Communication Skills for Conversations About Serious Illness
This learning pathway contains training and tools to help health professionals navigate difficult conversations with patients living with a serious illness.
Communicating serious clinical news to patients and families.
How to discuss patient prognosis in a manner that is sensitive, clear, and supportive.
Strategies for eliciting patient goals and preferences to inform treatment decisions.
Communication techniques for an effective family meeting.
How to initiate and conduct conversations about advance care planning.
Requirements, best practices, documentation requirements, and time thresholds for Advance Care Planning (ACP) services. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2018.
Billing for prolonged services with direct face-to-face contact. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2018.
Phrases to use when talking to members/patients and their families about prognosis, advance care planning, and quality of life.
In this video, Kacey Boyle, RN, MSPC, leads us through an example of a goals of care conversation between a clinician and a patient.
This conversation script provides skills and techniques for conducting goals of care conversations with patients, regardless of the existing clinician-patient relationship.
In this video, Jonathan Fisher, MD, leads us through a mock conversation between a patient whose illness has progressed, and a clinician who explains the benefits of hospice care.
This communication script provides techniques for clinicians to foster meaningful conversations about hospice.
This resource provides practical samples of empathic responses to use in conversations with patients and families, as well as template responses to challenging questions. Developed by VitalTalk.
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