Communication and Teamwork

Author(s):  
Eduardo Bruera

Palliative care addresses physical, psychosocial, and spiritual dimensions of patients and their families. The care is focused on the person rather than on the disease. Therefore, the expertise of various health care professionals including physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, social workers, chaplains, pharmacist, physical therapists and others are necessary to manage these patients’ complex needs. For the provision of optimal coordinated care excellent communication is integral part of this interdisciplinary approach. To facilitate such communication routine interdisciplinary clinical case discussion and meetings with essential team members should occur. In this chapter, the need for interdisciplinary teams in palliative care, team composition, communication, and leadership for interdisciplinary teams are outlined.

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHANE SINCLAIR ◽  
SHELLEY RAFFIN ◽  
JOSE PEREIRA ◽  
NANCY GUEBERT

Objective:Although spirituality as it relates to patients is gaining increasing attention, less is known about how health care professionals (HCP) experience spirituality personally or collectively in the workplace. This study explores the collective spirituality of an interdisciplinary palliative care team, by studying how individuals felt about their own spirituality, whether there was a shared sense of a team spirituality, how spirituality related to the care the team provided to patients and whether they felt that they provided spiritual care.Methods:A qualitative autoethnographic approach was used. The study was conducted in a 10-bed Tertiary Palliative Care Unit (TPCU) in a large acute-care referral hospital and cancer center. Interdisciplinary team members of the TPCU were invited to participate in one-to-one interviews and/or focus groups. Five interviews and three focus groups were conducted with a total of 20 participants.Results:Initially participants struggled to define spirituality. Concepts of spirituality relating to integrity, wholeness, meaning, and personal journeying emerged. For many, spirituality is inherently relational. Others acknowledged transcendence as an element of spirituality. Spirituality was described as being wrapped in caring and often manifests in small daily acts of kindness and of love, embedded within routine acts of caring. Palliative care served as a catalyst for team members' own spiritual journeys. For some participants, palliative care represented a spiritual calling. A collective spirituality stemming from common goals, values, and belonging surfaced.Significance of results:This was the first known study that focused specifically on the exploration of a collective spirituality. The culture of palliative care seems to foster spiritual reflection among health care professionals both as individuals and as a whole. While spirituality was difficult to describe, it was a shared experience often tangibly present in the provision of care on all levels.


2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Breiddal

Harsh experience reveals that preparing the interdisciplinary palliative care team members cannot be accomplished by sequestering students in single-discipline training. By combining different ways of knowing and being that are the underlying tenets of interdisciplinary education, we must—by design, curriculum, teaching strategies, and research—reflect the nature and practice of the interdisciplinary palliative care team. This kind of education is an imperative if we are going to meet our own goals to provide physical, emotional, and spiritual care to people at end-of-life. As educators, we must take to heart the responsibility to prepare students with the skills to apply their knowledge within the context of the palliative care setting, as practiced by the interdisciplinary team. This position is supported in the literature, is recommended by Health Canada, and is affirmed by experience in the field.


Author(s):  
Polly Mazanec ◽  
Rebekah Reimer ◽  
Jessica Bullington ◽  
Patrick J. Coyne ◽  
Herman Harris ◽  
...  

This chapter defines the composition and roles of interdisciplinary team members on a palliative care team. The team has the responsibility to deliver patient-centered, family-focused care based on the recommendations from the National Consensus Project Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care. Within this chapter, interdisciplinary team members from an academic medical center discuss their respective roles on the team and describe how these roles supported a patient and family case study. The chapter provides an overview of the four most common models of palliative care delivery: inpatient consult teams, with or without a palliative care unit; ambulatory palliative care teams; community-based palliative care teams; and hospice teams. An introduction to essential considerations in the development of a palliative care team and the important components for maintaining a healthy, functional team are described.


2020 ◽  
pp. bmjspcare-2020-002274
Author(s):  
Eva Harris-Skillman ◽  
Stephen Chapman ◽  
Aoife Lowney ◽  
Mary Miller ◽  
William Flight

ObjectivesOptimal cystic fibrosis (CF) end-of-life care (EOLC) is a challenge. There is little formal guidance about who should deliver this and how CF multi-disciplinary teams should interact with specialist palliative care. We assessed the knowledge, experience and preparedness of both CF and palliative care professionals for CF EOLC.MethodsAn electronic questionnaire was distributed to all members of the Oxford adult CF and palliative care teams.Results35 of a possible 63 members responded (19 CF team; 16 palliative care). Levels of preparedness were low in both groups. Only 11% of CF and 19% of palliative care team members felt fully prepared for EOLC in adult CF. 58% of CF members had no (21%) or minimal (37%) general palliative care training. Similarly, 69% of the palliative care team had no CF-specific training. All respondents desired additional education. CF team members preferred further education in general EOLC while palliative care team members emphasised a need for more CF-specific knowledge.ConclusionsFew members of either the CF or palliative care teams felt fully prepared to deliver CF EOLC and many desired additional educations. They expressed complementary knowledge gaps, which suggests both could benefit from increased collaboration and sharing of specialist knowledge.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Glen Isamu Komatsu

High functioning, resilient teams do not happen by chance. Teams, similar to individuals, need to be educated, nurtured and formed over time, by a consistent vision and process.  With proper team formation, the compassionate care of patients, families and colleagues can be developed, modeled and reinforced. Self-compassion is another focus to help caregivers cope with the stresses of the work and mitigate against burnout. The primary intervention which will be discussed is a regularly scheduled reflection process, e.g. 30 minutes weekly or 90 minutes monthly, with a pediatric hospice team, an inpatient palliative care team and an outpatient palliative care team. The reflection process incorporates mindful meditation, journaling, listening exercises, individual and group reflection to encourage and practice self-awareness, self-reflection, greater emotional intelligence and leadership skills. Specific tools employed include the Search Inside Yourself © Program, books by various authors, selected music, videos and personal journals. Qualitative feedback from team members, patient, family and colleague satisfaction scores has been positive. Buy-in from all team members, initially, was difficult, but over time, all team members have recognized the value of the process and have incorporated the exercises not only in their work, but in their personal lives and other roles/jobs. Other key success factors are organizational support for time for this process and individual champions to develop and lead the reflective process. The workshop will include a demonstration of exercises used in team reflections with learner participation. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 1113-1118
Author(s):  
Nikola Sabev

The palliative care for patients focuses primarily on reducing suffering through all stages of the disease, regardless of its form and stage - acute, chronic (compensated and decompensated) or terminal. The palliative medicine is based on an interdisciplinary approach, including the active work of professionals from different fields - physicians, pharmacists, health care professionals, social workers, pedagogues, psychologists whose efforts are aimed at limiting physical, psycho-emotional and social deficits, accompanying mostly the advanced diseases. The palliative care is an integral part of the general health care and is aimed not only at a specific patient or condition, but also supports people and their families through the different stages of their lives. This implies a wide range of knowledge, skills, beliefs and attitudes to provide adequate and comprehensive care for all, especially in the presence of an advanced stage of illness with a focus on the quality of life, the onset of death and overcoming the grief of the loss of a close person. Many international documents on bioethics address the right to life as a human right and dignity, complementing this conclusion with the right to a dignified death. Thus, the euthanasia as a terminal approach and a means of resolving the problem of ending the life, began to penetrate into modern medicine under the influence of a number of factors - scientific, moral, legal, economic, religious, philosophical and social. This makes it more and more from a matter of death (which is inevitable for all organisms) in a managing of the process of dying and its associated unfavorable events such as fear, sorrow and loneliness. It is possible to offer a help in finalizing the life process, where the role of the patient can vary from very active to absolute passive. From the antiquity to the modern times in the different societies, there are different perceptions and attitudes about the occurrence of the death and its support. The proposed paper examines the main components of the palliative care, their organization, goals, methodologies and outcomes, offering an analysis of the awareness and the attitude of a modern Bulgarian population as well as the existing attitudes about the introduction and legalization of the euthanasia as a method of application in patients with terminal or untreated disease.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANN GOELITZ

Objective: To report on the case of a terminally ill patient who expresses suicidal ideation.Methods: As this case demonstrates, suicidality at end-of-life poses numerous challenges for the palliative care team. In this case, a 49-year-old man with locally extensive head and neck cancer refused all life-prolonging treatment and expressed a desire to hasten his own death. Other issues, such as chemical dependency and lack of social supports, complicated his care.Results: Suicidality lessened as continuity of care, with ongoing assessments and interventions, addressed sources of suffering and built relationships with health care professionals.Significance of results: This case highlights the observation that desire for hastened death fluctuates for patients at end-of-life and may be influenced by factors under the control of the palliative care team.


Author(s):  
Griffin Collins ◽  
Hannah Beaman ◽  
Alvin Ho ◽  
Michelle Hermiston ◽  
Harvey Cohen ◽  
...  

Background Consultation of specialty palliative care remains uncommon in pediatric stem cell transplant (SCT) despite growing evidence that early integration of palliative care improves outcomes in patients with advanced cancers or undergoing SCT. Little is known about how multidisciplinary pediatric SCT teams perceive palliative care and its role in SCT. Procedure We conducted semi-structured interviews of members of a multi-disciplinary SCT team to understand their perceptions of palliative care, how specialty palliative care is integrated into SCT, and to identify barriers to increased integration. Eligible participants included physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, and child life specialists. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Results Four major themes were identified. First, SCT team members held a favorable perception of the palliative care team. Second, participants desired increased palliative care integration in SCT. Third, participants believed that the palliative care team had insufficient resources to care for the large number of SCT patients which led to the SCT team limiting palliative care consultation. And, finally, the lack of a standardized palliative care consultation process prevented greater integration of palliative care in SCT. Conclusions SCT team members held a favorable perception of palliative care and saw a role for greater palliative care integration throughout the SCT course. We identified modifiable barriers to greater palliative care integration. SCT teams who desire greater palliative care integration may adapt and implement an existing model of palliative care integration in order to improve standardization and increase integration of specialty palliative care in SCT.


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