Leadership Skills for Nurses: A Tutorial
Given the rapid growth of palliative care, interdisciplinary leadership has become essential. With the increase of nurses stepping into the role of palliative care program leader, it is important to understand leadership concepts and skills, which can make the difference between surviving and thriving.
Developed with feedback from the CAPC and Hospice and Palliative Nursing Association (HPNA) 2018 nursing leadership focus group, CAPC has curated a collection of continuing education courses and informational resources to provide nurses with building blocks for leading teams, and steering high quality, sustainable programs.
For information about CAPC clinical CE training for nurses, click here.
What’s in the Toolkit
Palliative Care Overview
Integrating foundational principles and quality standards of upstream palliative care for patients living with serious illness.
An introduction to palliative care, how it is delivered, its impact on quality of life, and the growing population of patients who need it.
Defining community-based palliative care: which patients need it, how it is delivered, and how it differs from inpatient palliative care.
Home to the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care, the Coalition was founded by the leading hospice and palliative care organizations to coordinate and collaborate on issues and activities of importance to the interdisciplinary hospice and palliative care field.
Business Concepts
Acquiring a working knowledge of business language, business planning and budgeting, and making the financial case for palliative care.
Building a budget and a business plan for the inpatient program. Includes business planning tools.
Building a budget and a business plan for the community-based program. Includes business planning tools.
Ten principles that form the basis of the palliative care business model. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 2015.
One-page infographic to introduce your organization leaders, referrers, and health plans to the quality, satisfaction, and utilization improvements resulting from palliative care.
This document can help you respond to questions from senior leaders and decision-makers as you work to secure financial support for your palliative care program.
Program Financing
Understanding palliative care program financing and reimbursement for palliative care services.
Defines key terms in payment vocabulary.
These tools can be used to make the case for palliative care investment with organization leaders, health plans, colleagues, and community partners.
Toolkit with billing and coding best practices for palliative care services delivered in the hospital or the community.
Project staffing FTE per discipline based on expected patient volumes. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2015.
Monograph introducing value-based payment and its implications for palliative care.
Customizable workbook for community-based programs to create cost projections and key financial stats.
Qualitative explanation of budgeting and finding opportunities for cost-efficiency.
Resources for palliative care programs working with payers and other financial stakeholders.
Patient Populations
Appreciating and meeting the unique needs of various patient populations appropriate for palliative care.
Toolkit for finding the right patients at the right time to address gaps in care.
Improving operations and training clinical staff to identify, stratify, and meet the needs of patients living with serious illness at the population level.
Guidance on palliative care integration with trauma care. American College of Surgeons.
Teamwork
Incorporating core principles for a healthy, high-functioning interdisciplinary palliative care team.
Monograph on processes that promote team health. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2014.
Learn best practices for building trust, eliciting patient values, and having patient-centered conversations about goals of care.
Learn techniques to help patients and their caregivers plan for the future, both during the early stages of a serious illness and as a disease progresses.
Strategic planning for new or veteran programs, and a framework for identification of barriers to team efficiency and team health.
Guidance for palliative care teams to build collaborative relationships with referrers.
Hire a stable, high-performing team. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2018.
Best practices for onboarding new staff to the palliative care team. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2018.
Ensure strong morale and healthy team functioning. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2018.
Clarify team roles and responsibilities to ensure positive relationships and productivity. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2018.
Best practices in efficient, effective IDT meetings.
Palliative Care Principles and Services
Understanding how palliative care programs work with seriously ill patients and families to relieve suffering and improve quality of life.
Foundational guidance for leaders to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging principles into health care organizations.
The National Consensus Project (NCP) Clinical Practice Guidelines are the national standard for high quality palliative care. National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care, 2018.
Comprehensive manual on hospital-based palliative care program design. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2008.
Essential reference for starting home-based palliative care, including design principles and profiles of sustainable home-based programs.
Conducting a comprehensive pain assessment to guide safe and effective treatment.
Assessing and supporting caregivers of people with serious illness.
Guidance for all clinicians on improving communication and ensuring smooth transitions of care for patients living with serious illness.
Quality
Integrating palliative care impact on quality measures in health care, and how to demonstrate program value through measurement.
Use this toolkit to select program measures that demonstrate value to stakeholders and support quality care delivery. Overcome common measurement obstacles and synthesize program data.
Recommendations for measures and approaches to evaluating palliative care services that enable growth and improvement.
Tools to make the case for palliative care resources and financial partnerships, including the palliative care evidence base and downloadable tools for presenting the case.
Results of a recent convening of experts to define appropriate quality measures for this population.
Monograph introducing value-based payment and its implications for palliative care.
