonatal, and pediatric settings. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium Pediatric Palliative Care (ELNEC-PPC), a comprehensive national effort to improve palliative/end-of-life (EOL) care provided by healthcare professionals in perinatal, neonatal, and pediatric settings. The project is based on the original End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) training, which is a partnership between City of Hope and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). This project is a synthesis of research and knowledge in palliative care and is intended to assist with implementing evidence based practice. Based on the AACN Peaceful Death: Recommended Competencies and Curricular Guidelines for End-of-Life Nursing Care and the 1997 Institute of Medicine report, the ELNEC-PPC curriculum focuses on 11 EOL areas: overview of palliative care; pediatric consideration; pain; symptom management; perinatal and neonatal palliative care; loss, grief, and bereavement; communication; ethical issues; quality improvement; and care during the final hours. The ELNEC-PPC curriculum includes detailed supplemental teaching materials to integrate palliative care content into continuing education/in-services for practicing nurses in a variety of clinical settings, and classroom/clinical teaching for students. Since the first course was held in August 2003, eight national train-the-trainer courses have been held, with 735 nurses attending from diverse pediatric settings across the United States and Canada. For more information about the ELNEC-PPC Project, visit http://aacn.nche.edu/ELNEC. Structure and Processes of Care