Project Summary
There is growing scientific consensus that palliative care services improve patient-centered outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and may even prolong life. Unfortunately, the current medical system is unable to meet the growing need and demand for this specialized care. Further development and expansion of the palliative care workforce is urgently needed, and palliative care providers also need additional training on promising practices and core competencies in patient-centered communication and care. Furthermore, a new generation of engaged and empowered patients (e-Patients) is eager to learn more about palliative care, offering a unique window of opportunity to engage patients and providers together to advance a shared vision and agenda for palliative care.
The Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC) will host its 2017 Palliative Care Summit in Sacramento, California on March 13-14, 2017, providing education, training, and dissemination of best practices to advance the movement to expand knowledge of and access to palliative care in California. Long-term objectives of the summit include expanding access to education and training on palliative care, increasing basic palliative care knowledge among providers who care for people with serious advanced illness, and increasing the supply of providers with basic palliative care knowledge. The immediate aims of the summit are that as a result of attending, participants will be able to recognize the evidence base that supports the integration of whole-person care into their practice, research, and educational efforts; identify opportunities to advance palliative care as a movement to increase the delivery of person-centered, high-quality care for all those who are seriously ill; identify key skills that enable clinicians to have effective conversations about advance care planning and palliative care; describe a framework and metrics for palliative care quality improvement; and understand how to integrate advance care planning and palliative care concepts into a variety of community settings and develop patient partnerships to create larger impact, particularly for underserved communities.
CCCC will build upon work that began with the 2016 summit to expand patient engagement in all aspects of the summit, including project planning, implementation, and the wide dissemination of information presented and produced at the summit. Through a competitive process, 15 e-Patients will be selected as e-Patient Scholars and receive scholarships that support their full participation in the summit. The e-Patient Scholars will have opportunities to inform summit content, submit posters, conduct or participate in e-Patient sessions, serve as panelists or speakers, broadly disseminate information from the summit, and participate in an evaluation of the e-Patient experience at the summit. Providers will have numerous opportunities to interact with patients and develop new research, projects, or practices based on patient-informed palliative care questions or priorities.
As a result of this project, attendees will increase knowledge and understanding of innovative programs, best practices, and practical tools for implementing and expanding palliative care or advance care planning within their community or organization. Attendees will also establish useful connections with others that may lead to new partnerships, initiatives, or research projects. Clinician attendees will increase their understanding of the patient experience of advanced illness and palliative care, and e-Patient attendees will develop a better understanding of palliative care and advance care planning and share this information among patient and caregiver networks. Specific deliverables are reflective of the broad engagement strategy and include: posters produced by patients; livestream webcast of select summit sessions; e-Patient posts, tweets, and blog entries; an evaluation report of the e-Patient experience at the summit; and a concluding public webinar that highlights key takeaways from the summit.
Project Resource: Conference Program