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.
Defining palliative care, which patients need it, how it is delivered, and how palliative care differs from hospice.
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.
Program Financing
Understanding palliative care program financing and reimbursement for palliative care services.
Defines key terms in payment vocabulary. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
These downloadable 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.
Toolkit for building a business plan and budget, forming financial partnerships, and operating the program efficiently.
Average costs per team member by discipline, taking into account non-billable time.
Project staffing FTE per discipline based on expected patient volumes. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2015.
Template and example for estimating time per patient visit for a new visit and for follow-up/subsequent visits, including a calculator for generating a weighted average visit time. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
Model your assumptions about costs based on the variables of staff cost, staff time allocation, and patient volume.
Introduction to value-based payment and its implications for palliative care. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2019.
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.
Identifying and addressing the sources of suffering for patients and families living with dementia.
Assessing and addressing sources of suffering for people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and their caregivers.
Interventions to reduce suffering along the disease trajectory for people living with congestive heart failure (CHF), and their families.
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.
Strategies for eliciting patient goals and preferences to inform treatment decisions.
How to initiate and conduct conversations about advance care planning.
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. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2018.
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.
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.
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.
Recommended measures for inpatient and community palliative care programs, and using data to demonstrate value and perform continuous quality 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.
Introduction to value-based payment and its implications for palliative care. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2019.
