Palliative Care

Integrating Research, Outreach and Education in Palliative Care

Education

 

 

The CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care is preparing the next generation of palliative care practitioners, educators, advocates and leaders while also educating the community about its benefits in maximizing quality of life, improving patient and family satisfaction with care, and reducing healthcare costs.

Faculty Toolkit: Addressing Disparities in Palliative Care Through Curricular Integration

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Preparing future health care professionals to provide high-quality palliative care for the rapidly growing population of people living with serious illness is one of the core missions of the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care and its consortium of campus partners within the CSU.

To that end, the institute and its partners at California State University San Marcos, California State University, Monterey Bay, and California State University, Fresno, began work in 2018 on a pilot program to develop an online educational toolkit for college and university faculty to assist them in integrating palliative care content into existing curriculum across a range of disciplines and departments.

The first edition of the toolkit, completed in November 2018, included five online modules featuring resources and interactive learning activities that focus on the basics of palliative care as well as health disparities in palliative care. The modules provide cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning resources, including case studies, videos, slide presentations, pretests and posttests.

In January 2019, the three campuses began piloting the toolkit with 11 participating faculty members who teach in a variety of disciplines: psychology, nursing, social work, sociology, human development, gerontology and kinesiology.

The educators used the toolkit in 13 courses during the 2019 spring semester, reaching 684 undergraduate and graduate students. In a follow-up survey, the faculty members overwhelmingly agreed the toolkit met stated objectives and utilized appropriate learning techniques. More than half indicated the toolkit allowed them to introduce palliative care content in courses that previously had none.

The pilot continued in the 2019 fall semester with 13 faculty members participating at the three campuses. Once final data are collected, the results will be incorporated into the toolkit and the project will move forward. The institute is reaching out to secure additional funding that would enable faculty to build out the toolkit and scale access to campuses nationally.

National Symposium for Academic Palliative Care Education and Research

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Advancing palliative care education and practice is the aim of the institute’s annual National Symposium for Academic Palliative Care Education Research. It is the only conference of its kind in the United States focused solely on the needs of academic faculty whose work is shaping a new generation of palliative care providers.

The hallmarks of the two-day event are intense networking, collaboration and engagement around innovative and emerging academic palliative care teaching and research. Over the past four years, the event has highlighted hundreds of projects in disciplines ranging from medicine to social work to spiritual care and more.

The symposium draws faculty, clinicians and researchers from leading universities across the country, including CSU campuses San Diego State, CSU San Marcos, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State San Bernardino, Sacramento State, San José State and Sonoma State. Many attendees present their work as part the symposium’s robust schedule of paper sessions, poster sessions, workshops and plenaries.

“It was so energizing to take the project I worked really hard on for my DNP and share it with a group of people who have similar interests in education,” said Kate Murphy, DNP, CRNP, AOCN, ACHPN, of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, who presented a poster at the 2018 symposium. “The conversations with other educators about their experiences had my mind swirling with ideas for future projects and collaborations.”

“Being able to present my poster felt like validation of months of work I put into it,” she added.

The 2020 National Symposium has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic; however, two virtual events will keep a spotlight on palliative care education and research. The events feature Jessica Zitter, M.D., addressing racial disparities in the pandemic (October 8), and Michael Fratkin, M.D., exploring the expansion of telehealth for palliative care (November 5). A virtual poster session will be accessible through the fall. For details, visit www.csupalliativecare.org/symposium.

Supporting New Academic Palliative Care Research

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Building the palliative care evidence base is critical to expanding access to palliative care and ensuring that health care professionals are equipped with the most effective strategies to support people with serious illnesses along with their families.

Since 2016, the Institute has awarded more than $105,000 in seed grants funded by the Gary and Mary West Foundation for academic palliative care research that supports the foundation’s mission of enabling seniors to successfully age in place with access to high-quality health and support services.

The grants, presented over three years at the National Symposium for Academic Palliative Care Education and Research, have funded studies at universities across the country, three CSU faculty-led projects include:

  • A study on “Investigating Communicative Access in Advance Directive Planning for Persons With Aphasia,” conducted by Nidhi Mahendra, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, associate professor, communicative disorders and sciences, Spartan Aphasia Research Clinic, San José State. Dr. Mahendra’s study found that, among other things, persons with aphasia expressed a strong desire to communicate their health care preferences, benefited from game-oriented approaches to advance-care planning and required an average of five to six interventions to complete the advance directive process.
  • Research on “Somatic Movement With Music Protocol Development and Implementation for Seniors in Hospice Care,” led by Wendell Hanna, Ph.D., professor of music education, at San Francisco State. Dr. Hanna’s project was to develop protocols that combine gentle exercises with music to provide physical and mental stress relief for senio​rs in hospice care. Her study found the combined interventions were more effective than music or exercise alone, and they were also successful in relieving the stress of hospice staff, families and trained volunteers.
  • A project on “Increasing Palliative Care Within the Latino Community,” led by Joy Goebel, RN, MN, Ph.D., FPCN, associate professor of nursing at Cal State Long Beach. Dr. Goebel’s study focused on holistic palliative care training for promotores de salud—community health workers who educate families and caregivers on topics such as disease-management strategies, prevention and access to health services. In addition to the seed grant, Dr. Goebel’s project was funded by a grant of nearly $55,000 from the UniHealth Foundation, awarded through the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care. Over a two-year span, promotores trained through the project went on to train more than 1,950 community members in schools, churches and senior centers in the Los Angeles area.

New funders are being sought to underwrite seed grants for the 2021 symposium.