Improvement of the
overall quality of palliative care is possible with the adoption of the proposed
policy and practice guidelines. Thus there is a need for training and education
of the necessary stakeholders to adopt those measures. Some of the proposed
policy and practice guidelines concern specialized palliative care teams that
are associated with reduced costs, autonomous power of patients, and also
families, and respect for dignity in cases of death. Therefore strategies are
needed for training and educating the stakeholders. The stakeholders include
physicians, medical laboratory specialists, anesthesiologists, pharmacists, and
nurses. Hence this paper outlines the design for the training session and the
strategies that have encompassed the challenges that may be faced by the
implementation of the policy and practice guidelines.
Evidence-Based Strategies for Working with the Role Group
Palliative care
aims at slowing down the progression of a disease and the management of its
symptoms. Therefore, specialized palliative care consultation is necessary to
reduce the effects associated with palliative care (Ghosh et al., 2015).
Specialized palliative care consultation means collaboration between various
stakeholders in providing care to the patients. It aims at identifying patients
who need palliative care and providing the goals to accomplish effective
management of their symptoms and minimize the progression of their diseases.
The other strategy is improving the quality of life to patients for patients
admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. This especially involves end-of-life care
for patients (Chiang, Lee & Kao, 2019). This requires the application and
respect of medical ethics such as the principle of autonomy and respect for
human dignity in death. Another strategy involves family caregivers since they
are part and parcel of palliative care. These strategies are effective since
they will help reduce inpatient deaths and costs of palliative care thereby
achieving patient satisfaction. Costs of treatment, decision-making processes,
accessibility of palliative care services, and quality treatment have been
addressed in the strategies. The involvement of family caregivers may result in
immediate success in decision-making processes if implemented well.
Impact of Policy and Practice Guidelines
The proposed policy and practice guidelines have both
positive and negative implications for the various groups of people involved in
palliative care. The specialized palliative care consultation will involve
teams of palliative care that will come up with plans having the needs of
palliative clinicians and the activities to be carried out (Bischoff et al., 2018). The members of the
palliative care team include doctors, nurses, volunteers, and other health care
professionals. These will vary according to the type of patients needing
palliative care. Consequently, for the provision of quality treatment, the
hospital will formulate rules and regulations involving medical ethics and the
proper care for palliative patients. This will be partly achieved by the
involvement of the palliative care teams. Additionally, it will be achieved by
family caregivers who are important in the well-being of patients (Ullrich et al., 2017). However, family
caregivers may be affected emotionally and psychologically by the significant
support they offer to the patients. Therefore the requirements, supportive care,
and integration of family caregivers will be incorporated in the administration
of palliative care. This will be achieved through the continuous engagement of
family caregivers with the palliative care team members. By adopting these
strategies, the hospital staff will have an easier time complying with federal
laws and regulations. Additionally, interprofessional team performance will be
enhanced thereby accomplishing tremendous results. These strategies will also
encourage frequent consultation among team members and reduce the time involved
in planning goals for palliative care patients.
Importance of the Strategies
The mentioned strategies when implemented will help
improve the quality of care and treatment offered to the patients. For
instance, family caregivers help identify symptoms such as emotional torture
thus enabling the symptoms to be managed with immediate effect (Krug et al., 2016). Furthermore, the collaboration
between family caregivers, patients, and palliative care clinicians is
important since it helps note developing challenges. This further propagates
the development of necessary solutions to these challenges thereby enhancing
the quality of life for all the parties involved. Moreover, the strategies
promote interprofessional teamwork thus alleviating the duties of each role
group. This creates a platform for addressing the issues and concerns of each
role group. Furthermore, decision-making processes will be comprehensive, sound,
and effective. The collaboration of various specialists also will help create a
pool of a variety of expertise. Another merit of the implementation of these
strategies is that the skills and knowledge involved in palliative care will
increase and be enhanced by the palliative care clinicians.
Importance of the Role Groups
The various role groups involved include clinical
specialists, doctors, nurses, volunteer groups, and other health care
professionals. These form the integral foundation in the implementation and
success of the proposed policy and practice guidelines. The strategies become
effective and efficient through the collaboration of these groups. Additionally,
the patients together with their family caregivers are also part of the role
groups. Thus communication and palliative care expertise are important in
accomplishing the strategies. Therefore each role group is important in
offering the necessary expertise to improve the quality of life of the
patients. Moreover, the role groups should be supplied with the necessary
resources to realize their duties. The resources may be in terms of finance or
even emotional, physical, and social support. These will help them feel
empowered during the administration of palliative care. The resources can be
provided with the help of hospital management.
Learning Activities and Materials for the Training
Session
The training session should begin immediately. Thus the hospital management should identify health care workers fit for identifying patients in need of palliative care and form several palliative care teams. The teams should contain healthcare workers of varying professions (physicians, surgeons, general practitioners, palliative care consultants, and psychiatrists). The health care professionals together with other palliative care volunteers such as counselors should meet up and come up with a plan of action and formulate rules of conduct for the administration of palliative care. Additionally, family caregivers should also be incorporated into the meeting to discuss the various ways they can chip in to assist. Before the meeting, all the stakeholders should have been acquainted with the federal laws regarding palliative care. Hence the hospital management should appoint trainers to educate the rest on the importance of palliative care consultation, offering quality care to patients, and the importance of family caregivers. The hospital management should also contemplate ways of providing the required resources and ways of overcoming new challenges arising. This will help boost knowledge gained from the training as the experiences and expertise of the stakeholders will be shared among themselves. Adhering to these guidelines of training can make others be educated within two hours within a day chosen for training. In summary, training of the health care workers and other stakeholders is important as it enables the acquisition of new skills and knowledge for implementation of the policy and practice guidelines. Adoption of the strategies will help alleviate the challenges facing palliative care thus improving the quality of life of the patients thus achieving patient-centered palliative care.
References
Bischoff, K., O’Riordan, D. L.,
Marks, A. K., Sudore, R., & Pantilat, S. Z.
(2018). undefined. JAMA Internal Medicine, 178(1),
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Chiang, J., Lee, Y., & Kao, Y.
(2019). Association between palliative care and end-of-life care for patients
with hematological malignancies. Medicine, 98(40),
e17395. https://doi.org/10.1097/md.0000000000017395
Ghosh, A., Dzeng, E., & Cheng, M. J. (2015).
Interaction of palliative care and primary care. Clinics in geriatric medicine, 31(2), 207–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cger.2015.01.001
Krug, K., Miksch, A., Peters-Klimm, F.,
Engeser, P., & Szecsenyi, J. (2016). Correlation between patient
quality of life in palliative care and the burden of their family caregivers: A
prospective observational cohort study. BMC Palliative Care, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-016-0082-y
Ullrich, A., Ascherfeld, L., Marx, G., Bokemeyer, C., Bergelt, C., & Oechsle, K. (2017). Quality of life, psychological burden, needs, and satisfaction during specialized inpatient palliative care in family caregivers of advanced cancer patients. BMC Palliative Care, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-017-0206-z
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